15-25/12/11 Carretera Austral part 1

Hello everybody!

We hope end year holidays have been good and we wish you all the best for 2012!!!

So after nearly one month without news, (but "No news, good news", of course), let's continue with our travel story.

To refresh the memory, we spent 10 days in El Chalten trekking and relaxing before starting the famous Carretera Austral in Chile. Finally, the 15th of December, in a sunny afternoon, we leave El Chalten to continue our cycling adventure.

Good bye El Chalten! Carretera we are arriving!

The first days of our travel are quite special and very interesting. In fact, in order to reach the Carretera in its southern point we have to cross the boundary between Chile and Argentina in a point where there is no road on the maps, just lakes and walking tracks... the pictures and comments here below will better illustrate this fantastic and elegant part of the trip. 

First, we have 37 km of gravel road (ripio) to get out of the Parque de los Glaciares and reach the Lago del Desierto.

Then, in 45 minutes of boat we cross the above mentioned lake and reach the argentinian customer office.

From here, 6 km of hiking path (till to the countries border) waits for us. No way to do it in only one round (bikes+ luggages) because it is too steep and often too destroyed by the passage of horses. Therefore we leave the bikes at the customer office close to Lago del Desierto and become our own "donkeys"  to carry, in a first round, most of our staffs on our back. 

After 1h30' of trekking we reach the end of the bad trail and geographical border. 

So we leave by foot Argentina....

...and enter in Chile where the car street starts again.

But our effort is not finished! We take the time just to hide the luggages in the chilean wood and we directly come back in Argentina and again  back on the 6 km trail till to the customer office at the Lago del Desierto: the bikes are waiting for us!

The third round is whith the bikes and few remaining luggages.

Luckily we could cycle part of the path, but some parts are definitely not straightforward...

Finally,we have bikes AND luggages at the country border!

Now we can really leave Argentina...

...and definitely enter in Chile!

We load again our bikes and we cycle down to the Lago Bernardo O'Higgins. There is the Chilean customer office and there, in a lovely camping just facing this beautiful lake (one of the deepest of the world), we will stop for the night.

In total, from Argentinian costumer office to the chilean one there are "only" 22km that we did in 9 hours in a really funny  hiking&cycling day.

Tomorrow we will make the last strech to reach the Carretera Austral... 

...which imply crossing the above mentioned lake till to Villa O'Higgins with a 3h ferry travel which makes as well a beautiful tour to the glaciers falling into the lake. The one behind us has a front height up to 60 m and a width of 6 km...

The journey is a bit expensive, but the landscape is amazing and during the travel we can drink a nice whisky with iceberg ice cubes!!!

In Villa O'Higgins we stay in the nice Hostel El Mosco to recover energy before starting the 1200 km of mainly unpaved Carretera Austral till Puerto Mont. There we meet a lot of special people from all over the world with wich we send 2 funny days.

In front of the hostel El Mosco with the international traveller family!!!

The first part of the Carretera is characterized by a very thick mostly evergreen rain forest. Basically we cycle in between two vegetation walls...

Cycling in the patagonian jungle...

Obviously, for having such a luxurious vegetation you need a lot of water...therefore after the southern patagonian wind of the first part of our travel, now we have to face the heavy southern carretera austral rain which "kindly" come with us almost without a pause the first 3 days of the Carretera Austral... 

Hopefully, for the first night, other cyclists have indicated us a nice small refuge where we can spend a "dry" night. As it is close to a river it is a good occasion for Arthur to test his fishing skills!

"

My first Rainbow truit...at least 55cm... 

...which Ilaria cooks with other smaller ones on a salty bed over the fire in the hut...

...for a delicious and romantic dinner at candel light...

Even if rainy this first day is not so hard...

During the next days, even though the rain never stops, we could enjoy the travel by cycling through an amazing and totally wild nature made of forests, lakes, waterfalls, mountains and glaciers.

This is the Carretera in the middle of nowhere!

Wet, but worth!

Who says that Carretera is dry and flat??? 

This rainy days are a good occasion to test if our equipment is really waterproof: jacket and pants are ok but we have a marge of improvement with hands and feet... that why, after this first 3 days rain test, we are equiped with highly technical plastic dish wash gloves and home made gettres. Of course, for Murphy's law, since then it doesn't rain at all...  

Arthur rainy version... On the back it's not a satellitar phone antenna but the home made fishing stick!!!

Very often along the Carretera one have to cross lakes or rivers. Therefore, the chilenean government organizes no-cost small  ferries for the few people living in this remote area of the world.

Very busy ferry....

The third day on the Carretera offer us a variation on a classical rainy weather, today we deserve, as well, a snow tempest!

Snow tempest between rain and sun!!

Fortunately, the Carretera is well know to provide all the 4 season in one day. So after, rain and snow, we can now enjoy 5 minutes of sun and get perfectly dry...

Still frozen by the previous snow, we try to enjoy the sun already a bit scared by the new coming black clouds...

before the next hail storm of the day... 

Impact in 30 seconds....let's put the jacket...quickly....

After 3 days of crazy weather we definitely need a break. Therefore we reach Tortel, a little village 20 km west from the carretera on the border of a fjord. This place is really special: as the ground is permanently wet and the surrounding hills are very steeps and rocky, there are no streetsbut only wooden footbridges and the houses are all built on pillars! Consequently we need to leave our bikes at the beginning of the village and reach the place where we decide to sleep either by foot or...as we are lazy people...by taxi boat!

On the taxi boat in Tortel

We plan to remain in Tortel for Christmas in the cosy Residencial Brisas del Sur where Valeria takes care of us with every mean.

With Valeria our Christmas aunt

In Tortel there is nothing to do apart relaxing and enjoing simple things of life

Walking on the footbridges...

...sailing in Tortel bay...

...preparing homemade "tortellini alla zucca" ...

We propose to Valeria and the other guests to cook an international lunch for Christmas...

Menu of Christmas

Italian pumpkins tortellini

Chilean Asado with french Gratin Dauphinois

French Fondant au Chocolat

Christmas lunch is ready to be served! Are you hungry???

After this wonderful lunch we do a small nap on the beach...

Tortel beach remember Copacabana in Rio the Janeiro...souvenirs of 2 months ago....

...and a lovely walk up to hill above the village to digest and maintain the fit ;-)

 Islands, fjords, river deltas: this is nature around Tortel!

When we come back from our walk nature offers us the best Christmas present we could imagine and the last souvenir of our stay in Tortel: it's time to go! Tomorrow we will start cycling again toward new adventures...

Merry Christmas from Tortel!