First day cycling to Hornopiren was 102km with ~20km of gravel and 1300m of climb. Time to get in rhythm of TDA. Looks like my cell connection works here. More news and photos will wait until next rest day.
Today is mostly a day on two ferries so not much cycling. After that four 100km+ days.
Happy Thanksgiving from Puerto Montt!
I’ve had a few more quiet days here in Puerto Montt taking short bicycle rides around the area to keep up with the virtual “Riding Every Day in November” group but otherwise doing some reading, writing and looking around the area. I now also have two distance milestones – 10,000+ kilometers cycled in South America and 10,000+ miles cycled in Latin America since I left San Diego. However, I will need to wait until Thanksgiving day itself to reach another, 25,000 kilometers cycled on my trip…
On Monday I noticed a large bus at a nearby hotel. TDA cycling group had arrived. The arrival was a day earlier than I expected, but they had skipped a preceding rest day and instead cycled seven long days in a row in favor of a double rest day here in Puerto Montt. I met some of the riders (promptly forgetting half the names :() and yesterday I also joined a group for dinner, but remembering a few more names :). I look forward to traveling with the group from here.
A white board has been posted for the upcoming week and gives a good flavor of what I’ve seen on other TDA rides. In comparison to my cycling so far:
So I expect it to be a faster trip with some more intense days and a fair amount of camping. In return, I no longer carry my own gear and enjoy the company of other cyclists.
I expect to provide much less frequent updates, mostly on rest days – at least assuming the wifi works and isn’t overwhelmed by a large group all trying to access at once. We will go through some more remote areas in Chile and southern Patagonia. If you want to see some other accounts of our trip, here are two possibilities:
Overall, looking forward to this next phase of travels. It should be an adventure.
I’ve had a quiet week here in Puerto Montt. I’ve taken a few smaller rides in the area, done a bunch of reading, some writing of my cycling book and otherwise relaxed in the area. Puerto Montt is an OK town, a bit wetter than Bariloche and I’m glad I spent more time on the drier side of the Andes.
Spotted these cyclists on one of my rides. I’ve actually seen at least three other sets of touring cyclists, though when I don’t have all my touring gear, we no longer stop on both sides of the road as they assume I am a local.
There are several different shipyards further to the west as well as some smaller fishing boats.
Small churches in the countryside.
The big church in middle of town.
Seals.
Pelicans.
Restaurants and other places around town.
TDA group arrives on November 21st and the following day is a rest day. This means our first full day cycling from here starts on Thanksgiving day. Expect to put out an update before then. After that, less clear how frequently I can update because we’ll be camping more and because I expect less wifi or cell service.
An end and a beginning. The photo above is my bicycle in the central plaza in downtown Puerto Montt. After 24,750 kilometers (15379 miles) of distance and 216,974 meters (135 miles) of climbing, I have reached the end of my loaded touring for this trip. In ten days, I start the final phase, 2475 kilometers on a supported ride to Ushuaia. In the meantime, I will probably do some short rides around town and otherwise explore this area.
A short and straightforward ride today. Much of it was on the toll road above.
I could tell that my hotel was filled with Germans and not Argentinos. In addition to the language, the entire breakfast area was filled just a few minutes after the official start.
Once I reached downtown Puerto Montt and left the busy toll roads, I cycled downtown to find the central plaza. I came across this car procession for the upcoming election next weekend.
Apparently mote is a Chilean drink. Will have to try some.
Otherwise, it was a fairly short ride where I found a hotel for a week a short distance from the center of town. Now a chance to see what I find in this area…
Two shorter days, one bright and sunny, the other soggy, have brought me to Puerto Varas. Puerto Varas is small, touristy town just 20+ km north of Puerto Montt.
Day One – Osorno to Puerto Octay
A beautiful ride on a sunny day today.
I knew I had a short ride today so took my time before leaving. Roads were still busy in town of Osorno. On my way outbound, I passed under Ruta 5, a major highway going from Santiago to Puerto Montt. My route was smaller, though still had quite a few trucks particularly at the start.
In the Chilean countryside, I see more of these small churches.
At 20km, I passed a huge Nestle plant. Several of the farms later also had Nestle signs, persumably because they sell milk to the company.
Election day is coming, November 19th I believe, and I see many signs along the way.
Small house with sheep along the way.
Tire shop.
As I got closer to the lake, I saw several large volcanos along the way.
Reached the town of Puerto Octay with a pretty central square including these carvings.
Signs, in English, on several establishments.
There was a great little campground. Initially I was the only one and set up my tent in central spot. After that, walked to town for lunch and to explore further.
Day Two – Puerto Octay to Puerto Varas
Last evening another person came to the campground. Not sure why the owner did this, but he told him to put his tent up in my space as well. Just a few meters from my tent and then got to hear him snore overnight.
These cats were taking advantage of the morning sun. I also waited a bit to make sure my tent was throughly dry before packing off and taking off. Good thing as the first showers came around 9am and then had off and one rain showers during rest of the day.
Another of these country churches, and unfortunately also a solar traffic signal in front.
At 25km, I came to Ruta 5 again, the major divided highway. It wasn’t far to Puerto Montt now, but I’ve read better things about Puerto Varas so made that my destination first.
In some sections there was a small service road that I cycled instead of the shoulder of the highway. The speed limit was 120 km/h but there was a reasonable shoulder and grades were not as steep as the, ~12% grades I found on the smaller road first.
I thought it was interesting to see a billboard whose target audience was Chilean potato farmers.
Not just one billboard, here was another.
and another
and yet another.
I left Ruta 5 and cycled a few kilometres back to the lake and downtown Puerto Varas. There were several fancy hotels downtown but I cycled back around up the hill to find something more reasonable. First two were full but found a third hotel with nice room. Plan to double check the weld on the bike again, just in case, but otherwise, I now have some time before I need to be just 20km away and join TDA on November 21st. Still figuring out how many days to spend in Puerto Varas vs. Puerto Montt.
Two days cycling have brought me to Chile.
I had taken an easy day in Villa La Angostura. Went for a short ride on my day off and encountered a group that seemed to be on a bike race/ride coming the other direction.
Once I got to the turnoff of the road heading to the border I turned back and otherwise had an easy day.
Day One – Villa La Angostura to Lago Puyehue
Next morning I was back on the road. Reached the turnoff sign, this time with a loaded bicycle. It was 15 kilometers to the border station but another 17 kilometers after that to the border.
Overall it was a beautiful area as I slowly climbed past snowcapped peaks.
This was just before the border station.
The border controls were simple. Just prior to the border, I passed a police kiosk on the road. They handed me a paper with room for several stamps. At the border itself, I needed to complete the stamps: first to have my passport checked, second to look at other documents and then back out. A little past the border control was a second police kiosk where I now handed off my stamped paper.
There was still another 17 kilometers to the border itself and 39 kilometers to the Chilean station on other side of the pass. It was a beautiful ride.
One of the volcano peaks near the summit.
The summit area itself, where I took the photo at top of this page.
Elevation 1321 meters. Not as high as further north, but still high enough to have snow everywhere.
After this a good descent down from the pass. I passed through this area where the trees were all dead. I believe this area had a volcanic eruption two years ago or so and assumed the ash along the road and dead trees were related, though the trees might have died from other causes.
Near bottom of the hill I reached the Chilean customs. They also used the method of having an extra paper that contained stamps for each of the steps. I first went to the passport control. My passport was carefully examined and I got a stamp for Chile. Next stop was customs control. I completed the customs declaration and indicated I had with me dairy (cheese) as it was listed along with fruits and vegetables as one item under control. Once the customs official realized I was traveling by bicycle, she called me back and had me provide details of my bicycle so she could write up a document that carefully described the bicycle that I was “importing”. I saved this document away as I expected it could come in handy on exit from Chile. The final stop was outside where inspections were performed.
I now learned what happens when you declare cheese on your customs declaration. They made a quick inspection of rest of my bags, though didn’t open everything (presumably realizing I was honest enough to declare the cheese and not finding anything on the other bags they quickly checked). I was given an option of eating the cheese right then – so ate several bread rolls with cheese. I showed them the empty cheese package and they then stamped my third stamp indicating the inspection was passed.
I cycled to end of the customs station and away. It was mostly downhill from here, though several steep little uphills as well. Overall the day had more than 1400 meters of climbing and only 500 of that was net climb from Villa La Angostura to the top of the summit.
Here was a small church I passed along the way.
This field of tulips was close to a large company that indicated it grew the bulbs.
Once I came close to Lago Puyehue, I came past more tourist vacation areas. Peak season appears to be January and February so many places were still closed. I stopped briefly at a store and then not much later passed a campground where I stayed for the night. There was only one other party camping there that evening: two young women from Boulder, Colorado who were in Chile and Argentina skiing volcanoes. I was impressed that even this late in the season (November), it was still possible to ski.
Day Two – Lago Puyehue to Osorno
It rained overnight. Not hard, but enough that I packed a wet tent. There was also off and on drizzle on my ride today.
Picture of a boat by the lake, taken at the campground.
The little village of Entre Lagos was 9 kilometers away. This restaurant was closed, but thought their sign was amusing.
This bakery was fortunately open. I bought breakfast items here.
Along the way, I passed this interesting looking set of dwellings that seemed to be partially underground.
The road slowly became busier until I reached middle of town of Osorno. This is the central square.
There is a large church on the square.
Apparently the fifth church built in this location.
While Chile is predominantly Catholic, this church had a banner proclaiming the 500th anniversary of the reformation.
Fruits sold on the street corners.
630 Chilean pesos the dollar and prices above are in liters so gasoline is more expensive than in the USA.
Otherwise nice to get to the larger town and walk around the area.