The Carreterra Austral, Chile - Chile
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"The next time your life flashes before your eyes, make sure you have something worth watching"
"Cleanliness is next to Godliness"
A new record! A record that I hope will remain unchallenged for a long time to come. I have just gone 24 days without a shower, comfortably shattering my previous personal best of 21 days! The last few weeks have been a spectacular wilderness experience and the best riding of the journey so far. Being filthy enough to turn heads (and a few stomachs, I imagine) was a small price to pay.
Argentina's Perito Moreno glacier is merely a tiny finger at the distant end of one of the many arms of the enormous 'Hielo Sur' (the largest ice-field outside Antarctica and Greenland). Nevertheless a 60 metre high wall (18 storeys) of contorted blue ice stretching for several kilometers is a fine old sight. Weakened by the warmth of the afternoon sun the wall constantly crumbles. I watched a chunk of ice far bigger than a house topple silently in slow motion then crash into the lake in a thunder of rumbling echoes and huge waves of water.
A disintegrating back wheel is disconcerting on the emptiness of a Patagonian dirt track. Ramon, a portly road worker, saw me fretting and invited me into the workers' camp, philosophizing and counseling that "all you need in life is patience or money". Historically short of both I comforted myself instead on a portion of barbecued lamb (asado) large enough for a Sunday roast dinner for a family of six back home. Two boiled potatoes were the only token nod towards healthy vegetable type stuff.
A combination of cheap African tat and cheap Brazilian tat was perhaps unlikely ever to be a great success and soon my wheel collapsed totally. The first time that I built a wheel I was aided by a shepherd back in a field in Romania. This time I was hunched in my tent in El Chalten amidst a savagely dismembered confusion of spokes, cogs and rim and a steaming thermos of coffee. Outside, the wind screamed and walls of rain smashed against the canvas. Many, many hours later I emerged, triumphantly brandishing my new, surprisingly round, wheel. The sun came out, the spectacular 3500 metre Cerro Fitzroy (Mount Fitzroy) graced me with it's majestic presence over the village and I pedalled on towards Chile.
I had heard rumours of an adventurous, alternative border crossing to Chile. But finding information on the route proved to be virtually impossible. Even the police, after much noisy telephoning and Latin gesticulation, could only advise me that "there is no road and there are only two boats a month: perhaps around the 5th and the 20th" [for anyone wanting the details of the border crossing: see below].
Towards Lago del Desierto the first flames of autumn were alight amongst the green trees overhanging racing turquoise rivers stuffed with rainbow trout. Across the lake lay the Argentinian border and some seriously relaxed formalities. I have crossed into 30 countries now, but this was the first time a customs officer has been toasting his slippered feet beside a wood fire and given me a cup of tea. The Syrians could learn a thing or two from these guys [their cheery welcome, you may recall, was an enormous sign warning 'We are not demanders of War and Terror, but we will defend ourselves against War and Terror']! A guard walked with me to point out the narrow muddy footpath heading into the bushes towards Chile. "Just follow the horse shit," he reassured me, "and you shouldn't get lost!"
The 7km track turned out to be a glorious 5 hour beasting through a forest along paths too narrow, steep and muddy to push the bike. At times I had to shuttle the bags and then the bike. Axle-deep mud, knee-deep cold rivers and scattered rocks and tree roots slowed things down too. Eventually I crested the low pass and saw below me Chile. It was an exhilarating day. The solitary Chilean customs post stamped me into Chile. As I was the only person who passed North in the entire month I suppose that I constituted a stressful day at the office for them. I continued down to the lake shore to set up camp above the jetty in a small cove and wait for the boat. The lake shone in the evening sun and a handful of small icebergs were scattered on the surface. All around were bare rock mountains, dusted in the mornings with snow and topped with permanent thick snow or glacial ice. Apart from the border chaps, where was the next house, road, streetlight, person? I hoped that the boat would arrive sometime...
Two days later the supply boat did arrive and we departed in a cold, dark 5am rainstorm. "Your country is at war," I was told. It has been an odd experience to be so removed from the World over the last few weeks that I did not even know that several of my best friends were now fighting a war. Were I not on this bike ride it could well have been me there too. As a Brit in Patagonia I am perceived here as the personification of the war itself. "You are at war" is said as in 'you' personally rather than 'you', your country. The people of Patagonia, like most of the World, are extremely cynical about Bush's war-mongering motives and they are politely scornful that I (Britain) have followed along with Bush.
On this journey I have found that Britain has a very good image around the World and the people I meet generally perceive Britain to be a 'good place'. But Blair's fawning obedience to Bush has done huge damage to our international reputation. Recently, for the first time (apart from whenever cricket or Eddie the Eagle is mentioned), I have been extremely embarrassed to be British. Despite that, I am 100% supportive of my mates in the Gulf. I know that they are utterly professional and competent and that they will help ensure that at least the British role in the war will be conducted efficiently, justly and capably. The Iraqis that I have met on this trip have all been wonderful, welcoming people and if this war brings about a successful regime change for them then let Bush have his oil and his ego and Blair his patronizing little pat on the back and brief moment in the sun.
The boat, a chugging yellow and blue jolly thing, was crewed by four Chileans with big crooked noses, large ears and sprouts of unruly hair escaping from beneath rakish blue berets. Three hours later we arrived in Villa O'Higgins, a small village of corrugated metal buildings, and the cargo (2 shivering dogs, 3 nonchalant sheep, a bagful of indignant chickens, Rita and me) disembarked. I sat on a bench eating week old bread and watched a woman in her pyjamas and dressing gown chopping wood with an axe. The only other sounds were some clucking chickens and a far-off chainsaw: perhaps someone fed up of being watched by breakfasting bikers as they chopped wood to boil their morning cup of tea.
Villa O'Higgins, despite sounding like a ghastly Irish pub/hotel in Ibiza, is the very Southern-most point of the Carreterra Austral (Southern Highway). One handy advantage of tin-pot governments and crack-pot dictators is that they like to build symbolic roads. The Carreterra Austral (CA) was General Pinochet's little project, a plan to unite the far South of Chile with the rest of the country. Never mind that the far South consists of a mere handful of tiny villages amongst landscapes so wild that the cost of building the road was astronomical, costing several lives as well as fat piles of cash. The road is often little more than a single track dirt road, horribly corrugated and so quiet that I rarely bothered to move from the middle of the road to eat my lunch.
The CA is one of the World's 'Great Roads' for cycling (along with the Karakoram Highway and the Friendship Highway) and I had wanted to ride it for years. I was not disappointed. In fact, the CA proved to be the greatest ride of the entire journey so far. But, whilst empty wilderness makes for perfect riding, it does not hold as much interest for the reader. Suffice to say then that, until further notice, assume a sagging dessert trolley laden with an endless variety of mountains, ancient forests, clear lakes, waterfalls, glaciers, uncannily bright blue rivers, log cabins with a constant thin plume of blue smoke drifting from the chimney and lush green alpine pastures. Iridescent dragonflies and hefty bees enjoy the warmth of late summer. The road runs sometimes alongside bouncing streams in cool, sunless gorges and sometimes soars over passes and along cliffs. There are only two types of cliff in the World - those you can fall off and survive and those you can't. The latter are considerably more alluring and are plentiful along the CA.
The weather was a Curate's Egg for me. Bitter nights with ice in the tent, sharp dawns where cushions of cold cloud sit late in the valleys, blazing sunshine and soaring condors, rainy nights of wet sleeping bags and slow warm sunsets. The road was indecisive too. Soft sand or infuriating rocks, jarring corrugations and even a luxurious 200km stretch of paved road. On many days the smoothest sections were the cattle-grids.
I slept wild each night - beside rivers, on hilltops, once in a quarry (though constant rockfalls through the night were alarming) and once, in an area of absolutely impenetrable bush and giant rhubarb, I slept uninvited on someone's front lawn. Fortunately the owners did not come home that night.
Along the entire CA I never needed to use a tap as crystal clean streams bubbled everywhere. Camping beside rivers was torture though: as my revolting pasta plus stock cube feast boiled on the stove lazy, smug trout would rise for flies barely three metres from my plate. A friend of mine has long promised to sponsor something for my trip. What I need from you now, Ed, is a few fly fishing lessons! One calm evening an armadillo strutted hastily past my tent. Apparently armadillo casserole is very good. However, I did invent one culinary revelation near the mountains of the Cerro Castillo National Park. I have named it 'Pasta Castillo'...
*** PASTA CASTILLO *** (only available on smooth, egg-proof roads)
Serves 1
Ingredients:
300g pasta
1 stock cube
3 eggs
Method:
Boil pasta and stock cube
Crack eggs into pan
Do not stir. Cover until cooked
Serve with bread, preferably fresh, although old and stale is not uncommon in these parts.
�Buen provecho! Enjoy!
After the glorious CA I was left with just a quick 300km dash to Bariloche (miles not smiles) for a good session of eating and that much needed shower!
REQUEST: Do you know anyone in Mendoza or Northern Argentina who may be willing to house me for a night or two on my way north? (On condition of me showering regularly, perhaps)
CROSSING THE BORDER from El Chalten to Villa O'Higgins:
37km easy ride from El Chalten (the last food before VO'H) to Lago del Desierto. Cross lake on thrice daily boat (35 Pesos) or difficult full day walk along shore. Argentinian customs. 7km walk on difficult footpath (5 hours) then difficult 14km cycle to Chilean customs on lake shore. Border open April to Nov only. Boats cross approximately 5th and 20th of month. Cost 10,000 Pesos. (Apparently you can phone the Municipalidad in VO'H for info). VO'H has food etc.
