Biking the Carretera Austral – The Final Stretch

12/27-12/31

Day 22

We arrived in a town called Hornopiren after the ferry around 2 am. We didn’t make it further then the pier. It was lightly raining so we set up our sleeping pads and bags under the roof of a few shops. We woke up around 7am when a woman came to open her coffee shop. She didn’t say anything to us but went about her business of putting out tables and chairs and getting set up for the day. We knew it was time to get up and pack up our things. We gave her some time to get all set up while we packed our things and set our still wet clothes out to dry.  We then sat down and ordered a couple americanos. It was only fair we support her business in thanks for the roof over our head last night. We also ordered a muffin and some seafood empeñadas. Poor Nick only had two shrimps in his shrimp empanada! We drank some coffee while we waited to wake up a bit more and for our clothes to dry, this was the earliest we’d gotten up this whole trip. 

After our americano we stealthily made a second cup of coffee on our own using our stove and instant coffee. We watched the morning ferry come in and absorb the line of cars and all the bicyclists preparing to head down south along the Carretera. It was fun watching the loading process and seeing the ferry depart. Seeing all the bicyclists getting ready to embark on a journey of their own. At this point we were only a few days from the end of ours and most of them were only a few days in. 

We got going a bit past 10 and decided to take an alternative route along the coast. It would be a bit longer but flatter and more pretty then the Carretera Austral route. It was a glorious day, one of the only days without any rain and with constant sun shine. It was amazing, beautiful the entire time. The sun was shining on our face and glistening off the sea. When we first reached the coast we cast our bikes aside and scampered on the rocky shore looking at all the dried up mussels. 

We then rode a little bit longer, stopped at a creaky playground in a ghost town to play on the swings and teeter totter. Then, we took another break near the ocean. We then kept riding and it was so enjoyable, it felt so fun and carefree, just going for a bike ride along the coast. It was interesting, there was almost no development along the coast. There were shabby little towns with miles and miles of nothing between them. There were hardly any houses built right on the ocean. It was so peaceful as there were hardly any cars either. 

At one point Nick spotted something in the ocean and dropped his bike and ran off. I quickly followed wondering what he saw. It was a pod of dolphins, super close to shore. It was incredible, we watched them one by one or in groups jump into the air and swim around so close to the shore.

Not long after that, Nick discovered his tire was flat again. We started the day on asphalt and Nick pumped his tires up but then the road turned to gravel and his tires must have been overinflated. He decided he didn’t want to fix it but just keep pumping it up for the day as it was a slow leak. We went a bit further then stopped at a beach and went for a swim!

We stopped at a little mom and pop fish restaurant that only served fish and chips, caught from right in front of the restaurant. It was delicious! However, after we ate we realized that the restaurant didn’t accept cards and we didn’t have enough cash on us. We had gotten so accustomed to everywhere in Chile accepting cards, no matter how far away you were or how tiny the business was. We had gotten soft on making sure we had enough cash. Luckily, after a bit of panicking about what we would do I remembered I still had some American 5 dollar bills that my dad gave me as a birthday present before we left. The American dollar and Chilean Peso are pretty close in equivilancy, with the American dollar being worth a bit more. The woman there said she would take our American dollars and we narrowly avoided a really awkward situation. 

After dinner we biked 20 more glorious kilometers (with Nick stopping every 5/10 to fill up his tire) and set up camp right on the beach outside the next town. Except we didn’t actually set up camp and just cowboy camped back far enough to be safe from high tide. The forecast said it wouldn’t rain but I should’ve know better. In Patagonia it can always rain. It was a beautiful sunset and night but it did start to sprinkle enough to where I wanted to throw our tent on top of us to keep water out. However, this just actually traps more condensation and we woke up a bit moist anyway. 

Day 23

We had another day of sun and took our time enjoying one of the last days of biking. We continued biking along the coast but this time had a steady flow of cars as we were getting closer and closer to bigger towns. With just two days remaining, Nick had no desire or need to fix his tire so he decided he would just stop every 10 km until we finished to pump some more air into it. 

We eventually arrived at a short ferry just in time for it to depart and they closed the gate behind me and set sail immediately after I had boarded. These ferries through Patagonia are breathtaking, and such a normal part of the life there. It’s so cool passing through the sea with the birds flying all around us and seeing the mountainous terrain that envelops the sea. It helps provide a better understanding of why all the ferries are so necessary, building roads would be a logistical and money eating nightmare. 

After a short ferry crossing, we arrived a small port town called La Arena. Home of a hundred empanada restaurants all claiming to be the best in Patagonia. We made a cup of coffee next to the sea and cemetery of boats, then went to sample the local cuisine (empanadas). We went to two different restaurants to spread out our gringo dollar and sample the different styles. We feasted on a variety of seafood empanadas like Loco, Cebolla y Jaiba. We then biked up the steep road leading down to the port and saw even more empanada shops, half the price of the ones we just bought!

It was a slow afternoon as we relished our last kilometers. The cars multiplied and so did the stores and people. There were a lot of hills and climbing as the sun beat down on us. It made me thankful we had such rainy overcast weather the majority of the time. We stopped at a beach for a break and looked out at the sea, and Nick pumped up his tire some more!

We then went to where we wanted to camp but it was a bit too public for comfort. We were gonna try to go closer to the sea where it looked a bit more protected but then a group of three young boys (ages 6-8) struck a conversation with us about how many gears our bikes had and were showing off their own bicycles to us. They mentioned that the tide rises all the way to where we were so if we wanted to camp there to go way back, where it was super public. We said thank you and farewell to the boys and decided to keep biking. There was no known campsites along the road according to my IOverlander App but if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my travels, it’s you can always find somewhere to sleep. 

We continued along the road, taking the side road and getting off the main carretera to avoid some of the traffic. We needed to drop the bikes off in Puerto Varas, a bit north of the end (well actually the start, but our end) of the Carretera Austral, Kilometer 0. From a quick search on google maps it didn’t seem there was a big sign or anything of kilometer 0, just a small sign in the middle of a busy highway. We decided we didn’t need to touch or see the kilometer 0 sign and that we could take a side road the would take us directly to Puerto Varas and avoid the headache of the crowded, busy city of Puerto Montt. 

We went down this road for a couple kilometers when we found a spot between the river and the road. It was nice and flat and there were a few trees and bushes providing some protection from the road. There were a group of fishermen in the river so we just set our things down and ate dinner, hoping they would leave and we could set up our stuff. 

We ate dinner, did everything else we could do and the sun was beginning to set and all I wanted was to go to sleep but the fishermen were still there. We just decided to try to set up our tent despite the ground being very hard and us needing to drive stakes into it. I figured I’d rather have them leave and have to walk right by our tent then to have them leave and we just be laying out there on the ground in the open. It felt less awkward that way when we could hide from their judging gaze. We successfully got the tent set up and ready for bed. Later, we heard them all walk by but we had no problems. It was a descent site but pretty loud as it was directly next to the road. 

Day 24

The last day of the bike ride! We had a slow morning, sipping our coffee by the river. We stopped at a store and they filled our water bottles and I bought an empanada from them as a thank you. We were then greeted by the toughest & steepest  climb of the trip so far! We either missed our turn or it didn’t actually exist and we ended up taking a longer gravel detour filled with man eating farm dogs that would bark and give chase to us. I was able to out run them all but Nicks method was to stop and pick up rocks to throw at them. After narrowly avoiding a set of vicious dogs, I looked back and Nick was gathering ammo as they gave up on me and were getting ready to attack him. I picked up some ammo of my own and went back to help him fend off the beasts. Luckily, we had no serious encounters just some scares, most of the dogs stopped after a rock or two was thrown in their direction. I also noticed from watching Nick that dogs just like the chase, when he would stop biking and pick up rocks they became a lot less interested. I’d also like to note we weren’t chucking rocks at the dogs, just in their direction, which seemed to work pretty good. 

The road turned back to asphalt and stayed pretty flat all the way until Lago Llanquilhue, the giant lake that surrounds Puerto Varas. We wanted to take a break at the beach before going into town so we took a very steep descent down the road to what we thought would be a nice beach. We did ignore the private beach sign hoping we could sneak in. Unfortunately, we weren’t very sneaky so we quickly got asked to leave. 

We biked back up the steep incline and just decided to go all the way into Puerto Varas. We still had a couple days with the bikes so we would keep them for another night and bring them back in the morning. There was a nice bike path that led us into town. The town was lined with a nice beach overlooking the vast lake with a giant volcano popping out in the back. 

I told Nick it was my tradition to finish a bike trip by celebrating with ice cream- as that’s what I did on my one other bike trip. So we rode across town to one of TripAdvisor’s number one spot for ice cream and got some delicious but perhaps overpriced ice creams. 

We then looked for a hostel to spend the night at. After too long of a time we picked one and went there but they didn’t have what we were looking for. We ended up going next store to another hostel and it was perfect. We ran into a guy from San Diego there, Dalton, and were talking to him a bit and I mentioned the PCT. That’s so funny he says, I met a girl at a highline gathering in Oregon that looks just like you and also did the PCT. The highlining world is small and I didn’t know of any others who did the PCT that year, and I was also at a highline gathering in Oregon before coming to South America. So we quickly connected the dots and realized we had met at the Smiths Rock gathering in September! Dalton had cut his hair and shaved his beard so he looked completely different to me but I remember meeting him and talking to him. We helped carry gear up to the same part if the festival. What a small world! He was in Chile to do some climbing and later I learned that he ended up biking part of the Carretera Austral as well!!

We celebrated that evening by making a good dinner and buying a bottle of wine. The wine is so cheap in Chile it’s amazing. We bought a $30 bottle of wine for my birthday in Peru and got that same bottle for $5 in Chile. 

The next day we hung out and relaxed until it was time to take our night bus to Santiago, Chile. We then woke up in Santiago and spent the day seeing Avatar 3 in IMAX and exploring a couple parts of the large Santiago before going to the airport and celebrating New Years Eve with a flight to Colombia!

And that’s a wrap on the 750 mile bike ride through Patagonia along the Carretera Austral! Thanks for following along, I hope to be posting more South America adventures in the weeks and months that come so stay tuned 🙂