Bus from Cochrane to Chile Chico (3/3 Wed)

 
Okay, this blog is going to be different. I am trying to write as it happens today...as best I can. Sorry, I was interupted by the offer of another dry crunchy cookie. However, this was the double chocolate kind and they are better. At least ground up they would make a good cheesecake crust.   Arn just pointed out the spare tire for this trip. It is a can of that stuff you can try to use if your car gets a flat tire. And then he said and this is a direct quote, "I would feel a lot better if each of our bags were tied in; especially the one with all of our money".

We are on a "bus" headed to Chile Chico.  It is NOT a bus, but a minivan type thing. We started with three sets of passengers...an older woman who arrived with her luggage in a plastic garbage bag. She is a local and YES she knew something. The second person is a young guy with a backpack. And, then there is Arn, me, two bikes, and our gear.  Everything was loaded onto a rack on top of the van. The bikes were stacked on top of each other and tied down. Arn washed them yesterday.  Any chance they will still be clean???  Any chance nothing gets damaged??

Hey, get this --- we are listening to our Spanish music and I just heard a song about las cucarachas screaming out of the wall. Wow! Does this ever match our experience last night. I am going to need to hear that one again. "Las cucarachas" are cockroaches.

Once the van headed off, Arn said, "Look back, with all the dust you'll never know if anything fell off".  The driver asked me to open the window. Why?  Well, there is such a gap between the floor and sliding door that a) I can see the ground and b) dust is blowing up through the gap and it looks like the floor is smoking. So, the open window, in theory, sucks it back out. My feet in my sandals are feeling gritty which tells me is it not a failsafe system. It does explain the layer of dust that covered the seats in the van. 

On our walk to meet the bus this morning, we discovered that today was the first day of school. The kids, their families and the school faculty were all outside of the school as we rolled through the central square. They were singing songs together and someone who I guess was the principal talked about the importance of school.

After a short time in the van, I thought about the difference between driving and cycling the Carretera. In the van, it feels all wrong. The size of the place is the size of what I can see from the window. On the bike, the size of the place is measured from horizon line to horizon. It is so much bigger and grander from the bike. In the van, I don't feel the warmth of the sun that I feel when on my bike. I don't know if the horseflies are out. I can't detect the temperture of the breeze. No, this is not a place to be experienced from a car. It is a place to ride.  Again, Arn must have heard my thoughts. He said, "You miss everything about the Carretera from in here. This is a place to ride, not drive".  

Now, the van has stopped again at a supermercado.  The driver indicated there were bathrooms inside.  We went inside. A friend, Dan, requested that we take photos of the supermarkets. Arn went in with the camera and the owners loved it.  This was a great example of the local supermercado. To reach the bathroom, I had to turn sideways to pass by the multiple sides of beef that were hanging on a rack by huge hooks. Unfortunately, I don't think Arn's photo will capture the pools of blood on the floor. 

Our van made several stops picking up and dropping off people and packages along our route. We retraced the ripio we rode yesterday.  As the engine sputtered and grinded, it confirmed that the road was steep. We eventually reached a junction. One way followed the lake around to the west -- where we came from. The other direction headed east to Chile Chico along the south side of the lake. This will be a stretch of road we had only heard about by northbound riders on the Carretera -- the few that actually took this route.    

This side of the lake was sheer cliff walls --- think Big Sur. The exposures were huge and the drops were long. The road was blasted through rock. It had long, twisty climbs. This was followed by steep descents back down to lake level. And then, it repeated. Everything everywhere was rock and it was dry, dry, and drier. It was the desert. Anyone riding this would need to pay attention to water sources. The ripio was butt smacking --- I could feel it in the van. 

I said to Arn, "If this was paved and I had a road bike unloaded, this would be an awesome ride".  With the ripio and unloaded, this looked like two hard days of suffering with crazy wild camping and water hunting. 

After arriving in town, the van unloaded and everything was covered in a layer of sand. We piled stuff on the bikes and headed off to find a place for the night. We found "girl clean" and left our stuff. We needed the Internet to help figure ot where we are going. 

There are a few basic choices --- take a boat across the lake, ride back North to Coyhaique, catch a bus north, make the ferry on the 9th, and head to a place called Chiloé to continue cycling. OR, we load the bikes and ride the 10 miles into Los Antigulos in Argentina, find a bus, and head somewhere to go hiking. OR, we make the same crossing to Argentina and figure out a bus and flight combination to get to Buenes Aires and to Mendoza (wine country).  Again working with connections speeds akin to frozen molasses, we turned to the internet to look at the weather forecast. We figured this would make the decision for us. It didn't.  Mendoza is really really hot. Buenos Aires looks hot, but maybe not miserable. Everywhere else shows signs of a storm rolling through.

We decided to head to Los Antiguos tomorrow. It looks bigger than Chile Chico with more options. And, we are going to look for a bus south --- headed to El Chatén and the hiking at Fitzroy.  We don't know the bus situation until we get to Argentina.  Arn called to book a nice place to stay tomorrow night. They are located 10 miles away, he talked on the phone for 7 minutes and it cost -- get ready -- $7. Now, do I need to tell you what kin of mood this put Arn in???  It is blistering hot, the Internet sucks, he is slowly melting, and now he paid $7 to make a phone call literally just down the road.  

Okay, things are figured out to the extent possible. We went out for dinner. As we reach the only real restaurant in town, a group of 20 Germans walk into the same place. A huge table has been configured for them. We grab a table and figure this is going to a loud, slow, and bad dinner. After 15 minutes with no service and listening to a very large and loud group, Arn declared, "I can't hear myself think in here. I can't do this".  So, we crawled through town trying to find another option.  A local told where we could get something that would pass as dinner. We ate upstairs in an ice cream shop. I will describe  what we ate and then you figure out the title --- think bread like Wonderbread...melt a bland white cheese over the top....chop fresh tomatoes and place generously on cheese...add canned mushrooms and canned black olives...sprinkle oregano. What is it? Pizza!!!  At least the Austral beers were great.

I now believe Arn has hit the food meltdown wall. He simply needs something better to eat. At dinner, I simply needed him to be happier. We returned to our "girl clean" room and it had finally cooled down from the day's heat. We took showers and called it a day.