Patagonia Baker Lodge to Cochrane (3/2 Tues)

Stats:
- 29 miles (all dirt)
- 2900 feet of climbing
- time...a really long 5 hours!!!

Well, this was the first day I woke up and thought I could sleep for three more hours with no trouble. While the forecast suggested clouds, it was another sunny day on the Carretera. The temperatures were a bit cooler, but not a lot. 

We rolled out and began the "ride along the river into Cochrane". As you know, rolling in the direction of the flow of the river should be good news. Should is the key word in this sentence.  We started off with a lot of rolling ups and downs.  This was where I learned what I had left in my legs for this ride --- nothing; absolutely nothing. It was fatigue that actually hurt. Still, lacking a future looking weather forecast, the only good choice was to ride. 

The Baker River provided a good distraction on some of the climbs as we scouted rapids. In one case, we stopped to "admire" the size and depth of a nearly river wide hole. It was a massive hydraulic. The aqua water was beautiful, but some of the river features where hard to judge from our height well above the river. In one section, the river was canyoned up and our road was cut into the walls. 

At some point, our road turned away from the river. At the point I thought, 'hmm, we have done a lot of climbing through rolling stuff, but the grades haven't been that bad -- nothing like yesterday'. I even thought about making this comment to Arn, but decided that giving it a voice could tempt the road gods into giving me a beating. Well, I got my beating just for having the thought!  We came around a corner to find a steep climb. Around the next corner it continued. And the next corner brought more of the same. I was in my granny gear carefully working my way uphill. I tried to bring my heart rate down a few beats everytime the road gave up a few degrees in the grade. We rode the outside of the corners to find the easiest places to ride. I knew I would find Arn at the top. Around every corner, I hoped to see him. For those of you that have biked with us in CA or Whistler, you will understand my comment to Arn once I found him at the top. I said, "Holy moly, I feel like I just pulled this bike up Windy Hill or up the road to the Flank Trail".  Arn asked, "Did you ride it all?" I answered, "Yep".  He declared this to be the new steepest section of the Carretera.  At least this was confirmation that it wasn't just a pair of dead gringa legs that thought this was suffering. 

Now, you know this downhill was not going to be drawn out and slow and over many many miles. We descended really steep grades and returned to river level. This time it was the Chacabuco River. The water was a light grey color with silt from coming off a glacier. Standing on the bridge over the river, we had a snack of chocolate and cookies. If I never eat another Chips Ahoy style cookie, this will be fine with me. I miss chewy Peperidge Farm style cookies.  You know what is going to happen next. Come on --- tell me I am describing the geography well enough for you to know. We climbed again!  Overall, the grades weren't as steep, but the surface quality went to shit --- loose, sandy, lots of loose rock, and for a while about half of the road had been graded creating a dirt mound about a foot high down the middle of the road. You could: a) ride on the graded side which was a better surface leaving yourself head on with oncoming traffic and with a dirt mound crossing to escape it, OR b) you could ride on the right side of the road, clear of traffic, but in shit ripio. Different strategies were used by different riders at different times. A note about traffic --- there was none!  Given my legs and the climbing, this ride took about 5 hours and we probably saw fewer than 50 cars.

We passed a northbound cyclist from Australia. He seemed only too pleased with the good quality of the ripio and indicated it is much worse south of Cochrane. Now, his butt has only been riding ripio for two weeks, so he did not yet share our feelings about ripio.  It was actually interesting to see the "glow" of a rider so new into the experience. He reminded me of a puppy that was happy with everything. He wasn't a seasoned dog that knows the difference between Alpo and fine table scraps.    

Our day began with scenery looking like the desert. As we climbed, descended and climbed again, the landscaped turned dark green with Lenga trees. The lengas have very small leaves ---smaller than the nail in my pinky finger. Over the last few days, we have seen fewer and fewer wild flowers. Today, there was a few clumps of red and gold leaves on the Lenga trees. I have seen photos of fall colors here and it looks stunning. We just saw clumps of color. They were definitely a reminder than the season is short for riding the Carretera. The best weather is February. Frost has already occured in places. So, Fall is around the corner.   

We rolled into Cochrane and decided to have lunch before finding accomodations. We enjoyed sharing two really good sandwiches --- chicken and smoked salmon. In the restaurant, we talked with a couple that said they passed us on the road.  They were friendly and offered us all kinds of suggestions for what we should before the end of our trip. 

As for the trip, this is the end of the Carretera Austral for us.  The road continues further south to a place called Villa O'Higgins. From there, it takes two ferry crossings and a 7 mile hike a bike section to cross into Argentina and to return to a dirt road. The "hike a bike" is a deep, unrideable trench. In dry weather, it is slightly muddy. In wet weather, the trench is full of water. We have talked with northbound riders about this crossing. They moved gear separate from the bikes and spent all day moving forward the 7 miles with repeated trips.   Oh, and let me not forget to mention the ripio quality. It gets much much worse. And, there are next to no accomodations between Cochrane and Villa O'Higgins and there is 150 mile of soul crushing ripio and wild camping.   Now, my cycling shoes are meant for riding; not hike a bike. And, yes I brought a pair of hiking shoes, but seriously --- does this sound like fun?Last, and definitely NOT least, there is the matter of the ferry schedule. We mapped it out. We would reach Villa O'Higgins and have to spend most of the week waiting for a ferry; hoping it runs. Just because it is scheduled, it doesn't necessarily go. Seriously, two girls crossing from Argentina into Chile told us about a five day wait for a delayed ferry. On the Argentina side of the crossing, there is ONLY wild camping. They waited five nights with a group of cyclists. A farmer had to kill and slaughter a lamb to feed them all. Really, this story is too crazy for me to make it up!!!  And, given what we have seen, the Carretera is for riding and not hanging out and waiting. 

So, this is a very long way around to saying --- today was our last ride on the Carretera Austral.  It is a strange feeling. Everyday has been centered around riding and now we don't have a ride for tomorrow. It feels good to be in Cochrane. We originally didn't think we would come quite this far south. We thought we would have exited a few days ago, but the weather continued to hold and hold for us. 

So, we found a place to stay --- not even "boy clean". Our priority was to figure out "what is next".  I have already explained that a "Further South on the Carretera" plan is out. The next step is to get to Chile Chico. It is a town further around to the east along the huge lake we rode along a couple of days ago.  We could hang out in Cochrane for a bit of rest and then ride this section (after backtracking about 40 miles). This section is described as horrible ripio and we are feeling ripio trashed. Or, we could hop a bus.  We heard from the Australian rider that the buses are full - probably because of the earthquake.  We made it a priority to find Internet access and to learn the bus schedule. 

For the bus, we went to the post office --- a room smaller than our kitchen. They were sorting the mail by hand when we walked in. They actually have 26 mailboxes in Cochrane (letters A thru Z).  When you want your mail, you check the box that matches the first letter of your name. Does this communicate size of where we are??  Anyway, the woman was very helpful and we are lucky. We can get a bus to Chile Chico tomorrow morning and they will take the bikes. We bought our tickets and headed off in search of the Internet. 

As we strolled through town, we watched a great sight come down the street. It was four little boys riding horseback; all on the same horse. Their nonchalance told you his was a regular occurance for them. It was certainly different than my "Big Wheel" that I rode at their age. It made me think of my dad's stories about him and his horse as a kid. 

Our only Internet option was the library --- frozen molasses pours faster than the Internet speed in Cochrane. With a 20 minute limit, it was impossible to assess weather forecasts for all of our options. So, we gave up. We headed back to our hosteria and organized our stuff for a 5 hour bus ride. 

Dinner was not bad. We had nice wine, steaks, and salad. Afterwards, we watched some television coverage of the earthquake with the woman that owns the hosteria. She explained that a young woman in Cochrane went to Santiago for medical care after some fainting spells. She left her family and young children behind. She was killed in the quake. It was not necessary to understand Spanish to understand the devastation experienced and felt by so many Chileans. In one film clip, they showed a house that was a pile of rubble. The family was digging through the remains. The man found his bicycle and dug it out. The handlebars were bent at a 90 degree angle. He collapsed in tears and sobs. It looked like nothing would come out of that rubble intact. 

Calling it a day, we returned to our room and turned on the only working lightbulb. There was a scurry of cockroaches on the floor. I stomped them to death and Arn picked up the remains with toilet paper.  Really, we need to find better places to stay.