Punta Arenas to Puerto Natales

The Ride Out

Our first day on the saddle we got off to a latish start heading out of town at around 9:30am. The wind was not so bad and route 9 was a very smooth paved road. Two hours into the journey we met up with a mountain biker called Daniel who started riding with us. We also met up with the Pebble Pedalers, two brothers who had cycled all the way from Alaska.

We decided to take a detour of about 70 km to see Rio Verde. It was a unpaved road but the gravel starting out didn´t seem that bad. As we continued onwards however, this is what the road became like!

After about 3pm however, we started facing stronger and stonger winds and were quickly running out of water. We kept thinking that we would find some lakes or streams which were on the map but never materialised. We were moving at about 6km per hour.

With our bikes weighed down and 50-60km/hr head wind we were exhausted by 9pm. We needed a place to camp and found this small shelter, however there was no water nearby. Luckily a bit further on, Daniel scoped out a sheltered area behind some trees. There was a small pond which we could draw water from with our water filter.We lucked out that Daniel had used a similar water filter and camp stove as we had brand new gear and hadn´t tested it out yet. The pond was surrounded by sheep carcases and as we pumped the water through the filter we hoped that none of us would get sick.


After eating and going to sleep around 11pm, we woke up to get an early start the next day. We weren´t lucky however and the wind got up as early as we did. Many times the wind slowed us to a hault and blew us off our bikes.

We ended up going around the sky ring which was absolutely beautiful but experienced some bad gravel roads. When we got to the Rio Verde Municipal we were down to half a bottle of water and were lucky enough to fill up and continue the journey.

We rode on thinking that we would stop at the town of  Rio Verde for lunch but we passed the 'town' without realising it.  Finally at 8pm we reached the pavement of Route 9 again. It was bliss to get off the gravel and on to pavement.We ended up making a wrong turn and ended up going into an estancia and asking for directions. The gauchos there were very freindly and helped us refill on water and gave us some hot water for coffee.

We finally got into the town of Villa Tehuelches at around 8pm with small drops of rain just starting. We checked into some lodging and were very grateful because those drops turned into a rainstorm. After blissful hot showers we were ready to hit the town restaurant which the gaucho told us about. The restaurant and the two stores in town were closed for the night. We didn't want to disturb the family we were staying with so we decided to chef up some dinner at the bus stop. We found that mixing olive oil with the pasta sauce and adding some of the spices we brought made up for a descent dinner.

We really were not looking forward to the next day`s ride especially as the start was an uphill with the wind already going at 8:30am and rain to keep us company. We finally had a stroke of luck however, when 2 hours in we got our first experience of wind at our backs and started averaging 20km/hr instead of 5 km.

We saw flamingos, emus with babies, llamas and the regular flock of sheep and cows. The cows are the funniest because they just stare at you, maybe because of the Far Side you always expect them to say something, or catch them standing up...

 

The wind stayed at our backs all the way to Morro Chico, then we made a nice left hand turn and got smacked in the face with the strongest winds so far! We were sitting in the only truck stop contemplating how we were going to face the next  40km. We decided that we would try and make it to Rio Rubens and stay there the night.

Along the route we met several cyclists going the other way.. all had smiles on their faces as the wind was at their backs. Several times we considered the sanity of our South to North route.

We stopped to rest in one of the few wind shelters which were a blessing on the road. The wind shelters not only gave us an opportunity to rest but also to communicate as the wind was so strong we couldn't hear each other on the road. We met a gaucho and his son who saw us resting and offered us a place to stay. We thought about it but realised that it was best to keep moving so that we could make it to Puerto Natales the next day.

After what seemed like hours of crawling up hills we finally made it to Rio Rubens Hotel. We were running low on food and the wind made it diffult to camp so we decided to pay the upmarket fee to stay and eat at the restaurant. We had their famous steak sandwich which was awesome with melted cheese. The hotel beds were pretty uncomfortable and the shower was a trickle of water but they made up for it in the hearty breakfast and endless slices of toast.

At the hotel we found out that the reason why there were so few cars on the road was because the Magallanes had blocked the road as a protest to the government´s decision to raise the gas prices by 20% and perhaps privatise the company. It meant that for cyclists this was an amazing experience to be on the road with only the occasional police, or hospital car passing by.

The next day the slight wind was at our backs and the scenery changed from pampas shrubbery to trees. What was wierd was that there were dead trees all over the place but no one had bothered to collect the wood.

In terms of riding, it was the best day we had experienced so far but both of us were shot from the day before. Commuting by bike in London was not exactly the best training for the trip and our knees were screaming!

After a nice lunch in the field.. more spaghetti but this time with vegie soup! Woohoo! we ended up riding towards the blocade on the road. We spotted more and more tourists trying to walk to the Argentinian border town of Rio Turbio.

The blocade let us through with no problems and were very friendly. People had set up small places to eat and were chatting amiably and letting those who were walking and cycling pass through.

We were so happy to get to Puerto Natales. We turned up a couple of streets and stopped at a cafe to look through our book for places to stay.