Tom and Dave’s BIG Ride

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(There’re 2 albums here. should be pretty easy to work out… hopefully!!)

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Enjoy!!

We had a little bit of bad news just before leaving La Paz. Ronan, our tall Irish riding bud had come off riding the Death road and cut his knee bad, so he was unable to ride the next leg with us. Paul still wished to ride, and accompanied by Oliver we were still a four man gang. The ride out of La Paz was fairly average until we saw Lake Tititaca. This was a massive milestone for us. Dave, Oliver and myself all had read the cycle novel ´Trail to Tititaca´before our trip, and unsurprisingly their journey culminated on reaching the shores of Tititaca. We were about to do one better and carry on riding! 
We managed to get an amazingly filling pasta dish that evening for 50p from a little road stall, this made us very happy after our ride as we didn´t have to get the stoves out at camp!
The next day was full of stunning views of the lake. We crossed the lake between two headlands at its narrowest point, on vessels what looked like not much more than a wooden rafts…and coaches were crossing on them! After climbing a pretty stunning pass to over 4100m which over looked the lake, and then the pituresque border town of Cococabana. The road down was surrounded by lush green fields and vegetation, a stark contrast from most of Bolivia-Peru felt very close now. After a relaxing night in our lovely 1 pound a night hotel room(!) we prepared to leave Bolivia and head into Peru!
It was hard to imagine as we rode though green lush Peru on the bank of the lake that we were still over 3800m high! We rode for around 100km that day at a hard pace fighting some bad head winds (surprise!) until we found a lovely camp spot. We cimbed a little way off the road up a hill to a grassy ledge with a stunning view. All was perfect until about 5 hours later that night…. I woke up in a feverish state with a very bad stomach. as i was outside trying to rid myself of the badness, I heard a tent zip go and Oliver being violently sick. We really weren´t great company for each other, both being as sick and useless as the other!
The next morning we were both dead, not even stomaching the porridge Dave and Paul made us. The best thing for us was to try and hitch to the nearest town, Puno. We let Dave and Paul go and said we would be fine. However as they left we both lost energy, we nearly crawled to the road! Luckily we got a lift in  a pickup truck to Puno within 15 minutes. Once there we found a hostel, just in time as I literally made it up the stairs and collapsed in bed, which is where i stayed for the best part of 2 days! It was clear i was in no fit state to ride with the guys the next day so I arranged to get a bus to Cuzco when better, and the other began the ride.

So, leaving a very sick Tom in Puno, Paul and I headed off towards Cusco for 4 days’ ride into the wind. Luckily the road was relatively good with only  about 50km of bad pavement. Unluckily, the wind was relentless. Not all that strong like in Tierra del Fuego (thank God!!) but strong enough to hinder us a fair bit. Nevertheless we made good progress given the high altitude (around 3900m). On looking at the altitude profiles given by some kind Swiss cyclists we saw that we{d have to cross a 4338m pass on the 2nd day. We were really dreading that!

Day 1 was great, clocking 145km before finding  a little hostel in the town of Ayaviri. There we met a French couple cycling on recumbents from Alaska down to Ushuaia and had a good evening chatting to them over a huge plate of pasta. All alongthe route countless dogs were chasing us, barking as they went. This has become a normal occurrence for us but up until now we{ve nevber really retaliated. On this stretch, however, we fought back, barking at the dogs before they had a chance to bark at us first. It really works for most of them, then the occasiopnal one that retaliates gets threatened with either a boot in the face or water (if we’re feeling a kind!)

The next day saw us ride into yet more headwind, bark at more dogs, then finish up in Sicuani at a hostel for the massive sum of 15 Soles for the both of us. That’s about 3 pounds!! We resed up and prepared for what we thought would be a gruelling climb the next day… Or not! It turned out that the huge pass we’d been dreading was in fact really easy. So easy that we hadto make more effort going down the hill than up! Lucily the descent was interspersed with a few interesting points like stopping in aguas calientes to sit in the thermal baths there (unfortunately we went in the first ones we saw, not realisingthat there was a lovely, clean-looking one just round the corner until afterwards!). Also, we stopped at the top of the pass where Paul became good friends with a Llama. they really do have soft fur. Later on we passed a pre-inca aqueduct which was pretty cool before camping up literally right next to some pre-inca ruins which we wandered around before camping up. It was pretty cool to have the whole place to ourselves andto be camping so close.

The evening was clear and not too cold, so we decided to pitch the tent without the guys… BIG mistake! A few hours into the night we awoke to find ourselves in the cloud of one of the worst lightning storms i{ve ever seen. there was hail too which hit the tent so loud that we could barely hear eachother shouting when we were laying right next to eachother! I went to steady the tent as the wind was practically blowing away but Paul, very wisely, thought that was a bad idea so we just let the storm pass. It was really intense with rainwater flooding past the tent and some even getting in  and the lightning striking around us every few seconds. It also didn’t help that we were camped up in a drainage channel (It was the only flattish ground available) so we got a fair few puddles around the tent.

30km more, luckily in sunshine, saw us arrive in Cusco – a truly beautiful city, and a great change from the smog and dirtiness of La Paz. Here we{d spend a few days relaxing and visit Machu Pichu, but that{s for the next update… Expect that soon.

Anyways, i reckon that{s it for now.  

Hasta luego,

Tom and Dave

Hola,

So, as you may guess from the title we´re now in La Paz, the capital city of Bolivia, and omly a day´s ride from the Peruvian border and the spectacular Lake Titicaca. Time has been flying by for us and since Salta things have been getting better and better. It´s such a shame that Bolivia´s such a small part of our route.

We left Ramon´s to head for San Salvador de Jujuy expecting a rather dull 90km of flat road. After the customary photoshoot outside the Casa de Ciclistas we left into some of the most torrential rain we´ve seen ever! Jose, a spanish cyclist and friend of Ramon, kindly agreed to guide us out of town until the road started climbing. The amount of water was unbelievable! The roads turned to rivers and we were soaked within minutes. Strangely enough, we were absolutely loving this as this was the very first day of proper rain we´d had in 93!!!!

We left Jose at the city limits and began winding our way up gently for a few Kms until we hit the most spectacular forested valley. The road wound through there with some amazing downhill, which we rode way faster than is advisable, and we were both left feeling a little shaky at the end. This road was one of the most beautiful roads we´ve ridden to date. Camped up at Yala, clocking a comfortable but rather wet 115km.

Fom Yala to the Bolivian border the scenery stayed similar for a lot of the way but was awesome nevertheless. We rode up along Ruta 9 (The Quebrada de Humahuaca) until La Quiaca, the town at the Argentine border. It was 3 days´ ride and all the way the landscape was amazing! The hillsides looked as if they had literally been painted. Late in the first day of this stint we were flaggeddown by a car and out came Rafael, another cyclist who had a house in a beautiful little valley in a place named Calete. Rafael invited us to stay at his place for the night which was about 7km off our route down a dirt road. We were a bit apprehensive at first as we went off of the lovely smooth tarmac, but the torture of pushing up through sand and crossing a river was all worth it. We arrived just before dark and were welcomed with mate (an Argentinian kind of herbal tea) and a lovely asado de pollo (barbecued chicken). The asado wasn´t quite Tom´s cup of tea, as you might imagine, so as he was in the shower i went out to harvest some beans from Rafael´s field. Dinner was fantastic and we were really fed well there!! The rest of the evening was spent debating the benefits of recumbent bikes over regular ones, and hearing about how Rafael had developed a pedal powered winch system to cultivate his land in Calete! This guy really was fascinating to talk to! Oh, and there was the small issue of a litle kitten which kept coming in at the most imopportune of moments and trying to climb up onto our heads! 

We ended up staying until late the next afternoon as we were so comfortable and so well looked after at Rafael´s then clocked a rather paltry 40km that evening and camped upout of sight of the road

La Quiaca was the finalplace we´d see in Argentina and it left a great impression on both of us. Throughout the trip we´ve been amazed by the kindness of people like Rafael, Carlos the dustman, Ramon at the Casa de Ciclistas and many others. La Quiaca didn´t disappoint either. WE rolled into town to find a bike shop and came across this old guy in his house working on a bunch of bikes. By this time both of us had rather buckled wheels and some broken spokes. Without hesitation our man took us round the corner and trued all four wheels and replaced the spokes free of charge saying he was happy to do it for two English cyclists! WE were pretty chuffed! We tried to pay him but he was having none of it. What a great guy!

 Crossing the border was an experience in itself. Within a couple of hundred metres  we´d gone from clean, civilised streets to absolute chaos. It was a welcome change. Street sellers were everywhere and it was noticeably cheaper. Excellent. We stayed in a little residencial that night before cracking on to Tupiza where we met up with 4 other cyclists! Both the German/ Swiss couple from the casa de Ciclistas and Paul and Ronan – two Irish guys cycling the same route as us.

Tupiza saw us take an absolutely fantastic tour of the salar de Uyuni and the surrounding area. We drove a 1200km loop through some of the most barren but beautiful places we´ñve seen to date: Deserts that look like they´re from Dali paintings, flamingo-filled lakes, load of llamas and vicuñas and much much more.

From Tupiza we went to Potosi with Ronan and Paul and m et up with Oliver at a nice hostel called the Koala Den. We stayed for a couple of nights and saw the silver mines which once made this city the richest in the world! This place is such a breath of fresh air (not at all literally!!) from the other towns. It hasn´t got that charateristic grid street pattern, and the buildings have so much more character. There´re also a lot of remnants of the spanish colonial influence that gave the city its wealth.  On our day off we visited the mines. I had no idea how bad working conditions could be before seing this! The air was thick with dust and itwas so dangerous climbing down tiny mineshafts with only a weak headtorch for light. Some of the miners here were only 14 years old, too!

The road from Potosi to Oryro was pretty epic. Climbing to 4314m it was the highest we´d been. we´ve now mastered the art of truck surfing up those never-ending hills. It was quite a sight. Some big truck would be crawling up a hill at a snail´s pace then the four of us would part to either side of the road, start to sprint, then all of a sudden veer  in and grab on for  the rest of the ascent. We were like a pack of hungry wolves!! The drivers didn´t seem to mind, though.

The hills ended in Challapata; a quiet and rather dirty town a day´s ride from Oruro wher we´d see Bolivia´s most famous carnival. the road turned flat and the four of us rode hard in a peloton (drafting to reduce wind resistance) for the 122km to the grubbiest city we´ve seen to date! The carnival started the next day but there was already a feeling of anticipation in the air. If we thought Villazon, at the Bolivian border, was packed with street sellers, we were mistaken! This place was rammed, and when the carnival started the next morning it was even busier! It was a truly fantastic experience though and we were out enjoying the dancing and festivities until around 4.30am. Early i the morning we met a few rather inebriated Bolivian girls who got us into the VIP area and that was where we stayed for the final hours of the carnival. that was also wher we were set upon by 3 other girls who decided we should be their boyfriends. Unfortunatly, however, i was the only one that was single so got landed with a rather strange Bolivian girlfriend for the night.

After a heavy night at crarnival, the next day was spènt resting for Tom and feeling VERY ill for me. I´d come down with some bug, again, that meant i could barely get out of bed for 24 hours! Bang went my  ride to La Paz …

Here comes Tom´s part…

With Dave still feeling ill after carnival we decided the best thing would be for him to bus to La Paz and for me to cycle on with Paul and Ronan. The ride itself was the least exciting so far in Bolivia as we crossed the famous altiplano, which turned out not to be as flat as the name would suggest! We had two interesting campsites. The first night was behind the remains of a mud brick house. The second was behind a 24 hour petrol station where we had to endure two barking dogs and the owners bad taste in music all night!!
The thought of civilisation (and a bed and shower) keep us going for La Paz, and the sight as we entered was fantastic. A 600m deep crater literally full of buildings, and as we entered from the top we would descend until we hit the center. There we found the Wild Rover hostel, and a little taste of home!
 
Inside the hostel we were greeted by English speaking staff, guests, English(ish) food, a bar and worse (or best) of all a tab! The Irish guys and me didn´t waste time and proceeded to order two meals! Dave turned up not much later with bags of shopping from the market including his prized hippy trousers (until everyone else started wearing them!). The following few days in La Paz were just good to relax, eat and drink with some good company, again we met Oliver and a few others we had met previously. However, we are just about to leave La Paz, and are looking forward to the road and maybe spending a little less! A few hours and we should approach Lago Tititaca, the highest navigable lake in the world, then in a couple of days we will be crossing over into Peru and our fourth country!
 
Until Then Aidos!
 
Tom and Dave

Hi all,
 
We hope you´re all well and enjoying the snow in good old England! thanks for your emails back and comments on the website too. It´s always good to hear your comments on the mailouts. Well… It´s been a tough few weeks since the last update in Mendoza, so here goes!

Mendoza was a nice rest for us. We did the now routine eat, sleep, repeat to start with! We were fortunate to find hostel Life House, which had a courtyard with an pool which was nearly essential in the heat! It was nice to meet some other English speaking travellers too. Firstly we met Ian the Canadian, then we heard a familiar and disticntive accent, Danielle and Emma from neighboring Essex. We all went out for a meal that night to a nice pasta restaurant (lots more upmarket than the budget affair we usually hunt out!) The highlight of the night was after Dave and myself, the greedy creatures we are, were eyeing up a basket of bread on the table next to us, the girls thought nothing of saving it from going to waste and stealing it for us. We definitely seem to attract lots of what I´m going to coin as ’sympathy feeding’! We Organised a trek/asbseil/climbing day in the local mountains the next day. The highlight was the particually challenging 20m(60ft) rock face we were climbing. Very tiring but very enjoyable.

Unfortunately the day we left Mendoza Dave was hit with a sickness bug, that turned out to be just the tip of the iceberg, as within two days i followed suit. If only we knew what the next few weeks were to be like…
What you may or may not need know is that toilet talk became a very prominent theme in much of our conversations. We found it very important to compare notes on our current situation. The bug we had really did sap all our energy and morale, however it did rouse some good entertainment! My personal comedy highlight came after waiting at the road side for Dave to finish his business in a tunnel. Watching him waddle out a broken man I questioned ”No good?”,as sensitively as I could. Dave just looked down at his now slightly less clean shoes and just shook his head. No words were needed.
 
Right, moving on much more swiftly than our bowels, we needed to rest ourselves. Riding in this heat, both ill, was dangerous and stupid. We managed to hitch to La Rioja with two chaps in a delivery van. George and Christian, two pharmaceutical delivery men from Buenos Aires, were extremely kind and tried to make us as comfy as possible. They even rearranged the boxes in the back so Dave could lie in there and get some sleep. They tried speaking English with us too and were very interested in our trip. We were very tired, and despite their offer of trying to find us a cheap hostel, we settled for the hotel they were going to. The room had air conditioning, which was bliss in our state and with 40c temperatures!
 
After 3 days rest we thought we were ready for the road again. The heat was incredible on the road. We stopped at Chumbicha and were literally pouring sweat! We found a municipal swimming pool which allowed us to camp there. The pool water was green however, so we were reluctant to swim. This was a shame as in the shade Dave´s thermometer read 47c which is utterly intolerable to rest in! We had a very fast ride to Catamarca covering just under 70kms in two hours without a break. Unfortunately that morning we had to eat cold porridge and water as the fuel had ran out. This seemed to upset my gut gremlin greatly and caused him to complain. I was feeling very ill again by the time we got to Catamarca and Dave wasn´t far behind…
 
So, from Catamarca we were feeling slightly worse for wear after a nice Roquefort cheese pizza (probably not the best idea given the recent activity of the gut gremlins!) WE managed about 15km before Tom was feeling pretty bad and we luckily stumbled upon a very reasonably priced campsite where we camped up, showered and slept for the princely sum of about 80p! Best of all, there were toilets!!!
 
From the campsite at El Portezuelo we made for Concepcion: about 100km ride. the conditions were good so we pushed on as best we could inbetween breaks for Tom to stop feeling sick. It really was a tough days ride and by the time we reached Concepcion, and a little hotel with air conditioning (WOW!), we were absolutely shattered. Straight away we headed to the doctor where we were prescribed some medicine to finally banish this awful gut gremlin from our systems. We left with a spring in our step, knowing that in a few days we´d be right as rain… Or so we thought! On the 3rd day i started to feel bad again so went back to another doctor, telling him what was wrong and showing him the pills i´d been prescribed. He looked at them, looked at me, then let out a disapproving grunt, telling me that these drugs were absolutely useless for my ailments and they never should´ve been prescribed in the first place!!! Excellent! Thankfully this guy did know what he was doing and over the next few days, and with the help`of some more antibiotics we were both ready to hit the road.
 
So, feeling good and craving some good riding we hit the road for an epic 1650m climb to Tafi del Valle, a little town up in the mountains. The first 30km were flat, then  we slowly began winding up through green countryside until, all of a sudden, we found ourselves in temperate rainforest. Trees draped in Lianas leaned over the road providing some much needed shade and the lush vegetation was just what we needed to get us back into riding. A few Kms into the climb, which turned out to be around 40km in length, we saw a river and jumped in fully clothed as a few bemused tourists watched before having a snack and being given some sandwiches by some passing motorists. Still the generosity of the Argentinian people never ceases to amaze us!
 
The rest of the climb was absolutely stunning, winding up and up through the forest until we emerged into lush green hills, reminiscent of the English Lake District, and to Tafi del Valle. This place really is as beautiful as the guidebooks say. The rolling hills and beautiful rainforest were such an amazing contrast to the last few weeks of dry barren wilderness! 
 
1000m more climbing took us to El Infernillo. This little hilltop hut doesn´t really live up to it´s name. The translation comes out as something like “Little Hell” but actually it was just a couple of artesan stalls, a few token Llamas and a sign saying we were at the rather impressive altitude of 3042m. That doesn´t sound like hell at all! From there it was almost all down to Amaicha where we camped up again before heading to Cafayate and some of the nicest wine we´ve tasted to date. The roads were lined with vineyards, vines heavy with thousands of lovely grapes which made our mouths water for the last few km.
 
Cafayate itself was a nice little town, but nothing compared to the road leading out of it towards Salta. The Quebrada de Cafayate winds 82km through some of the most stunning formations of terracotta-red rock you´ve seen. It really was amazing! Even the headwind was made bearable by the scenery.
 
One more day´s ride saw us in Salta knocking at the door of no 1414, Calle Vincente Lopez. This lovely place is the house of Ramon, a really kind, bike-mad guy who has opened his house up to any passing cyclists. We´re just 2 of over 300 cyclists that have been treated to the hospitality of this really kind family and their menagerie of crazy dogs and countless cats. We´ve been here for 2 days now and have been fed well and all of our bike-related issues have been sorted, including having a new custom-made rack built! Excellent!
 
And that brings us up to the present… Over the next few days we´ll be climbing back up to over 3700m at Tres Cruces then  up again to Potosi at 4060m. It´s sure to be a tough ride but from what we´ve heard the scenery will just get better and better!
 
So that´s about it from us for this update. Keep a lookout for the mext one winging its way to you all from the heights of the Bolivian Altiplano!

Hi all,

Well… if you´d been getting worried that you hadn´t had any emails for a while, you can stop now. This one will be a bit of a monster. The past 2 weeks have been pretty epic, with both ups and downs (not just on the road!) and some pretty awesome riding. Our route took us principally along Ruta 40: a very famous route spanning almost the entire length of the country. It´s renowned for its inhospitable conditions - desert, mountains and in some places pampas as far as the eye can see. It certainly wasn´t a choice we took lightly, but at least it´d start to prepare us for the riding pretty much up until Peru.
 
So… here goes. Leaving Bariloche was pretty tough for both of us as we´d got pretty attached to Penthouse 1004 and we´d also had some great times. As a result we left pretty late, drawing out our goodbyes to Kristen, Ed, Natalie and Charlie until about 1 o´clock. We´d originally intended to be gone by about 10!!! Not a great start. Then we hit the road, riding into the best tailwind we´d had in ages. 60Km down we saw something exciting… It was Alain, a Swiss cyclist powering along the same way as we were. He was fully laden, just like us, but in addition he had a support vehicle in the form of his wife Jovita´s pick-up! Why carry all that gear, we thought, including the heaviest metal floorstanding pump, when you have a dirty great truck following you along! Anyways, Alain gave me (Dave) a chance to brush up on my French whilst we cranked 80km more to give us a 140km day. What a great start! Alain and Jovita even bought us lunch and some nectarines! Result!
 
The next day, however, didn´t see such favourable riding conditions. We had no wind at all. It´s funny that when you´ve been praying for no wind all the way when you get it the sun´s SO hot that you can´t ride 20 metres without breaking into a sweat! Luckily we had lots of water so we kept pretty hydrated until we reached a very small spring by the road where we drenched ourselves in cold water and found the only shade for 20 or 30 miles around. I think the passing coachloads of tourists were pretty surprised to see two bedraggled cyclists standing by the edge of the road, in the middle of nowhere, throwing mugs of water over eachother! Anyways… That was a bad day, but things were about to get better… After staying overnight in an indigenous Mapuche commune we set off for Zapala, where icy cold drinks and a fruit binging session washed all of the problems of the previous day away.
 
The stretch from Zapala to Chos Malal saw some fantastic scenery and saw the hills rise sharply above us. The first 60km saw us battling against a pretty bad headwind until Las Lajas where we´d intended to stock up on food and make some sandwiches for lunch. However, it was gone 1.30pm meaning that everything and everyone stops for siesta until 5 or 6 o´clock! We seem to be pretty good at turning up at towns just as the siesta has started!! Luckioly we found a little shop and bought biscuits and crisps before having a chat with some very inquisitive kids who wanted to know all about where we´d come from, where we were going and just about everything else too! Eventually we had to leave them in the street as we wanted to clock a few more Kms before camping up. Those next few kilometres culminated in us finding a very strange thing indeed… A river!!!!! Wow!! We both just had to stop and have a wash there. It turned out to be a lot further from the road than it originally appeared but, after a little hike through the desert, we made it to the river. The water was pretty grey and silty, but Tom splashed his way into the deepest part anyways, stripped down to his boxers and started to wash. I did too. Then, a couple of minutes later, i turn around to see some kind of grey/black monster in front of me… I double take, and realise it´s only Tom with a load of mud over himself! “What the hell are you doing?” ”I´m exfoliating” came the reply. Only Tom could think of such a thing as this, but it was really good and i soon joined in. We left the river feeling refreshed and ready to get into our sleeping bags a good deal cleaner than we´d been over the past few days.
 
A pretty awesome sunrise gave us a good start to the next days ride to Chos Malal. The sky really looked as if it was on fire! Alas, the first 40km didn´t turn out to be so amazing as sunrise with pretty much 40km of straight with a slight incline and some headwind for good measure. Excellent!! We climbed and climbed until the scenery began to improve and mountains began to rise around us making for a great 8km descent before riding into Chos Malal.
 
This place was great compared to the last few days of desert! The streets were lined with trees and water was running everywhere! Amazing! We turned up at the Camping Municipal, paying the princely sum of 4 pesos each (about 80p) to pitch up, before heading out to get some dinner. Also at the site were a couple of Swiss cyclists, Mosi and Ruth, who were cycling the same route as us, and a very interesting bunch of motorcyclists who invited us over for an Irish coffee and a bit of banter. It turned out that one of them, Kevin, held the world records for motorbiking both around the world and from Alaska to Ushuaia! He´d done the first in 34 days and the second in just 19 days! Crazy! And we thought we´d been getting sore backsides! Suitably impressed we returned to the tent to get some sleep along with a huge amount of steak that the motorcyclists had left over.
 
8th January-Leaving Chos Malal
 
Our early start wasn´t as early as we hoped, with the stop button being hit instead of the snooze! However we were on the bikes still well before 8am in attempt to avoid the heat. The day started with a huge hill climb out of Chos Malal (we are honestly not making these place names up!) which lasted 18kms and took us over 1500m high which was quiet a mornings workout we agreed! We also had a head wind instead of the prevailing winds in our direction which we hoped for! To ad insult to injury my speedos´s battery had gone flat and I was left guessing my speed and with out the fun of guessing average speed ect to keep me occupied!
 
However the hill had a random and funny prize at the top… an Argentinian guy driving in an old clapped out Fiat Uno waving frantically at us. He slammed on the brakes and came speeding back to us and stopped his car. He came out grinning like a chesire cat offering us a cold bottle of what he was drinking. As it was around 9am and he was driving one assumed that it was a nice cold bottle of fizzy pop. But this is South America and it happened our chum was enjoying some sweet alchopop as his beverage of preferance whilst driving first thing in the morning, which was immeadiately evident on the first sniff. But nevertheless the spontinaity and randomness of his charitable event left us smiling. 
After 7.15 ours riding and 128 kms we reached Barancas and a small campsite. The same Swiss couple we had previously met were already there after a lift and kindly greeted us with a cold beer in our our of need-perfect!
 
The next town on our destination of any size was Malargue which we reached on the 9th, after some serious heat and very tough rippio on route 40. At the camping municipal we were met by Stephen Sarah, an English guy and his Scottish wife. They had previously done some cycle touring in South America and were now teaching in Santiago. They were an extremely useful font of knowledge as were pestered them about information on the route North and what to expect. They we all to happy to help and even offered us a place to stay if we wished to visit Santiago. They also fed us melon, crisps and wine on our arrival…we must have hunger written across our faces when our eyes light up to the sight of good food after the road! There was a large regional festival just starting in the town with everywhere a hive of activity. We got to witness a cycle race in the town center, we considered joining in, but off course we should be resting so we just had to sit and watch with an ice cream!
 
11th January- THE EPIC 203KM DAY to San Rafael.
 
Ok so this isn´t maybe the most exciting thing to read about, but it was certainly a milestone and a highlight for us breaking 200km in one days riding (we waated to average 80kms a day). The roads were literally the straitest we had ever seen(and thats saying something consiering the pictures of previous roads on the site!)
With a constant head wind we took turns of 10 minute stints in front to give the other person a break and to keep spped up. By early afternoon we stopped in a small lonely petrol garage and rested after 140kms. I then noticed the wind turn to a tail wind. It was to good an oportunity to miss. We ended up chasing a lighting storm over San Rafael and being chased by one by Malargue. We made frighteningly god progress and enjoyed a fantastic decent into San Rafael. Eventually we settled for hotel as all the hostels were full. I sat on my bed and it snapped, so the moral here is you don´t always get what you pay for! San Rafael itself was bigger and busier than maybe we expected, but was also pretty with tree lined roads and nice plazas. It also had a fantastic bike shop Bicipartes where after checking about 1000 other shops actually had front racks…and 2 of them!! After spending nearly a day there and being bombarded with questions from the shop owners riduculously inquistive 6year old daughter, we eventually left the shop (in near darnkess) with shiny new racks and were very grateful for the amout of time they spent on getting them to fit. In near darkness, where we camped on the edge of town.
 
13th January – San Rafael to San Carlos.
 
We climbed very gently out of town in some rather dull pampas surroundings. We stopped about 2.5 hours in and rested under a tree with some food. We then saw a familar figure bobbing towards us. It was the Welsh Rabbit Oliver again…anyone would thing it was a small continent. We rode with him at quiet a silly pace to San Carlos 127kms later. There we found a perfect little campsite with a swimming pool!! It was amazing to jump into the clod water after the heat of the day. We then used their asardo to cook up a big meal. They even had table tennis there for us to use, best of all was we had the place to ourselves!
 
14th Mendoza here we come!!
 
It was a little sad leaving such a nice little place, but with Mendoza jsut over 100km away we were hungry to get there! The start of the ride was beautiful with orchards of fruit and vineyards lining the road. there was a constant tarin of trucks carrying fruit and vegetables past us the whole time, with the air rich of these smells. However, as we neared Mendoza we entered a much more urban lanscape, which was hot, busy and engulfed in fumes! We were happy to make the center and find a nice hostel with a swimming pool. We are now in the process of planning some trek/climb and also a bike wine tour!
 
Well Until next time aidos
 
Tom and Dave
 

Hi all,
 
We hope you´ve all had fantastic holidays, got loads of great pressies and ate much more than you should´ve! we certainly have!
 
Apologies for the lack of updates over xmas and new years. We´ve not been doing a huge amount (apart from eating and resting!) so thought we´d leave it until after we´d ridden to Bariloche for the next update.
 
So… after we arrived at Puerto Montt from Puerto Chacabuco we tried, unsuccessfully, to find new racks. 2 days´searching around and wandering about town was enough for us so we decided to move on. Puerto Montt was a far cry from most of the other towns we´d visited before. It was a lot grubbier and very much a local place where tourists weren´t all that common. Luckily for us, though, that meant that everything was cheaper!
 
A whopping 20km on saw us arrive at Puerto Varas where we´d spend the next 6 days before xmas. This place was quite the opposite from P. Montt with a casino, loads of travellers and some really cool excursions to do. We decided to go canyoning. It really was AMAZING!!!! jumping off of 30ft cliffs into waterfall plunge pools and sliding down rocky chutes smoothed off by the icy cold waters running down from Volcan Calabuco. We also me a few really nice people who we spent xmas with. There were Cat and Bob from the States who very kindly donated us their Argentina map as an xmas present. Thanks!! Then there was Jo who was sooo kind to us. She was an Aussie girl who´d just got back from Rapa Nui. She fed us LOADS of cakes and helped us out with the appalling chilean postal service.
 
Xmas was celebrated on the 24th with 20 others at a big old house owned by the hostel we were at – Hostel Marguoya. Everybody chipped in with making and buying food and it really was a christmas to remember! Tom was loving the veggie lasagne they made in particular. Me, i was all over the MASSIVE leg of ham that was sitting on the table. Yum! After much wine and lots of food the night before we rested on the lake shore for xmas day and spent a bit of time reading. I managed to find a pretty cheesy book about deer. It was kind of biblical in its plot but it was all i could find n the shelf! Tom ended up with a bad american detective book.
 
Boxing day saw us head off for Osorno and the longest day of riding so far. We knew the road would be fast, but 90km in 3 hours was CRAAAAAAAZY!!!! We just couldn´t believe it! Once we reached Osorno (90km) we thought we´d carry on after stopping at a hypermarket (much excitement was had!) for another 50km to Entre Lagos where we cam,ped up before hitting the pass to Bariloche the next day. We were both SO pleased with our day total of 142Km!
 
Then came the hills! To make it even more difficult, the whole morning we were riding through drizzle up in the clouds. The road meandered through some of the densest forest we´d both ever seen. It really was spectacular and made the climb a lot more bearable! We cruised, slowly, up to Chilean customs where i found i´d lost my entry card and had to get a new one written out. Luckily the guards didn´t kick up a fuss. Then it was on to our next camp ground around 900m in altitude. We rode about 12km after the chilean customs looking desperately for water and some flat ground to camp. It´s pretty crazy that we could hardly get any water in a rainforest, but the streams were so far down from the road through dense vegetation that half the time we couldn´t get down. Eventually we found a drainage chute which i got the unfortunate task of scaling to fill up. That was rather scary! A few hundred metres on our fortunes bettered further when we saw an abandoned warehouse where we cooked up and slept.
 
A few hundred metres of climbing on the 28th saw us reach the top of Paso International Cardinal Antonio Semora (1321m), take the obligatory photos, and begin a truly epic descent to Argentine customs some 20km away. The scenery almost instantly turned dry as we rode through the area sheltered from rain by the mountains. The temperature rose and the road wound through some pretty fantastic scenery all the way to Villa Agñostura where we camped alongside the lake. It was a little worrying as all along the road there were sgns saying no camping but we had next to no money so had no choice!! On from there we cycled 70km with a nice tailwind to Bariloche where we had an AWESOME new year!
 
We stayed in Penthouse 1004. If you ever go to Bariloche you MUST stay in this hostel! They´re so nice and the party they laid on for new years was great. 55 people all contributed different dishes from around the world making more food than even Tom could possibly eat! Everybody there was so friendly and there was lots of opportunity to speak some English at last New year´s day was spent on the beach relaxing in blazing hot sunshine and swimming in Lago Nahuel Huapi. Perfect!
 
And that brings us to today. Hopefully we´ll clock over 100km to a little lake we saw on the map. We´re now gonna ride 1250Km to Mendoza through some pretty barren desert on Ruta 40, a very famous road in Argentina. Lots of scorpions, tarantulas, and very surprisingly parrots! We´d better watch out – not for the parrots though. They´re relatively harmless.
 
Anyways, Happy new year!!!
 
Until next time,
 
Tom and Dave

From Chile Chico we got a ferry to Puerto Ibañez. Bleary eyed and still pretty sleepy we rolled down to the port to see Jeff, a Canadian cyclist whose website Tom and I have been following quite a lot. His altitude profiles and route info along the Austral have been pretty good! As it happened Jeff was off to Coihaique too so we stuck together for the 2 day ride. It was 130km (ish) and originally we thought we may do it in 1 day. A nasty headwind put pay to that though, so day 1 saw us do around 80km. The first 40km were pretty tough with a lot of wind and a LOT of climbing. At around Km 40 we reached the top of the highest pass on the Carretera Austral (1100m). The views on the way up were stunning. The mountains looked very dark and brooding. Almost like something from Lord of the Rings! We could seethe weather to our rear was getting worse and rainclouds were hanging low in the valleys a few kilometres away.
 
At the top of the pass we stopped before heading down to have a little rest and leave Jeff behind for a few kilometres. Being a bit of a touring veteran he wasn’t so bothered about pedalling frantically downhill to beat 50mph! Tom and I, on the other hand, are new to this high speed malarkey after the bumpy gravel of the Austral and the high winds of Tierra del Fuego so we steamed off into an epic 10km descent clocking a bittersweet 49mph. So close to that magical 50mph we’ve been yearning to top for ages now! Nevertheless, tyhe descent was amazing!!! We went so fast we had to put extra layers on to stop us from getting really cold.
 
Possibly the strangest experience of the day happened as we were riding past Rio Blanco – a small river nestled in between some massive steep-sided valleys- The road had been predominantly downhill, and we were still riding downhill but the river really did appear to be running UPHILL!!! It took us a while to figure out what the hell we were doing as neither of us could believe what we were seeing. It was crazy! It turned out, however, that we were in fact riding uphill and hadn’t realised it yet! This went on for a couple of kilometres, perplexing us until we turned into the next part of the valley where the river definitely did flow downwarrds!
 
After some more battering from the wind the three of us camped up 40km from Coihaique. That night was the first night we slept under the stars. No tents, just laying on the groundsheet snuggled up in our sleeping bags. But… Guess what happened that night of all nights?! No, A hareem of beautiful women didn{t come to join us in amongst the flowers on the side of the road!! It RAINED!!! Typical! Luckily it didn{t last though and we didn{t have to put the tent up to shield ourselves from the rain.
 
Morning saw more headwind to Coihaique where we stocked up on food, ate to the point of not being able to move, and went online to check the weather.  We also tried to replace our broken pannier racks but with no success leaving us with no option but to take a ferry at Puerto Chacabuco then get racks in Puerto Montt. The latter half of the day was nice, with another 25km being quickly eaten up on nice tarmac winding through the deep valley of Rio Simpson – A river we{d follow for 40 more kilometres until it meets the sea at Puerto Aisen. The scenery was lush. Steep hillsides lined with temperate rainforest so dense you couldn’t see very far inside at all. The verge was lined with thousands of purple and pink flowers that look like foxgloves, and all along the way the river was  meandering past as it neared the fiords of the west coast of Chile. 
 
Camped up at a little campsite with a nice hut and massive fireplace where we slept. The sign said hot showers. Excellent, we thought! Then it turne4d out there was hot wat4er, the reason being that it had all been used up before. So a discount of $1000 was arranged with a cold shower, which didn{t even work! Great!! At least the hut was dry and warm with a light and a roaring fire.
 
And that brings us to today. Unfortunately it rained all the way (40km) until Puerto Aisen then as soon as we got into the internet cafe the sun broke through the clouds!! Still, in 42 days, today has been our first day with any substantial amount of rain. Despite this, and a landfill site half way which gave off a disgusting stench, we loved the ride. the valley sides were shrouded in cloud giving a mystical feeling to the area. As we neared Puerto Aysen the valley began to fan out and there were more and more little estancias (farms) dotted around. We saw a couple of small but spectacular waterfalls, more huge forested clifs making us feel very small indeed, and lots of cows. If only we were in Argentina, we’d probably have had one of them on our (read my) dinner plates by now! 
 
So… from here it{s a ferry crossing to Puerto Montt, where we’ll spend xmas, then head over to San Carlos de Bariloche to meet Oliver for new years eve. Can’t wait.
 
Until the next update,
 
Adios

Hola!
 
Wow what a last few days! There has been some seriously demading yet rewarding riding. The roads leaving Cochrane were terrible, as was the rather large hill climb, especially in the heat. However, things did get easier. We were very hot and tired on the first day out of Cochrane as we skirted alond the very impressive and blue Rio Baker. We stopped at a small lodge/cafe and enjoyed a well earned cold can of Sprite and a sit down over looking this stunning river-it was certainly a challenge to get back on the bike when the soft chairs were so comfy.
 
With the shores of Lago Betrand not to far off we pressed on. We were desparate for a swim after the days ride and the first spot that was acessible we stopped and were both in for a swim, then had the bar of soap out for our much needed wash! we pitched up on the lake side and was treated to another fairly stunning sunset.
 
The next day we had more bumps and hills and both bodies and bikes seemed to be feeling a little worse for them. We reached the edge of Lago Buenos Aires and we thought it may get a little flatter asd the road followed the lake…no they decided to just put the road inland just enogh so it would go up and down all the hills! This hardly mattered when you saw the view, we didn’t know when to bother to stop and take pictures of the views- it always seemd to look more impressive each turn! Along the way we met a ver hippy American couple coming from the other direction on bikes. We chatted about the route and what they had been up to before we found out they had a 5 month old baby in one of their traliers! this was a massive shock considering the conditions (bumps, dust, heat and general lack of anything! But they seemed well expericed and equiped-well at least we hoped so! A little further on we saw on the map the road went right next to the lake, so that was our aim for the night. We curved though an amzing road cut into the rock, and the lake met the road at the bottom. We ended up camping at the side of the road(there was literally no where else) and prepared ourself for and early morning to try and escape the heat.
 
We awoke with the task of the large hill we had camped at the bottom of to tackle. The morning was very tough. 20mile sin we stopped under a bridge and cooked up instant mash (yum!) for lunch, feeling pretty exhuasted! Chile Chico was still a long way off, another day and a half at the pace we were at. However in a fortunate turn of events the road began to smooth out and level out in patches. The tail wind we had suddenly became useful and we were then flying along! With big grins on our faces the miles/kms flew by. Before we knew it we were less than 20km away from Chile Chico and on smooth down hills with a terrific and terrifying tail wind! Dave and I stormed into the town at around 50kph mid afternoon and grinning like Cheshire cats! What an end to that leg of the journey.
 
Ice lollies, probably our new favourite thing, was first on our menu as we entered the supermercado. We then thouroughly enjoyed the treat of eating out and sleeping in a bed that evening too! Its some very small things you take for granted when you have been living rough for 10 days!!
 
Aidos
 
Tom and Dave