El Chaltén to Villa O´Higgins - A hiking path with a bike..

After a day of rest in El Chaltén, we left only around noon, as we still had some things to do in the village and as I had to help Christian, a German cyclist, to repair the zipper of his tent... At the beginning the headwind was quite strong and the street bad, so it wasn't too much fun... But soon we left the big valley and got into a smaller one with lots of trees, so the wind didn't bother us anymore, yippee!!! And we were lucky again, as not only the wind wasn't bad anymore, but also the road suddenly got a lot better, so that we advanced quite fast and could really enjoy the beautiful landscape with all its mountains, rivers, and waterfalls!

On our way to Lago del Desierto

However, once we reached the Lago del Desierto, we were disappointed, as there they told us that the ferry that was scheduled to run that evening would not run (supposedly because of the weather, but we guess that they just didn't want to cross the lake for 2 persons only) and that MAYBE they would take us over the next day before noon or probably the next evening... Welcome to South America, they just do whatever they want!! :-) So as we didn't have a choice, we stayed at the local campground. At least we got a hot shower, and a special one, as it was heated with wood... The following night was pretty stormy, so maybe it wasn't that bad that they didn't take us across the lake the day before... The next morning we woke up in the rain, we packed our stuff, and went to the harbour. Once we got there we waited quite a while as obviously there was no one there from the boat company. The only people we found were two policemen who told us that they will eventually show up... This then happened short before noon and surprisingly they really took us to the other side of the lake. There we got our stamp that we left Argentina and then the fun started... We were told by many cyclists that the path from the Argentinian customs to the actual frontier with Chile was just terrible, so the good thing was that we expected it to be worse than it actually was. But this doesn´t mean it wasn´t bad, we still had had to push our bikes for hours up a sometimes very steep, narrow trench (yeah, it really was sometimes just a trench!)...

A perfect road to cross a pass by bike... ;-)

After a few hours the path got a little better, so that at least we had a bit of space next to the bike in order to push it uphill. However, the path was then interrupted by creeks several times, and we had some pretty interesting creek crossings, be it balancing our bikes over a trunk or having to take off our front bags in order to push the bike through the creek...

Interesting creek crossing #1



Interesting creek crossing #2



But luckily we got lots of great views onto the valley, the Lago del Desierto, and Mount Fitz Roy (this time from the other side, which isn´t as famous as the view from El Chaltén, but it´s not less beautiful!) which compensated us for all the heavy work!



View onto Lago del Desierto from the path we pushed our bikes uphill...



That felt almost comfortable, at least there was space to push the bike... :-)

At the north shore of Laguna Larga we decided to put up our tent, as the site was too beautiful to continue: Surrounded by a forest there was this sandy beach, the laguna, and a beautiful view onto Mount Fitz Roy, and nothing that could remind you of civilization!

Probably the best wild campsite we had so far! :-)

And even though the adventure of pushing our bikes up a hiking trail was pretty interesting, we hoped the rest of our way to Candelario Mancilla (where the boat to Villa O´Higgins leaves) would be a little bit easier. And we weren´t disappointed: the next morning there was only about 1 km of hiking trail to be done, then we reached the frontier where two signs were placed in the middle of nowhere, one welcoming you to Argentina and the other welcoming you to Chile. So we entered Chile and there actually was a path that an off-road vehicle (as for example our bikes! :-)) could pass. There was only one problem with this path: Soon it started to lead downhill very steeply and well, the path was composed of mostly very loose gravel... So I saw myself obliged to learn how to mountain bike, and better sooner than later... :P

My first mountain-biking experience: I had the perfect bike for it... :P

But the view was just great! :-)

My heart missed a beat every once in a while, but eventually we made it to the Chilean customs where miraculously no one was interested in the food we carried with us (usually the Chilean customs inspect everything you bring into their country very exactly...). Once we reached Candelario Mancilla we directly went to the campground as we expected the ferry to leave the day after, but as we saw people at the harbour we went to ask them if there was a boat crossing that day and they told us that there will be one. So after about 3 h waiting at the harbour a boat appeared and actually took us over to Villa O´Higgins, the southern end of the Carretera Austral :-)

Waiting for the boat at Candelario Mancilla

Beautiful untouched wilderness on our way to Villa O´Higgins

On the boat we met Andrej and Brittani, a Slovakian cyclist and an American hitchhiker, with whom we spent the evening and the next day just relaxing and doing whatever had to be done in the village. After a delicious Estofado (a typical Chilean stew) that we cooked together with Andrej we hope to be ready to start our way along the Carretera Austral, where the wind will be replaced by a lot of bad ripio and hilly roads... ;-)

Puerto Natales to El Chaltén - Fighting against the wind...

As we wanted to leave Puerto Natales the 17th of March, we figured that again I had play in my headset... So together with an English cyclist we met in the hostel, we took the whole headset apart to figure out how exactly my system is supposed to work. It took us a long time, but it seems that we finally understood how it's supposed to work and how to fix it, at least it seems to work since then! ;-) When we finally left Puerto Natales, there was only little wind, but for the first time we had tailwind!! :-) On our way to the Argentinian border we made a small detour to visit the Cuevas del Milodón, some pretty impressive caves in the middle of nowhere. 



The impressive Cueva del Milodón

View from the Cueva del Milodón towards the Andes :-)

On the road through the pampa again, but now with
beautiful mountains in the background :-)

After leaving Chile (we couldn't even use the toilet at the customs, as there was no water in the whole town...) we continued our way up the pass to Argentina on ripio... Once we got to Argentina I was already pretty tired, but we tried to reach the intersection to get to the paved Ruta 40 again, as we expected to find an estancia there where we hoped to be allowed to camp... However, our map as well as the GPS were wrong, and we figured that we passed the estancia we were looking for just after entering Argentina... So we cycled back quite a bit to ask there if we could pass the night on their property and we were immediately offered a bed and food!! It's just amazing how hospitable and friendly these people are! The next day we were lucky as there was hardly any wind and therefore managed to make it all the way to El Cerrito, a road worker's place where we were allowed to pass the night in an empty house.

On the way to El Cerrito...

The day after we hoped to cycle our 1000th km and reach El Calafate, however the wind didn't agree. It soon grew so strong that there was no point in continuing to fight the wind anymore and even though the weather was gorgeous we spent almost 3 hours freezing next to the street trying to get a pick-up to take us to El Calafate. We finally were picked up by a guy owning a hostel in El Calafate and well, we therefore stayed at his hostel once we got to El Calafate...
The only reason we made the detour to El Calafate in the first place was to stock up on provisions and to do another very touristy thing: visiting the Perito Moreno glacier...
So on the 20th of March we took a bus to the Los Glaciares National Park, where we first made a boat tour to the south face of the glacier (it's absolutely amazing how big it is!!), and then spent some time walking around the place. We got really lucky, as we could witness how several pieces of ice fell off the glacier, showing you in a very impressive manner that the glacier is constantly moving (this glacier grows up to 2m per day in its middle part!).

The impressive south wall of the Perito Moreno Glacier: It´s huge!!

The Perito Moreno Glacier from above...

The next day we were ready to bike again, and after being controlled by the police as we left the city we followed the southern shore of Lago Argentino towards the intersection of Ruta 40 and soon reached km 1000! :-) Once on Ruta 40 again, we had slight headwind, but we soon figured that our goal, an abandoned pink house next to the street, should be about 15 km closer than we expected it to be, so that increased our motivation to cycle against the wind. Once we reached the pink house, we were just a amazed by its location! Next to the river, surrounded by lots of trees and with a fire pit we decided to use for cooking that night. Like this we spent an awesome evening at the banks of the river, observing the sunset and later on the stars!

A really luxurious place for cooking dinner, and an incredibly beautiful one as well!

And the sunset was just spectacular! :-)

The next day there was quite a bit of wind again, and this already in the morning... So we started with head/side wind towards Lago Viedma where we stopped at the hotel La Leona for a coffee. Afterwards the street turned so that for a while we had side wind, but soon we had strong headwind again... Once the street left the Lago Viedma we had pretty strong tailwind for about 20 km, so that for once we didn't even have to pedal anymore in order to advance! However, after these 20 km we got to the intersection to El Chaltén and it was immediately clear that there was no point in continuing, as we'd have strong headwind for the next 90 km... So as there was a sign telling us that 2 km ahead there should be a road workers place, we continued, but unfortunately there was nothing. But we knew from other cyclists that there had to be some shelter close to the intersection, so I went back (walking, the wind grew so strong that you couldn't even think of cycling anymore!) to look for it. I found a small shelter and it took us over an hour to push our bikes the about 2 km against the wind to get to the shelter...

Our shelter for the night: the hut protected us from the wind and the tent from the rain... :P

So the only thing left to do was cooking, cleaning some stuff, going to bed early, and hoping for less wind the next day. The next morning it was still pretty windy, but not nearly as bad as the day before and we had a beautiful view onto Mount Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre, and this at sunrise!

Beautiful view on the Argentinian mountains just after sunrise

So we started with quite a bit of headwind, but unfortunately it soon grew stronger and after only about 10 km it was definitely too strong for me, as I was blown off the street every few meters. And as the next estancia we could probably have hidden from the wind was still about 10 km away, we decided to hitchhike again. It didn't take long until we were picked up by an Argentinian couple and so we got to El Chaltén quite early, where we stayed at Flor's casa de ciclista (a casa the ciclista is a house of someone who lets cyclists stay or camp on his/her property for free).
The 24th of March we went hiking once again, this time our goal was to reach the Lago de los Tres, a beautiful Laguna at the foot of Mount Fitz Roy. We hiked together with two French girls we met at Flor's place, and on our way to the top we also passed the beautiful Laguna de Capri from where we had an awesome view onto Mount Fitz Roy! We also had some spectacular views into the valley leading to the Lago del Desierto, which we'll cycle once we leave El Chaltén...



The view of Mount Fitz Roy from the Laguna Capri



Laguna de los Tres:
The closest you can get to Mount Fitz Roy on normal hiking trails...



When we got back in the evening, a lot more cyclists coming from the north arrived, so we had lots of company and it was good to be around so many cyclists for once and to exchange the most important info's! Once up to date we knew what will expect us on our way to the Chilean Carretera Austral and we planned enough time in order to reach the last boat to cross over to the southernmost point of the famous Carretera Austral, Villa O'Higgins. 

Torres del Paine National Park - Hiking the W

For 5 days we switched our mean of transportation: We changed from our bikes to our feet and therefore got even slower... ;-) We wanted to explore the Torres del Paine National Park located about 150 km north of Puerto Natales. Once we got to the park by bus we first took a catamaran to cross the Lake Pehoé and from there hiked about 3.5 hours mostly in the rain to the Refugio Grey, located on the shore of Lake Grey with an amazing view onto the huge Grey Glacier!

View onto the Lake Grey and the Grey Glacier

An iceberg!!! :-)

The next day we hiked the same way back and luckily the weather wasa lot better, so we got a pretty nice view of what we couldn't see the day before! Back at the Lake Pehoé we continued our way to the Campamento Italiano, it was still pretty nice weather, however the wind got really strong so we were glad to get to the campground and put up our tent that will protect us from the wind in the night.

Burned woods...
Fire spreads really fast with the Patagonian wind!

The next morning we hiked up to the Mirador Británico, again in the rain, but we were lucky again and in cleared up just before we got to the top, so we had a pretty good view onto the mountains, the glaciers and the lakes in the valley. We also witnessed a huge avalanche coming down the glacier, that was really impressive! And as it always started raining again with the sun still present, we had the luck that over a very nice valley with a river and the glacier in the background a beautiful rainbow formed! :-) 

The rainbow looked waaaay better in reality!

Beautiful view onto the lakes from the Mirador Francés

Back down at the campground we had to pack our tent and backpacks again and in pouring rain continued to the Refugio Cuernos, where we set up our tent again (and yes, it was still raining...). The next morning we could hardly believe how nice the view actually was at this place, it was awesome weather and the landscape seamed to have changed completely overnight! So we started hiking again in beautiful weather.

It's nice weather for once :-)

Unfortunately my right Achilles tendon seemed to be inflamed quite a bit, as soon I could hardly walk anymore... But we continued and soon reached the Refugio Chileno, from where after a short break we continued to the Campamento Torres, as we decided that we absolutely had to take advantage of the nice weather, as we already learned that it can change immediately. Once we set up our tent we continued hiking uphill towards the Mirador Base de las Torres, the viewpoint where after 4 days of hiking we finally got an amazing view of the famous Torres del Paine!

The Torres in the evening

As the weather forecast was pretty good for the next day (not that you could actually count on it!) we decided to get up really early and try to see the Torres in the sunrise. We were incredibly lucky, as we saw an amazing sunrise and the Torres turned completely orange in the sun, while all the surrounding mountains remained in the shadow.

The Sunrise from the Mirador Base de las Torres

The Torres at sunrise! :-) 

It was definitely worth getting up early!

And just about 30 minutes after this amazing sunrise, the sun vanished behind the clouds and we didn't see anything of the sky anymore for the whole day... So we hiked back to the campround, packed our stuff and hiked out of the park and took the bus back to Puerto Natales, where in the evening we went for a beer with a German guy and a French couple we met in the Park. And After all this hiking we decided to take a day off today to just relax a little bit before we'll continue our way towards El Calafate by bike...

Punta Arenas to Puerto Natales

We crossed the Strait of Magellan the 4th of March by ferry, being really lucky as at first several dolphins accompanied our boat and later on we even caught a glimpse of a whale! :-) Once in Punta Arenas, we were warmly welcomed by Albine, I friend of our mom, and Francisco, her partner. We then spent 3 days in and around Punta Arenas, relaxing a bit, walking around the city center, visiting Fuerte Bulnes, the place the first Chileans settled in Patagonia and where we learned a lot about the history of Chile's Región XII, the famous cementery, and and and...

View over Punta Arenas

In the famous cementery of Punta Arenas

El Ovejero - Homage to all the sheep shepherds in Patagonia

After 3 days we decided to get on our bikes again... But we weren't lucky at all, the day we left was very (yes, really very!) windy! So after only 10 km I gave up, as it was simply impossible to bike. Every 10 to 20 meters I had to get off my bike as I was simply thrown off the road by the wind. And as it was raining and cold as well, I decided that it was time to hitchhike for the first time. Fortunately the people in Patagonia are really nice, so after only a few seconds standing there, the very first pick-up that passed stopped and took us with him for about 40 km until the next crossing. There we heard that it was possible to stay and as there was a Cafeteria as well, we decided to drink a hot chocolate and stay in the warm for a while. We then met a Canadian couple that stopped there as well because of the wind and were invited to share a nice empty house with them for the night.

Cafeteria at the crossing where we hitchhiked to :-)

The next day we got up early again and even though the wind was still strong, we fought our way all the way to Villa Tehuelches, a small village out in the nowhere where we again found a Cafeteria. Enjoying the warm sun outside the cafeteria, we decided to tackle the next 50 km as well that day to get to Morro Chico. As the wind calmed down in the afternoon, we reached Morro Chico pretty soon and I was lucky to have continued, as it was an amazingly nice place just next to a river and with an amazing view onto the Morro Chico (a Morro is Lava left over from a volcano that was stuck in the volcano's chimney and that is more resistant to erosion than the rest of the volcano).

The amazing view over the river at Morro Chico

The Morro Chico

The refuge we were offered to pass the night in Morro Chico...

The next morning we started cycling in the rain (oh yeah, it's completely normal that the weather changes 180° in a night, actually sometimes in only half an hour...) and soon we were completely soaked! Therefore after about 35 km we stopped again at a Hotel located absolutely in the nowhere for another hot chocolate. After this break, the rain became less and less and the landscape started to change as well: From the typical pampas with a bit of grass as the only vegetation, more and more bushes started to appear and eventually even trees until we found us in the woods. Together with the vegetation changes, it also got a lot hillier until we finally reached Puerto Natales. Then we had to go shopping in order to stock up for our planned 5 day hike in the Torres del Paine National Park, as we bought a bus ticket to get to the park the next day early in the morning!

Tierra del Fuego - From Ushuaia to Porvenir

On the 26th of February we definitely left Ushuaia. After just a few kilometers we left the city and were immediately surrounded by absolute wilderness and apart from the road no sign of civilization was left! Soon we reached the first pass to cross and although with about 600 m of elevation it was for sure not the highest one to cross, starting from sea level it took us a while to reach the top. Once up there the scenery was amazing: both the Lago Escondido and the Lago Fagnano spread below us and we could enjoy this view during the first part of the descent. But even though the Lago Fagnano could already be seen from the pass, it took us quite a while to get there. Unfortunately our map wasn't quite correct and the road didn't pass along the shore of the lake, so we decided to put up our tent next to the street on the edge of the woods.

On top of the first pass we crossed :-)

View from the top of the Paso Garibaldi. To reach the lake in the back was the goal of the day!

The next day we met the first bikers coming the other way and therefore got a lot of good hints of where to pass the nights and which excursions are worth the money and which roads should be avoided and and and... After stopping in Tolhuin for lunch and to refill our water we continued northwards and just before twilight reached the Estancia Viamonte, where we were kindly invited to pass the night in an empty house (it was huge and even had 2 beds in it and we could hang up all our cloths to dry!) and we were offered a delicious meal in the evening and breakfast in the morning! We have to say that it's absolutely true that the people here are very kind and helpful!

The empty house we were offered to pass the night at the Estancia Viamonte

On the 28th of February we got to know the infamous Patagonian wind... Even though it wasn't especially strong yet, it is terribly hard to bike against it and if it's coming from the side it's even worse than from the front! Head wind is just terrible as you don't get anywhere anymore (less than 10 kmh are not unusual...), but side wind is terribly dangerous, as the gusts simply throw you across the road and every crossing truck almost makes you fall! Well after about 4 hours on our bikes we managed to get to Rio Grande (just 47 km from the Estancia) and were happy to have a hostel again for a night and a shop to get more food for the coming days...

Fighting against the wind on our way from the Estancia Viamonte to Rio Grande...

In Rio Grande I also visited a bike mechanic again as I was concerned something wasn't alright with my headset. He opened up everything, showed me what parts I have in there and what they are good for and put the whole bike back together! However, the headset of my bike had play and it resulted that one of the screw threads was damaged and had to be re-threaded and a bigger screw was necessary for my bike to be fixed again. The best, however, was that the mechanic was so friendly and liked the idea of foreigner biking through South America so much that he didn't even ask for money! :-) We then tried to continue towards the border with Chile, but before we got out of the city we had to admit that with the terribly strong wind that day there was no point so we ask at the police if we could leave our bikes  there for a while to explore the surroundings until the wind would calm down a bit. However, we didn't hit a police station as we thought we did, but we were at a police academy... Nevertheless, the police officer we asked was extremely friendly and immediately offered us a meal and a bed to rest a few hours. As we wanted to continue later in the afternoon, they told us that they wouldn't go on with this wind but wait till the early morning when the wind is usually less. So we were offered a shower, dinner and a bed for the night and then continued our way towards Chile in the early morning (we got up at 4 am to be ready to leave short before dawn) of the 2nd of March...
We were really lucky that day as there was almost no wind, so we got to the border quite quickly. The landscape wasn't anything special anymore, we were in the middle of the Argentinian pampas where there really is nothing at all, but we saw a lot of foxes and guanacos! Once in Chile the wind started to get stronger again, so we stopped as soon as we got to a little shelter that we used as a wind screen for our tent.

One of the many guanacos (they are part of the family of the lamas)
we met on our way through Tierra del Fuego...

The 3rd of March we got up early again to get to visit a King penguin colony on the western shore of Tierra del Fuego. Even though the owners of the land the colony is located ask for an incredibly high entry, it was absolutely worth it, as there were some baby penguins to be seen and the closest penguins were probably about 15 m from where you were allowed to go... I was absolutely fascinated by these animals, this mixture between fish and bird is just very special to observe in their natural habitat!

The King penguins with their babies we visited on Tierra del Fuego :-)

I absolutely fell in love with these incredibly cute and elegant animals!!

After leaving the King penguins we decided to try to get as far as possible that same day in order to try to reach the ferry to Punta Arenas the next day, as the day after there was no ferry. However, this meant that we had to bike another 55 km against moderate wind, as with the increasing wind a wind screen for the night would definitely be necessary! As we finally reached a small "refugio" (a tiny little shelter built for travelers like us) just before twilight, I was absolutely dead! The next day we got up at 5 am again to surely make the 65 km to Porvenir where the ferry leaves at 2 pm to Punta Arenas in time. And so we left Tierra del Fuego on the 7th day after leaving Ushuaia...

And yes, there are also a lot of horses on Tierra del Fuego - and in the background the mainland of Chile is already visible...