Climbing and Falling

Futaleufú to Coyhaique, Chile

Lago Yelcho

I rode out of Futaleufú, Chile with my mind set on reaching Lago Yelcho. The lake is the terminus of the Futaleufú river mentioned in my previous post. I was hopeful that there I would be able to hook into the big Patagonian brown trout I had been dreaming of. An evening and then a morning of riding got me to the lake around midday.

Yelcho is a massive lake surrounded by accordingly-sized mountains. The high-flowing Futaleufú feeds into the lake forming a reed-covered mouth or boca. The highway which brought me to the lake wraps around the southern shore. Rocky outcroppings and small beaches form the shoreline on this side of the lake.

Lago Yelcho

Like the vast majority of my campsites on the trip, I found my campsite at Yelcho using an app called iOverlander. The app is popular with bicyclists and those traveling with motor vehicles in Patagonia. It allows users to upload pins detailing campsites or other points of interest, such as grocery stores, then people can leave comments validating the spot. The app is quite handy to find spots that otherwise would be difficult to find while pedaling along the road.

A trend I noticed while using iOverlander is that it seems to cause many people to end up camping in the same “wild” spots. Wild camping meaning camping somewhere that’s not an established campground. Often these places may not quite match the image that comes to mind when one thinks of the word “wild” because they are typically some kind of little pull off from the road. The heavy use of the more favored wild campsites on iOverlander often seemed to lead to these spots getting quite trashy. It was unfortunately very common to see improper disposal of human waste at these spots. I’m not sure whether the level of use at these spots would be as high without the existence of iOverlander. However, I’m sure the same number of travelers would be present. Regardless of the app, I would hope everyone who uses these spaces would take some responsibilty for caring for these precious spots that make it possible to camp for free along the route. From my experience that was not happening.

Anyway… my Yelcho campsite was however quite nice. I had a big flat shaded area in an unmarked camping area right next to the lake. There were others there car camping, which was comforting in knowing that if someone took issue with me camping there at least I wasn’t not the only one.

I reached Yelcho midday, went for a wonderfuly refreshing swim, ate lunch, and set up camp. While riding to the lake I had been getting hounded by horse flies, which had been a pretty normal occurence at this point in the trip. But, this time around another fly joined the caravan of horse flies trailing my stinky self. Initially, I thought it was some sort of bee, being larger and louder than the horse flies. There were a couple that came around while I was riding to the lake, causing me to duck, dodge, and swat while trying to keep control of the bike. When I got to the lake these terrifying flies honed in on me. Turns out they were double the size of the horseflies I had been battling thus far. These flies, know as Tabanos, were orange and black, made an aweful buzzing noise, and were relentless. Also their bites were quite painful, this bug was straight out of the depths of hell. I would take mosquitos any day over these things. The other thing that was startling about the Tabanos was their toughness. You had to the really wack hard to kill one of these things.

I had hoped my swim would reduce my odor and therefore less flies would be attracted to me. Unfortunately, that proved to be wishful thinking. With my mind still set on giving the fishing a good go I rigged up my rod and headed to the shores of the lake. I ran through my typical lake fishing rigs. Trying a dry dropper, hoping to imitate the large dragon flies, and then soon switched to tossing streamers which seemed more likely to produce a take. By about the time I was tying on my second streamer, I was nearly loosing my mind from the onslaught of the Tabanos. The corpses of the ones I had managed to swat floated around me, as I made my casts into the abyss of the lake.

Lake fishing in my experience is often either really easy or extremely difficult. I sometimes have the poor tendency to loose hope pretty quick when it gets tricky. Fishing Yelcho I had been determined to not let this tendency take over given the potential. However, the combination of what felt like pretty hopeless fishing in the moment and the onslaught of the heinous bugs forced me to retreat to the tent for the afternoon for some respite.

I laid in my tent, trying to make peace with the fact that I had let the bugs win for the moment. I sorted through some podcasts and audiobooks hoping the evening would be better. After a couple hours chilling in the tent, I convinced myself to give it another go. I donned my rain jacket and pulled the hood tight around my baseball cap to protect from the flies. The evening session brought wind and waves, and no respite from the flies. At this point I started to get the sense that the fish were not in the zone I was able to cast my fly to, and must be concentrated further out in the lake, and even more likely at the mouth of the river. Or maybe it was my lack of skills and technique for fishing these big lakes. The lack of luck forced me to put the fishing into perspective, and to realize how incredible it was to even be in that place. Scenery is the great consolation prize of bad trout fishing.

Careterra Austral

The following morning I enjoyed an unproductive, yet peaceful (given the flies hadn’t yet activated), fishing session. Feeling ready to get moving, I packed up camp and hit the road. I did a late morning ride to Villa San Lucia, where my route intersected the famous Careterra Austral, highway 7. Directions became very simple at this point, as I would be following this road for most of the rest of my trip.

It was immediately apparent I had reached the Careterra by the amount of bicycle tourists I saw as soon as I got on the road. I had expected this increase in fellow bike travlers as the Careterra is a world famous cycling route for being an excellent way to experience the south of Chile. It is also just as popular for people to travel with vans, trucks, motorcycles, or to hitchhike. I was excited to meet some other travelers and welcomed the increase in opportunities to do so that reaching the Careterra brought. The first person I met was another young solo traveler from the US. Turns out he had also went to Montana State for college! Quite the coincidence. It was alot of fun swapping traveling stories with this dude.

I was able to cover a lot of miles on the first couple days on the Careterra because the road was well paved and pretty flat. I had one really rainy day where I rode into the coastal fishing town of Puyuhuapi. Ready to escape the soaking rain, I decided to grab lunch at a cafe. I ended up sharing a table at the cafe with a Chilean motorcyclist. He was working on his English and I was happy to help in exchange for learning a couple more Spanish words. We had a great wide-ranging conversation and enjoyed some nice hot food.

From Puyuhuapi, I rode south following along a fjord. It was pretty incredible to think that I had now reached the Pacific ocean. The sun peaked through and broke the drenching rain, shining its light over the beautiful water.

Fjord south of Puyuhuapi, Chile.

Quelat Pass

Quelat Pass is the biggest climb on the Carretera in terms of elevation gain. There the road climbs out of the Rio Quelat valley and over the mountains to the Rio Cisnes drainage to the south, slowly working away from the coast. I camped the night before the big pass day in a small clearing below the road. I was surrounded by cows eating these giant leafy plants at the camp.

The climb over the pass was pretty enjoyable all things considered. It was challenging, but it was nice change from the mundane riding of the flat pavement I had been on. People cheered me on as I wrapped around the swithbacks from the windows of their pickups, shouting, “¡Vamos, fuerte!” with a raised fist.

When I got to the top of the pass, the road opened up to an incredible vista of huge mountains towering over the road. There was something magnificent about the place, maybe it was that I wasn’t expecting it. Whatever the source, when I reached the top I was overcome by how beautiful it all was and how lucky I was to be there. I even convinced myself to get off the bike and go for a short hike. The descent that followed climb up the pass was pure joy, all pavement zooming down for a full kilometer of vertical.

Looking back north from Quelat Pass.

I cruised south from the pass, taking in the epic scenery of the Chilean countryside. I also even managed to catch a fish! My size 12 Amy’s Ant fooled a nice little brown on a pefectly sized stream for wading. Looking back, this was a great moment. A little glimpse of magic.

A Change of Pace

Just before Coyhaique, after Villa Mañihuales, I chose to take a gravel detour that goes through a small village rather than through Puerto Aysén on the coast. This was the longest gravel stretch in a while. After a solid ride in the hot afternoon sun, I arrived to my camp outside the small village of Villa Ortetga. There I would pitch my tent under a highway bridge for the night.

The next day I awoke to terrible stomach pain. My initial though was that it was all the cookies and beer I had consumed catching up with me. Pretty soon though the stomach pain turned to vomiting. Quickly, I realized the likely culprit was one of my questionable choices of water sources that I had forgone filtering. I had been concerned that this might catch up to me. There had been a couple times in the trip leading up to this moment where I had taken a chance with drinking unfiltered water. In hindsight, some of these sources should have definitely been filtered. I spent the next few hours laying under the bridge in rough shape. Eventually, I gathered my strength to go the 500 meters to the village where I rented out a cabin thinking I’d feel better resting in a bed.

As the day dragged on, my main concern was that my body’s inability to keep water down would lead to some serious dehydration issues given the long day I had the day before on the bike in the heat. So I decided to go the village doctor to see if I could get some help. At the clinic, I had the great fortune of running into a Spanish couple who were also riding the Careterra that I had met the day before in Villa Mañihuales. The clinic was supposed to be closed, but had stayed open to help these folks out. The husband had unfortunately had a rough crash on the bike right before town. He ended up needing to get some stitches to close up his wounds, but fortunately didn’t break anything. The wife spoke English, which was very helpful to translate between myself and the doctor. With this help, I got some medications which immediately helped me feel better and put an end to the vomitting. The doctor even walked me back to the cabin to make sure my accommodations were good. This was quite an exceptional level of care. Not to mention I didn’t pay a single peso for these services. Quite a refreshing healthcare experience.

The Spanish couple joined me at the cabin, it was great to have their company. I enjoyed learning a bit about life in Europe and to get some tips for the road ahead on the Carretera, as they had rode the route before. Just have support from others while sick was quite lucky. I could’ve easily been in a much worse situation if I had gotten sick in a place without access to health services or hadn’t had the help with translation.

Following a couple days at the cabin in Villa Ortega I eventually rode to Coyhaique where I chilled for a few more days taking advantage of the amenities found in the big town. In the Coyhaique, I started to feel better, and was able to start eating more normally. I rode south hopeful that I had gotten through this bit of illness, and excited for the remainder of the journey.