Tues, Oct 4th.
Misty forests, wet dogs, rain upon rain. I woke up early to the sound of rain on the roof. Still dark. Still too glad for the bed to leave it I turned over and went back to sleep. Daylight, and the rain had stopped but I took too long repacking to take advantage of it. Just as I was tying the knot on the rear rack the rain started again, this time it didn’t stop until I got to the campsite that evening, 60km down the road.
After the screw failure yesterday I wanted to be totally prepared for if it were to happen again so I rode the 15 minutes back into Puerto Montt and shopped around some ferreterías. An hour later, with big zip-ties, needle-nose pliers, replacement screws and a hacksaw strapped to my bag (more on this later), I was back on the coast road heading south.
The rain was a constant feature of the road as it left the zona urbana and began to wind its way through the countryside. It wasn’t too heavy to begin with and my shorts and jacket were sufficient to keep me cruising along in comfort. Past small towns of wood-shingled houses and along beaches made of mossy boulders I began to get a feel for what was ahead in the coming weeks. The bike felt good, even if still a little heavy at the back. I was making good time and at some point even felt energised by all the water around, until some time around 1pm when the real ocean rain came tearing in from the west.
It got dark with cloud, I had to stop and put on my lights. I stopped again to take shelter but I was already soaked and at least when I was moving I wasn’t getting cold. With waterproof trousers pulled over my sodden shoes I carried on.
The way started to feel oddly tropical. Cliffs with deep green foliage shot up on my left, small ferns and the over-sized leaves of the rhubarb-like Nalca plants clung to the rocks between the trees. I passed what looked like floating houses, in fact work stations for the near-shore fish and shell-fish farms. More panelled shacks clung to the shorefront, balancing precariously on stilts to manage the slope. Brightly painted fishing boats lay lopsided in shallow harbours and on shingle beaches. Still raining.
The last 15km before the boat were being counted. I’d stopped for warm empanadas at a food truck a while but the relentless downpour had seeped through everything. After some more ups and downs, surface water streams washing their way across the corners I spotted a ferry loading cars in the distance. Down the cliff road into Punta La Arena and straight onto the slipway, I took a break out of the wind and wet for the short ride over the channel.
Disembarking on the other side, with the ramp dropping slowly as we approached, revealing the mist rising up off the steep rainforest, I truly got my first feeling of Patagonian scale. It felt remote already, a day’s ride out of the city. 10km along a quiet stretch of road and I made it to a campsite.
I stayed in a newly built outhouse with a fire-pit in the middle and a sectioned roof to let the smoke out. The owner of the site, a tall friendly man named Jorge, welcomed me in and offered me the dry space and a warm shower. I was grateful to not have to set up the tent this evening, The rain had let off some but it still came through over night. In a brief but glorious window of sun in the evening I took a walk out into the field and then cooked up some rice and tuna on my stove. I set up my sleeping mat on a sheet of plywood by the fire, hoping my stuff would be dry by the morning in time for another wet days ride to Hornopirén and the first of the longer ferries into the fjords.
Austral Spring 