Thursday, Oct 6th
After a sleep disturbed my howling packs of stray dogs I woke before dawn in the empty Refugio. I had met the only other occupant the night before, a stocky mechanic from the north walking through the dark hallway with bloody wounds on his nose and cheek. I pieced together he’d been in a fight. He left again, I can only assume to get cleaned up, and never came back.
The owner, Danny, had offered to drive me to the ferry to escape the rain but I left before he was up as the information on the departure time was unclear. Thankfully it was dry as I rode through the town and got to the boat, 2 hours early.
Waiting on the slipway the sun came out and it was a good time to sit and take in the epic surroundings of the northern edge of the Reñihué fjord. The mountains across the bay sat in the clouds and at the river mouth below black-necked swans swam against the stream. The first sounds of activity rang out from the ferry anchored away from shore. I got talking to Victor, a box-truck driver from Santiago on his way to deliver medical supplies to Futelafú, and we passed the time until the ferry dropped its ramp.
Up from the viewing deck I saw another couple of bikes packed up for a long journey. I soon met their owners, Ben & Tom of the Ratbag Nomads, a pair of veteran bike-tourers form Australia, continuing a trip they had started in a previous year. Along with a Dutch/American couple on a road trip, we sat outside taking in the steep valleys and high peaks on the 3.5 hour ride.
To make it to the second ferry a 10km dirt road had to be traversed in half an hour. The only way for cyclists to make it was to hitch a ride with someone from the first boat. Victor had already offered to put my bike in the back of his truck and the Australians got theirs into a coach. A bumpy ride and a much shorter ferry later we were on the banks of Caleta Gonzalo and the entrance to Pumalin Park.
The Aussies were on a rest day and opted to hitch a ride with Victor but this was the first bit of forest dirt track I had faced so I was keen to ride it. We arranged to meet in the town of Chaitén, at the bottom of a volcano about 57km away. It was about 3pm and the rain soon started. It really felt like rain forest now, the ferns & nalca grew much bigger and the road was walled in by tall vegetation.
The first 10km was slow going. Roadworks left the road broken and deep with sand, loaded trucks rumbled by and a 4km long hill brought me down to a walking pace. Even on the other side of steep inclines I couldn’t take full advantage of the downhill as navigating the potholes and rocks required caution. I was stopping and starting constantly to adapt my clothing to the changing weather and to adjust issues on the bike which hadn’t appeared until now with the rattling of the dirt road. I felt myself getting frustrated as for the first time I was concerned about not making it to my destination before dark, the first big lesson of the poor road conditions: everything is much, much slower. And by now it was pouring down, a heavy Pacific Ocean rain that wouldn’t stop for another 16 hours.
If the road had stayed as it was the whole way I would have got the Chaitén well after dark but with 20km to go, as I rode through the dead trees from the 2008 eruption, the tarmac reappeared. I never thought I’d be so relieved to see a stretch of road. I sped up and cruised through the pouring rain and down towards the coast, arriving at the town and to a warm cabin where Ben & Tom had a fire going, chorizo & chips on the stove, and an open box of El Gato red wine.
Austral Spring 