Carretera Austral Day #15 Villa O’Higgins to El Chaltén, Argentina

January 13, 2020

Villa O’Higgins to El Chaltén, Argentina 62.8 km
Ride Time: 13:15
Pedal Time: 6:27
Tour Total Pedaled 1226.47 km

I slept reasonably well in my tent last night at Mosco hostel and campground. The four beers I had before bed meant that I had to get up twice during the night. It was cold out and the moon was almost full.

My alarm went off at 6am. Our aim was to be on the road by 7am. My tent was wet, so I hung the fly on the laundry line.

My breakfast consisted of Frosted Flakes with bananas and a hard boiled egg.

It was partly cloudy with nice light. Yesterday’s sunset had produced amazing colors.

We left the hostel at 7:30am and rode out of town. We crossed the Rio Mayer on the Puente Augusto Grossei, another kit construction suspension bridge similar to the one we crossed on our entrance to Villa O’ Higgins.

The road was 7km of ripio and we arrived at the ferry at 8am. We had been told to be there by 8:15am and that the boat would be leaving at 8:30am. A British couple were with Surlys were already there waiting. They were traveling all over the world.

We took our photos at the sign that proclaimed the end of the Carretera Austral. The bus arrived with backpackers from our hostel.

A week from today I’ll be home in Brooklyn getting ready for the spring semester. I’m currently in an extremely remote spot at the other end of the world, and it feels surreal.

Lago O’Higgins can be extremely windy and is apparently the roughest lake in South America. We were told that a group of five backpackers was stranded last week on the other side. For this reason, the captain was unwilling to take the side trip to where the ice field meets the lake.

It was a ninety minute trip across Lago O’Higgins to
Candelario Mancilla. The boat was much smaller that previous ferries. It seated only sixteen passengers, none of us local. There were five cyclists and the rest were backpackers. Our bikes were all strapped to the rail at the bow. We were told that they would be wet when we reached our destination. The captain and his first mate dipped mata, as we said goodbye to the snow-capped mountains we had admired and grown accustomed to for the past two days.

At 10:30am we arrived at Candelario Mancilla, where there was a small house, a wall, a gravel road, and a few hand painted signs. I talked to two northbound cyclists who told me it had taken them five and a half hours to make the crossing to Lago del Desierto. They assured me that it would be easier for us, because we had a downhill on the most difficult part.

We packed up our bikes and began climbing a ridiculous rocky road that a land rover had problems on. Chilean passport control was two hundred meters up a hill that we mostly had to walk.

The backpackers arrived before we did, and there was a queue in the passport control office. One by one, we went to the back room to be interviewed and receive our exit stamp. The officials are assigned a five year post on the small island, and are allowed to leave only five times a year. The man interviewing us was desperate for human contact and interaction.

Time was ticking. The next ferry would be leaving at 5:30pm and we had a difficult trip ahead of us. Many of the backpackers had arranged motor transport to the end of the 19km dirt road that stretched across most of the way to the next ferry. We would have to cycle the road, and then walk the single track trail like everyone else. The passport control should have let the cyclists through first, but instead we were last. Eva, a friendly French girl we had met at Mosco, promised that she would hold the 5:30pm boat for us if we weren’t there.

We left the passport office at noon and, although we were still in Chilean territory, officially we were between countries, and technically nowhere.

The start of the ripio was ridiculously steep, rocky, and with loose gravel. The map that I had created, cobbled from cyclist blogs on the Internet was no longer detailed. It had primarily featured the road networks north of Villa O’ Higgins. We were on air quotes Ruta X 915, because that’s what the hand-painted signs read. The signage was primitive yet decent.

The horseflies were buzzing around my head as I struggled up the hill. I was breathing heavily and one flew in my mouth. I swallowed it and started coughing. Scott heard me and asked if I had eaten a fly.

We encountered our first stream crossing, which was fairly wide and deep. Fortunately we realized that we could cut through a small airfield, onto the runway, and then cut across a small bridge.

Once the road eventually leveled out, it was quite pleasant. We cycled through a forest, just below the tree line. The green Range Rover that had transported the backpackers passed us on its way back to Candelario Mancilla.

After seventeen kilometers the gravel road ended at the Argentine border. There was a border marker and additional welcome signs for each country. Then the muddy single track began.

Scott was ahead of me, and there were many stream crossings. I put on my sandals so that my shoes wouldn’t get wet. I got small bits of gravel stuck in my sandals, and I was worried about getting scrapes and blisters. I mostly had to walk, but would ride whenever I could. It was steep uphills and downhills over exposed roots, though mud, and past stumps and branches that would snag my panniers.

My front left pannier kept coming off and the plastic bushing that secured it to the rack fell out. Luckily I saw it in the dirt. There were so many mud and stream crossings. I swapped my shoes and my sandals several times. I had to hoist my bike over dozens of fallen trees.

I caught up with Scott who was cooking lunch in the middle of the trail. I looked at the time, and it was 2:30pm. We had three hours to make it to the ferry. Two northbound cyclists passed and I asked how long it had taken them to get to this point, and they replied three hours. Once again I was told that it was easier to be traveling south. I fixed my front left pannier and told Scott that I’d meet him at the ferry. I really wanted to get to El Chaltén.

I passed Eva and her friend Armando. She couldn’t believe that I had passed them, and remarked at the incredible speed I was going. At that point, I realized that I would make the 5:30pm ferry.

There were more stream crossings and more mud. At one point my sandal got stuck about twelve inches down in the muck. I had to leave it submerged there, find a place to lean my bike, and then go back and reach down with my hand to retrieve it. I had mud up to my elbow. I cleaned myself in a stream that came up to my calves. The trail continued on the other side of the stream so I then had to carry my loaded bike across it.

At some points the path would fork for various options around obstacles like mud, streams, and downed trees. Sometimes there were trail markers - the Argentine flag, and other times nothing.

Many of the streams had logs spanning them, that would have been impossible to traverse with a loaded bike. It was far simpler to just walk the bike right across the streams.

I encountered a series of deep narrow ruts cut into the dirt from numerous cyclists and backpackers. They were just wide enough for my bike and panniers, but I was unable to walk alongside. I developed a system where the bike would be walked down in the rut and I would control it from up above, with my feet to either side. Sometimes I could ride the ruts. Often it was ridiculous. I grunted and cursed a lot. I crossed dozens of streams.

I passed two southbound cyclists who were having a difficult time. A while later I passed the guy with the giant backpack whom I’d seen in Puerto Rio Tranquilo. He asked me if I had seen his friends, and was doubling back to help them.

The absurd situation reminded me of Stanley Kramer's 1963 classic movie ‘It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World’. Numerous confused and desperate foreigners were scrambling through the remote landscape racing to beat time.

I mostly rode down the deeply rutted single track downhill that all of the northbounders had complained about. I could see Lago del Desierto in the distance. I stopped several times to take photos of the majestic snow-capped mountains in front of me. Unfortunately the back of Mount Fitz Roy was hidden in clouds.

A southbound French cyclist towing a trailer was walking his bike ahead of me and I had to slow down. He was with his family that included two teenagers who were heavily loaded. I crossed my final stream alongside them.

I encountered a pasture with grazing horses. I had noticed manure and hoof prints the full stretch of the trail. There was a small military outpost where I was told not to lean my bike against the wall. They had specially constructed white-painted log bike racks.

The passport control was quick. I asked the official about when there was a clear view of Fitz Roy, and he replied that it was mostly cloudy. I heard that locals referred to the clouds as smoke.

I arrived at the marina at Lago del Desierto at 3:30pm, two hours before the ferry would depart. A Chilean cyclist and two backpackers from the morning boat were waiting by the dock when I arrived. Scott showed up 15 minutes after me.

Scott and I washed our muddy bikes and equipment in the lake. I found a broom in a maintenance shed that I used to help brush away the mud. My brakes, axles, and fenders were caked in muck.

Eva and Armando eventually showed up, and also used the lake to clean their muddy shoes.

I ate a bag of peanuts and realized that the two freeze-dried meals, pasta, tomato sauce, granola, raisins, and Cliff bar that I had with me would no longer be needed. I had heard such conflicting information about this difficult crossing that I had given myself three days to do it. It only took one.

Like clockwork, the ferry arrived at 5:30pm. It was a spiffy, good-sized catamaran with music playing and hot chocolate. We stopped en route to pick up more travelers from a lakeside resort. It was definitely more upscale that what I had become familiar with in Chile.

Crossing Lago del Desierto I passed enormous snow covered mountains and ice fields to the west, and gorgeous colorful brown barren jagged mountains to the east.

The ferry arrived at 6:30pm and I was once again connected to civilization. There was a gravel road that led thirty five kilometers to El Chaltén. It was cold and drizzling. The southbound Chilean cyclist sped ahead of us.

The terrain was different from the Chilean side. It was drier and resembled north eastern New Mexico southwestern Colorado. I no longer saw the giant leafed plants, that had been ubiquitous on the Carretera Austral.

We rounded a bed and the back of Mount Fitzroy came into view. A rainbow appeared in the sky. It was mesmerizing and we stopped many times to take photos. The beauty was spellbinding.

The ripio was mostly level, and we made good time. I was hungry and watching my odometer. I was delighted to round a corner and finally see El Chaitén in the distance. We arrived in town at 8:45pm. It had been a long day.

El Chaitén was packed with tourists, and much more upscale than Villa OHiggins. Although I welcomed the numerous brew pubs and restaurant options, I missed Chile, and it’s friendly people and good-natured dogs.

We were searching for food, beer, and WiFi. I had bought $40 worth of Argentine Pesos from a backpacker in Villa O’ Higgins. We were in a new country and things were unfamiliar.

We heard someone shouting to us from a restaurant courtyard. It was Eva and Armando.

We joined them at Chaltén Cerveza Artesanal for a lovely dinner where I had a typical Argentina dish, the name of which I don’t remember. Once again Scott ordered something that was bigger and more filling, yet cost less. I had to order an additional empanada, that was much fancier than what I had been eating in Chile. I had like ten beers. Scott and I both ordered brownies. There were
musicians playing traditional music from the north.

It was late when we finally left the restaurant. Eva had told us that all of the hostels in El
Chaitén were full. She had told us about a bike hostel where we could camp. I no longer had any phone service options and there hadn’t been WiFi at the restaurant. I had a screenshot of a google map page of El Chaitén that I made in Villa O’Higgins and a photo of Eva’s iOverlander map.

Scott and I rode around town looking for the bike hostel and couldn’t find it. I had noticed El Relincho Camping, an RV park and campground on the main strip. It was after midnight and there must have been a hundred tents there. It was like a tent city. There were many people partying and an outdoor disco was not far away.

It was cold, windy, and starting to drizzle. We found a spot and set up our tents. Scott went and found the showers but I was too tired. I went to bed with a dirty disgusting feeling.

The bike tour is now over. We don’t have enough time to pedal to Punta Arenas. We’ll travel from now on by bus.