Paso Los Libertadores (Argentine side)

I heated water from the stream and made a coffee, and then packed up my gear. I had hoped the wind would reverse direction overnight but it was again blowing down the mountain. I rode back up to the 29 switchbacks of Las Caracoles and slowly began my way up past where I had turned back the day before. It was not nearly as difficult as I imagined but with the night's rest I was stronger. At the top I met a Brazilian motorcyclist and had him take my picture. Then there was more climbing before the few buildings that was the town of Portillo and then the Chilean police and customs stop some kilometers further.

Las Caracoles--look closely to see the switchback curves

Half way

The top

Long covered section before the tunnel to Argentina

I passed through what I thought was Chilean customs, but instead of an exit stamp I received a single paper from the police that I had no idea what to do with. After a covered section I was at the tunnel and a man waved me down and told me he would drive me through in an offical camionetta.  As before I pulled off the front panniers and we lifted the bike into the back of the pickup. It is a 2 mile long tunnel at 3,175 meters and as we drove through the Chilean customs man explained that on the other side I would pass through both Chilean and Argentine customs one after the other. The paper I was carrying from the Chilean police would be necessary to get me through. The big climbs were over and I would be mostly descending from here.

There was a long line of cars and camions that I rode through on the shoulder and after turning in my paper from the Chilean police I received another paper with something handwritten on it and a couple of exit stamps. This paper I was told to keep and I was sent through into Argentina. I passed the Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the world outside of the Himalayas, and then passed the Puente del Inca (The Inca's Bridge), and then down descending. I stopped and ate lunch at a restaurant and it felt good to be back in Argentina and to hear the Argentine accent.

The Aconcagua

Puente del Inca

Ruta 7 then began to follow the Rio Mendoza and the wind picked up, gusting up through the river valley. I had had dreams of a great wind taking me down from the mountains and blowing me into Mendoza, but it was not to be. I dropped down into my climbing gears and fought down the descent into it. There were cyclists coming up the pass who were moving faster than I was. My legs were tired and it was a crushing blow. I did not ride much further before I began to look for a place to camp. I would not make Mendoza today.

Just beyond a bridge over the Mendoza River I saw a raised section of earth and pushed the bike up to camp there. In fact it was a cliff overlooking the river and a smaller stream that ran down from the mountains into it. The wind was really blowing now and I pitched the tent being careful not to lose a part of it in the wind. I heated water for a bowl of oatmeal and a cup of coffee and ate some cookies and an apple. It was 150km to Mendoza and if the wind was right tomorrow I could make it.

View from the cliff above the Rio Mendoza where I camped

Paso Los Libertadores (Las Caracoles)

I ascended slowly all day. I stopped in the little town of Rio Blanco and bought some bread and cheese, and then I rode higher. In the afternoon a wind blew down from the higher mountains and it made the ascending even more difficult.

I passed the small refugio along the stream that I had read about, run by Fernando who was described as a slightly crazy climber-philosopher. He was not in and the wooden house was locked. I stopped and finished my bread and cheese and rested near the stream, my head against a poplar.

Three slow kilometers later I was at the base of Las Caracoles ("the snails"), the famous 29 switchback turns that rose 7 kilometers up the side of a mountain. Camions came slowly down and there was the burnt smell from their brakes as they passed. It was a very steep grade to reach the first curve and midway up it I realized I did not have the legs. My hands were shaky. I felt a little sick. Maybe it was the altitude, or my lack of sleep, the headwind or my lack of fitness. In any case, I did not want to get caught up there on the switchbacks and need to camp where I could not pitch the tent. It was better to go back. I could go back to the stream and the refugio and camp there. It would be a fine place to camp. I turned the bike around and sped quickly down back to the refugio. It was the sensible thing to do. And I could camp there among the poplars along the stream.

I was low on water and took water from the stream. It was ice cold and must have recently melted from the glaciers higher in the mountains. I still had a tomato from the stand near Colina and after mixing it with two spice packets, let it cook with the heat of the boiling pasta water. With a cup of coffee it made for a fine meal and I was satisfied that I had camped here and not tried to go up the 29 switchbacks. That would be for tomorrow when I was stronger. 

Paso Los Libertadores (near Rio Colorado)

The carretera ended soon after Colina and I was forced onto the auto pista heading north towards Los Andes. There was a good shoulder and it was not difficult riding, but I could see the mountains in the distance and beyond them were higher mountains and beyond those, almost too faint to make out, were the outlines of even higher mountains.

It was before Los Andes that the difficult ascending began. The sun was out and it was hot and I rode up the long ascent in my lowest gear, past a stone statue of a man holding a sword and higher still. At the top the road flattened and ahead was a tunnel. I stopped at the fire station beside the tunnel and asked about passage through and a man came out to drive me through in a camionetta. I took off the front panniers and we lifted the bike into the back of the pickup truck and he drove me through the tunnel.  

On the other side was a furious dropping descent into Los Andes and I took it hard and fast and down into the valley it was lush and green and there were vineyards and long lines of poplar trees. I passed horses and cattle grazing and fields of corn and the descent ended and the climbing into the next range began following  the Rio Colorado up into the higher mountains. I stopped at a house serving drinks and had a coffee and a juice and took a nap.

Then it was back to climbing along the river. My legs felt good and my knees did not bother me. This day and the day before I had focused on riding more slowly and in a lower gear. After passing a sign that indicated steeper climbing ahead I met two Japanese cyclists who were coming down from the pass. They had camped the night before near the Aconcagua and the temperatures had fallen below freezing, but there was no snow. I asked if they had seen somewhere to camp up the road ahead but they had not.

I passed through the pueblo of Rio Colorado and beyond it saw an area between the rocks that would shield me from both sides from being seen by traffic. The area had been burned, probably as the result of a camp stove fire, which was good because good roadside campsites were also good places for truckers to go to the bathroom. The ground was ash and it smelled faintly of burnt cinders but it did not smell of human feces and I put the tent up. Laying inside I could hear the river and I thought of the difficult climbing ahead. I was still tired from the sleepless trip from Punta Arenas and I went to sleep easily.

Near Colina

It was a long day that began the night before. It was evening and I was sitting at the dining table of the hostel with the map I had of the Santiago area and going over the notes I had taken on the best way to reach the Paso Los Libertadores. The German pushed through the door and said, “You boy. You see that man there?” What man, I asked him, and he motioned me to the window. There was a man standing among the trees that lined the center of the Avenida de Espana. “That man wears just a coat. That man has nothing and he is cold. I see him shivering. Do you know that man?” How could I know that man, I said. “I give him my coat,” says the German and goes to his room. He returns pulling his suitcase and takes out two jackets and three long-sleeved knit shirts.

“Is this too big for him?” the German holds up the black jacket.

“If he is cold I do not think he will refuse it.”

“And this. What you think, boy?” He’s holding a maroon knit shirt.

“He will like that one. I’m sure of it.”

“I go now,” says the German and he goes outside with the two jackets and three shirts. From the window I watch him motion to the Chilean to take off his jacket. The man is now standing bare-chested in the middle of the avenida and the German has him start trying on the knit shirts. The German helps him get the first shirt on, steps back to admire the fit and then comes forward and readjusts the shirt on the Chilean. The German has him try another shirt and helps the Chilean get into it and then he has him try on the jackets. The German has him try on two of the knit shirts again. He’s trying to decide if the green or maroon is better on him. The black jacket is clearly best and the German gives him a thumbs up when he pairs it with the maroon knit shirt. The German wants him to wear his new clothes now and has him put the light jacket he was wearing previously into his bag. The Chilean takes both jackets and two knit shirts of the three. They shake hands and the German pats him on the back. I watched this from the window.

I took a taxi to the airport soon after. I had an 11:30pm flight to Santiago. The check-in agent tried to hit me with an excess baggage weight charge, but the credit card machine was down and he had no change for two 10,000 Chilean peso notes and he let it go. At 32kg my boxes were 9kg overweight.

I slept an hour on the plane and when we landed I began putting the bike together in the baggage claim area. I had it together by 6am and had a coffee in the terminal and waited for the sun to come up over the Andes. It was a later sunrise in Santiago and it was not until 8:30 that I felt there was enough light to ride safely.

It was cool and cloudy and I had to ride a busy highway to the auto pista that ringed the city. Along the auto pista was a carretera, or smaller road, that followed it. The carretera had just as much traffic and had no shoulder and with traffic coming in and off from the side streets I felt like I was riding the Queens Boulevard. It was miserable, ugly riding and dangerous. The sun burned through the clouds in late morning, and then it was hot and miserable and dangerous. But I could see the huge mountains behind the city and it both excited me and scared me to know I was going there.

I wanted to see the wine region near Santiago around the town of Pirque and I headed south on a busy road that followed an elevated bridge. There were little shops and restaurants crammed into every space along the road and it was ugly, dispiriting riding until down a hill and over a bridge across a river I saw vineyards extending out to the mountains. It was Pirque and I stopped at the Concha y Toro vineyard.

I had a glass of the cabernet sauvignon it is famous for. There were groups of Americans and Germans touring the vineyard and it wasn’t really any different than the vineyards I had visited in Napa Valley. I looked at the high mountains beyond the vineyards and I realized I had no business sitting around a vineyard with tourists who rode on buses. Forget the wine. After buses and airplane and cities and hostels I was anxious to get back into the countryside where I could go to sleep in my tent and cook on my little stove and be undisturbed.

I had to ride back into Santiago and follow the carretera along the auto pista until the northern part of the city. From there I followed bike paths through the city and up into the suburb of La Dehesa. An old woman at a food stand directed me toward the mountain pass called the Piedra Roja. From there it was a long, fast descent  winding down the mountainside with the suburbs of Santiago beneath me.

Then it was onto another carretera that followed the auto pista north towards Los Andes. It was getting late and I was tired from both a lack of sleep and the over 100km I had put in and I began looking for places to put up my tent. I saw nothing along the road and kept riding. South of Colina I stopped at a wooden hut selling fruits and vegetables. I bought a few apples and some cactus pears and asked if I could put my tent up behind the hut. The lady said it was not a problem but that I should be aware of the pitbull tied up back there.

There was a man who worked with the woman and he began to talk to me but I could understand nothing of what he said. He was a little cross-eyed and maybe learning disabled and Chilean Spanish was already hard enough for me. It is a very different accent than the Argentine. I simply smiled and responded to him with a listo or si or no where I felt it worked.

They closed the stand and then the man began giving me fruits and vegetables for my dinner. He said I needed a salad with the pasta I wanted to make and he gave me a head of lettuce, 3 tomatoes, 2 hot peppers, and 2 lemons. I needed something sweet for my postres and he added 4 bananas and 4 apples to the load I was already carrying. He wanted to give me more but I said there was no way I could eat it or carry it with me and I thanked them both for their generosity.

I pitched the tent and found that the water bladder inside one of my front panniers had a leak. My tool bag and some clothes were soaked. Moreover it would be 6 liters less of water I could carry with me up to the Paso Los Libertadores. I cooked up the pasta and made a salad of the vegetables the man had given me. Tomorrow I hoped to get up to where the pass began.

Punta Arenas 3 (The Old German)

The old German was working on his second six pack when I sat down with my plate of pasta. He had the empty beer cans set out in front of him.

“The alcohol. No listen, boy. Listen to me, boy. The alcohol, it gives a different--ah, ah--a different position on the life.” The old German held his hands near his stomach and gestured upward. “The alcohol, it gives me fantasies. Fantasies. I have a different feel on everything,” he smiled. “Do you understand, boy?”

I nodded. I didn’t like how he called me boy, but he didn’t mean anything by it. I just wanted to eat quickly and go back to my room.

“But the alcohol here is expensive. It is expensive. I drink a lot of alcohol,” he laughed.

I made sure to sit at the far end of the dining table but I still smelled his breath. When he grunted and exhaled heavily out his nose the smell was worse. At least tonight he had his shoes on and I wasn’t smelling his feet.

“Boy. Listen. I am poor. Very poor. But I hate the work. No, no. I do not like the work. Look, boy. I travel here and I at the end of the world,” he grins and holds his hands out wide. “This is the end of the world.”

“Not quite,” I tell him. “But you’ll be there soon. It is a beautiful place, Ushuaia.”

“I have a woman but she strict. She say do this, do not do this, do this. And she not like my drinking alcohol. But I say this is my life. This is my life,” he pokes at his chest with his index finger. “I gonna go to the bar with me. I say, ‘Me. You wanna go to bar?’ I say, ‘Sure, we go to bar. We go together.’ And we go. Sometimes I going to bar with someone else, but I like going to bar with me.”

“That’s a good attitude.”

“I was once in coma six months. I wake and see the light,” he points to the light above the table, his eyes wide. “But I hate doctors in the white material. White material. White. That is what I see. All white. It’s like the law. The law all black. The--how you say, how you say--” he motions as if striking a gavel.

“Judge.”

“Yes, yes, he in the black. He say 15 years,” the old German holds out his hands as if in handcuffs. “He say 15 years and you go away. He in the black, the doctors in the white. I hate the black and the white. I hate it. That year I go to see the doctors in the white and I go to see the black.”

“What did you do?”

“Ah. Ah. It was nothing,” he waves his hand dismissively. “It was little. I had problem with the alcohol. It does not matter.”

The old German was quiet for awhile and I finished my pasta. I got up to leave.

“Boy, get a beer. Get a beer of mine. I tell you boy, get a beer.”

I thanked him but said I had some work to do on my bike before I left for Santiago.

“But I give you beer, boy?”

I could see it disappointed him but I said goodnight. The old German wanted someone to talk to. From my room I heard it every time he cracked a new can.

My room with bike and gear in boxes

Punta Arenas 2

The last two photos are of a tiny, un-signed sandwich shop off the main plaza. Inside is a long counter you can sit at if you are lucky. The shop was packed each time I was there. The menu is posted on the wall and consists of hot "choriqueso" sandwiches and sweet milk. The choriqueso is a sandwich of chorizo sausage crushed into a paste with melted cheese on a small hard roll and they cost less than a dollar US and they are delicious. I sat for awhile on a diner stool at the counter ordering them two at a time as the ladies made them and drinking them down with mediano glasses of sweet milk. There are four old ladies in back that make the sandwiches and two at the counter that take orders and serve them. The sandwich is something Chile does very well and I have also enjoyed the hot churrasco sandwiches with everything on them (lettuce, tomato, fried egg, and ham). A good sandwich begins with the bread and they have very good breads in this country.

Punta Arenas

I took a bus from Rio Grande to Punta Arenas. Norma, who runs the Club Nautico, knew of an agent in town that sold tickets at good prices. By taking a bus I figured to save my knees a few days of difficult riding into the wind across the Chilean ripio. From Punta Arenas I had the option of flying to Santiago on a cheap Chilean flight, or looking around the port for a freighter headed to Valparaiso. I picked up two bike boxes at a bicicleteria, cut them down to size, and packed up the bike and gear to leave Rio Grande.

It was a more than six hour bus ride with long stops at both the Argentine and Chilean customs at San Sebastian. The bus was hot and sweaty and dirty and full of European backpackers. It now felt extraordinary to cover such a distance in a single day. I had become used to looking at maps and calculating bicycle distances and to ride to Punta Arenas would have been at least three days on gravel and sand roads and into a brutal headwind.

I thought the bus would make the ferry crossing at Porvenir but instead, after following the coast from Rio Grande, we continued north across the ripio to the ferry at Punta Delgada. I saw again the route it had taken me two days to ride. Commerson's Dolphins followed the ferry across the Strait of Magellan, streaks of black and white in the water and then leaping through the surface and back under. At 5 feet long and 100 lbs these dolphins are some of the world's smallest and because of their coloring are also known as the 'skunk dolphin'. They were exciting to watch. When I had taken this ferry two weeks earlier I had not seen them.

But I could not travel by bus and this one trip was enough. The distances are too long in Argentina and it makes for too many hours sitting and looking out at a landscape that for a passenger must be monotonous. To ride that same landscape though is interesting and exciting, and all the subtle changes of topography appear to the touring cyclist and he experiences them slowly, sometimes very slowly because of the wind, and he enjoys them. Riding on the bus made me long to get back on the bike and it is with renewed enthusiasm that I will approach the Paso Los Libertadores over the Andes between Santiago and Mendoza.

Where we were let out near the centro in Punta Arenas there was a crowd of old ladies handing out fliers for their hostals. I had the name of a hostal that had been recommended to me but I needed a taxi to get there with the two bike boxes and I had no Chilean pesos. A number of backpackers were looking to come with me since they spoke no Spanish and heard me communicating with the old ladies. I made a deal with little, old Veronica that if she would pay for my cab ride to her hostal I would stay there and told the backpackers they were on their own. It was their own fault they showed up on a continent unable to communicate.

Veronica's hostal was actually her home and she had put bunk beds in two of the rooms to function as small dormitories. There was nobody sleeping on the other bed in my room but down the hall in the other room was an old German man. He was sitting at the dining table and by the evidence of the beer cans had been drinking all afternoon. He didn't speak any Spanish and wanted to talk with me and after I put my boxes in my room I sat down with him. The German's english was broken and difficult to understand and he had no shoes on and his feet stunk horribly.

He told me about his life in Germany working illegally in an insulation factory and saving as much money as he could for this trip across the Americas. Working with insulation meant your body itched and the German demonstrated by scratching his chest and arms frantically. Did I understand? Yes. I did. He talked about places he had been in the United States but he had them all mixed up. The German was certain that Tampa Bay was in New York state and that Denver was in Mississippi. I tried but was unable to convince him otherwise. The smell of his feet became too intense and I excused myself and went to bed early. I was fortunate not to be sharing a room with him.