Sunday 8 March 2015

Day 4,5 and 6

We awoke to puffy faces and cold wind and rain and decided to hitch a ride towards Punta Arenas so we could escape the worst of the headwind. The first car we asked said yes. First we had to negotiate our way through the border into Chile. They wanted the serial numbers of our bikes and went through our gear to look for food. We lost our salami and mueslei but otherwise had no problems. The guys who gave us the lift were awesome. They gave us pastries, bought us coffee and paid for our ferry crossing. They then dropped us off at the intersection to Puerto Natales. We were so grateful as it had saved us a couple of days riding on horrible roads into a raging headwind. We started riding at 2.30pm and managed a mere 26 kms in four hours. The only positive thing about this section of road was seeing llama, flamingos and a fox. It was a full on headwind and very demoralizing. Once again the mantra the wind against our wheels rang in our head as we peddled slowly forward. We found a sheltered spot off the road and set up camp. After a delicious Absolute wilderness meal of Thai chicken curry and a hot chocolate we were both in better spirits.




The next morning we hit the road early hoping to beat the wind. The roads were long and smooth with a 3 meter wide hard packed shoulder. The wind was present but bearable - however we had major cyclist envy when we saw cyclists travelling in the opposite direction hardly peddling. There was little to report in the way of scenery but we did find a snickers bars on the road which was lucky as none of the towns we passed today had any food for sale. We managed 106km  over 9 hours so we were pretty happy. We heard from some other cyclists that we could camp at Hotel no Ruebens so we stopped there for the night. We had an awesome meal of steak eggs and a great sleep.


Once again we hit the road early and luckily the wind was light. We managed the 63 kms to Puerto Natales in three and a half hours. There was hardly any traffic and the scenery was more interesting with mountains appearing in the distance. We rolled into Puerto Natales before lunchtime. Booked tickets to Torres del Paine , found a hostel and began getting sorted for an eight to ten day trek.

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