I had written a much better post for these days but a hiccup in the interwebs wiped it out. I hope to sort it out and repost later. So here is a brief replacement until that time.
We started our first day of riding (Day 4 Mon Jan 23) by taking a transfer in our van along the coast from Puerto Varas to Arenas where we took the ferry across the first fjord of Chilean Patagonia. Great scenery as we passes mussel and salmon farms. The weather was about what you might think from the fjords. 40 degrees and raining. We were all braced for the cold and wet as we started. Fortunately before too long, the clouds parted, the sun shone, and the rain stopped. We were treated to lovely views that reminded me of a combination of New Zealand, Switzerland, Yellowstone, and the Tetons all rolled into one.
The riding today was along a loose gravel road that is used by the fishermen to tend their farms. Several years ago a virus nearly wiped out the salmon crop and the population has been slow to be restarted. So it seems like the car, truck, bus, and moto drivers use this road as their personal world rally training ground. It was a bit nerve wracking to negotiate the traffic.
The day did finish with a lovely ride down across the Rio Blanco and into the pastoral cabanas near Puelo where we parked for the night. Ours was an interesting grass roofed family cabin tucked into the trees. Very quiet and peaceful. Our hosts made a huge meal with chicken and lamb all fresh from the field accompanied by local vino tinto.
Day 5 began on the same gravel road along the edge of the fjord through the village of Puelo. I have found it very difficult to capture the scale of the views with a camera. Steep mountains rising directly out of narrow bays topping out in volcanic peaks. The nice thing about taking a guided trip is that every 12-15km our van stops ahead of us and you can decide how much of the days ride you care for. Today i took advantage of this and was driven a few of the sections. Dave and Deniece did us proud by riding the entire 82km today.
We finished in one of their volcano national parks and got the photo of the three of us with Volcan Osorno.
Day 6 sent us into Argentian and directly into the path of destruction left by Pueyhue when it erupted this past June. The pass we went throughg that forms the border looks like Loveland Pass in the winter but there is no snow. There is almost nothing growing up there at all. Just ash. Everywhere. Astonishing the damage. Take a look at this link to see some of the photos from the eruption.
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2011/06/volcano_erupts_in_chile.html
We had a long downhill ride to the Argentinian border station before getting picked up by the van for our trip to Bariloche. The land scape on the eastern side of the Andes is completely different than the fjords of the west. It looks like the high plains ringed with mountains of central Turkey, of the Spanish sets of the Fist Full of Dollars films, or even of some of New Mexico.this is the place where I would expect to see the gaucho herding his cattle.
On to Bariloche, the adventure hub of Argentinian Patagonia that has been devastated by the effects of the volcano.
- UnclePhool, Dave, and Deniece
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