Day 11 - Glacier to Villa Amengual - High Maintenance - 6 Week Carretera Austral - 2024

January 29, 2024

Day 11 - Glacier to Villa Amengual

Ugly Day !

The first 6km or so was nicely paved then you hit all 3 types of reeeepio, I will now use that word for gravel forever. David shakes his head at me when I say I’m going to the banjo, bano is Spanish for bathroom. I prefer banjo, yes warped sense of humour.

And so it starts ! Got at least some pavement!

We had about 20km of not so bad hills till this

I’ve driven these switch backs on my motorcycle and car, never on gravel on a bicycle. The corners are pure the WTF reeeepio

I’ll openly admit, without the bike assist it would have been a struggle. Most corners I was pushing the bike up. The gravel was too sloppy! There were some great views along the way. As I said yesterday you just look up the hill and say to yourself, suck it up buttercup, just do it.

A couple from Tennessee stopped and asked if they could take my picture, they were impressed with our efforts. Every day people driving by honk their horns and give up a thumbs up!

We did get a few stretches of new pavement. Notice the rebar on the left sticking straight up

In Ontario I’m sure this would never fly. WSIB would freak out. Here in Chile it’s called survival of the fittest. You fall on one of those suckers, that is more than a small cut, we are talking a flesh wound.

Wifi is now really slow so uploading more pictures will have to wait.

At the top we had a late lunch before the descent down. With being up over 750 metres it was getting cool and going down will be cool. When David did this 4 years ago the descent was reeepio, it’s been paved since so excess of 55 km downhill going around switchbacks, fun but a tad scary. With the extra weight bike behaves quite a bit differently. I’ll have to add these pictures later.
Alejandro was quicker than us so checked out hostels etc. We got a great one and another home cooked meal. I’ve had some great meals here.

Pasta and sauce with onions is great when camping.

We plan in riding a few more days then take a few days off. We’ve been non stop riding for 10 days. My body could take a break !

Same tip for newbies, practice, practice spanish and real gravel roads, not the hard packed rail trails.

Ohhh and don’t forget the sun screen!

Yea the pavement started. It was very cool at the top and with a descent of 55kmph needed to put pants back on

It’s really cool they paint the switchbacks red In the spots where you could end up going of the edge

Again stunning views. So when you are sore just look around

Bill posted the real spelling of reeepio. I still like mine

This was also a sore neck day, tip for rookies like me good posture is key when riding. No shrugging those shoulders, it just makes the neck muscles tight. A little A535 and stretching helps ! Practice riding for days and dats before doing a ride like this, I didn’t and now paying the price. As the old expression goes, no pain no gain.

Today's ride: 66 km (41 miles)
Total: 719 km (446 miles)

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Jennifer RossHoly smokes guys, that's AMAZING! Also, I might have found what reepio is. But I dare not put my guess here. Keep on riding and sharing. I am inspired to get on my indoor trainer in the morning and pretend to be on David Fife Line...

and a belated HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAVID!!
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9 months ago

Bill ShaneyfeltRipio, I had to laugh! Yeah, sounds just like you wrote!

Although I knew what it meant from all the bike touring journals I have followed, I thought I would get an "official" rendering of its meaning:

https://en.bab.la/dictionary/spanish-english/ripio
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9 months ago