Day 10 - Puyuhuapu to glacier - High Maintenance - 6 Week Carretera Austral - 2024

January 28, 2024

Day 10 - Puyuhuapu to glacier

Well today was PR day

Practice Reeepeo day

Reeeeepeo is not like the traditional Ricola, Ricola Ricola which you hear from the Swiss alp commercials , however this is translated as gravel. I don’t really know how the Spanish spell it but I like the way I spell it. I’ll Google that later, in my spare time. Now there are three types of Reepeo. There is the kind that as many of you probably cycle on , the typical roads when you do a trail ride on a rail trail. These are the type of roads that even road bikes can ride on because they’re so hard packed and the skinny tires are no problem.

This is the easy stuff ! A welcome when you go through the other types.

The second type is medium, and that is where you toss in the odd types of stones all the way from the small pee gravel all the way up to probably something the size of a walnut. And those a road bike would have a little bit of difficulty but the gravel bikes have no problem until you get to the third type which is called WTF Reeeeepeo. The reason why it is called WTF is because the rocks that are now bigger than walnuts. Probably the size of your fist sometimes and you throw in a lot of loose loose sand gravel whatever and it’s almost impossible to ride going downhill cause you’re braking so hard.

Now some of you seasoned riders are laughing, and the new riders are probably going why would I do this. Even the medium one is really bad because your wheel will hit a stone and either send it 40 or 50 feet left or right , since it catches the edge of the tire or you will just pull one way because it’s sliding off the stone. Fun NADA but we still do it !

The WTF type you just pray like hell when you’re going downhill that you don’t go down on one side. When you go uphill, gear selection is huge too low of a gear and you just spin your tire, too high of a gear and you can’t make it up the hill. When you go down the hill, again, you just pray like hell.

The reason why it was called practice today we only had about 5 or 6km, Tomorrow is a big day where our elevation will exceed 1000 meter and we have switch backs all the way up to the top with whatever Reeeepeo is on the road.

So for a tip to your new riders if you want to do this ride practice practice practice practice. Find the worst possible gravel road where you live throw some weight on your bike go uphill, go downhill and make sure you’re comfortable.

On a very serious note, any rider will always look at this as a challenge smile laugh and push through it . A ride like this is 80% mental and 20% physical, the hills can be climbed you just need to believe in yourself. Yeah, this is written the day before I do the nasty ride so I will tell you how I feel tomorrow night

Our goal today was to do a short ride and to hit the provincial park to walk up to the hanging glacier. David decided to take a break and set up his tent early on the two of us did the 12 km walk up and down 3000 meters to see glacier. Depending on Wi-Fi connectivity, I can send the pictures of the glacier tomorrow, it is quite impressive.

The campground we stayed at tonight was quite., how can I say primitive. For any of you that own horses and have a horse stall, imagine that big enough to put a tent into . A tin roof to keep the rain out and that is where you put your tent in.

The a couple that own it also sell dinners and it was a phenomenal fish dinner so it is quite amazing. The small hole in the walls can surprise you so much.

It was quite amusing after dinner and a short little walk. I went back to my little horse stall and they’re lo and behold there was a chicken running around my tent. You are out in nature here camping not like a provincial park in Ontario.

A trip like this is not just cycling it’s all the adventures at the end or beginning of the day.

The hanging glacier. Quite impressive, just needed a drone for closer shots.

The funniest story of the day was this morning when I was stretching before we started our ride I was lying on the floor knees to one side, making sure my tight hip was wasn’t so tight. The owner of the hostel came into the room, saw me lying on the floor went screaming out the door, David, David, David. She thought I was dead or something. Both David and Alejandro came rushing in, they knew I was just stretching. Now that I type this, it’s like one of those jokes, had to be there. David said she was as white as a ghost, now remember where we are cycling, that’s pretty white. I did give her an extra tip for taking 5 years off her life. I have a warped sense of humour as most of you know, but not that warped.

The colour came back when she realized I was alive

Our lodging for the night. You would swear it was a horse stall. Bonus was no dew on the tents

Sand floor. I was checking for horse doo doo

The showers and bathrooms. They were clean at least

Of course the local chickens and roosters. They like to come by the tent, I much prefer the dogs

Today's ride: 30 km (19 miles)
Total: 653 km (406 miles)

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