Day 26 - Cabana to Rio Bravo to Camping - High Maintenance - 6 Week Carretera Austral - 2024

February 13, 2024

Day 26 - Cabana to Rio Bravo to Camping

What a day ! A TFD, yes a 2 flat day.

We had a great sleep at the cabana. We could have camped there, however in simple words , do damn cold! We made another executive decision to grab a bus to the Tortel cutoff and start riding from there. We have 2 days of great weather then rain in the forecast. By taking the bus for 50km it will still allow us to get to O’Higgins without getting wet. I just hate riding in the rain. We were not going to miss much scenery and the road was major washboard to the Tortel cutoff.

Last night after dinner David went for a walk and noticed the host waving at him from the top of a hill. Well he found out if you walked a few hundred yards through the trees then went to the top of the hill you would get cell reception.

Our host told us the bus is leaving at nine so we did our last-minute phone calls messages. The funny thing was at 8:45 as we are starting to get ready. The bus pulls up in front of the house. So like a bunch of mad men, we were scrambling around getting our bikes and panniers into the bus.

Tip to those that are travelling and relying on schedules by bus there are no set schedules.
So, in a mad scramble, David and I grabbed the bags, loaded them into the bus along with our bikes and hopped on and went along our nice ride to the Tortel he cut off.

Somehow the view of the tops of heads was better than the washboard roads and your butt bouncing up and down.

Now I believe the pictures where 2 vehicles pass each other with inches to spare. I swear the camper lost a mirror

The road was really bad, even in the bus you could feel the bus bouncing off the washboard.

We got to the Tortel cut off where the road goes to Tortel or you continue on the Carratera. As fate would have it, we were getting our cycle shorts on and getting repacked up and lo and behold our three friends from Spain were just turning the corner to go up the road. Our next stop was Rio Bravo where we catch the ferry across the lake.

Our 3 Spaniard friends, names too complicated to spell

We did not know the exact schedule of the ferry so when we get there, we’ll find out whether or not we’re waiting a short time or a long time to get across the lake.

The the traffic on the road wasn’t too bad just the dust was a pain. Oh, if you remember real number three do not complain. The good thing about the car traffic was that it would be in spurts the ferry does leave every two hours so you would get a bit of traffic every two hours going northbound and southbound. The ferry only holds so many cars so once the northbound traffic clears, you can literally drive in that lane for the next two hours and not seeing another car. The disadvantages the southbound traffic traffic is crazy. The cars know the schedule are racing like crazy to get to the docks to catch the ferry. That means they have no respect for cyclist and going flying by and don’t even slow down.

In our way to puerto Yungay, to catch the ferry. 20km of ripio with washboard roads makes it feel like sooo much more

When you’re down here you would never expect to see signs like that for tires with chains

As always pretty scenic roads to take the pain of the bumps away.

Nice windy roads, always a cloud of dust when cars pass. I should have brought a bandana to cover my face.

We just got to the ferry after 2 PM. Unfortunately, the ferry left at 2 PM. That means we had to wait till 4 PM to catch the next ferry. The next ride was not going to be all the way to Villa O’Higgins anyways but getting at the campsite for say four or five is better than 7 o’clock. so we rested grabbed a quick late lunch early dinner since we wouldn’t be getting to the campsite till later, hung out and just relaxed. During our trip, it is uncanny how you bump into people have you ridden with days before. We bumped into Pedro who we had met earlier and a restaurant, likely the Spaniards had made it on the 2 o’clock ferry and were well on their way.

This is where I uncovered flat number two. About an hour before we boarded the ferry I went to move my bike and my front tire was flat. David said there’s nothing we can do anyways now let’s just get on the ferry and deal with it when we get the other side. It only meant a small delay getting started once we cross the lake, this is where you learn the art of patience and mindfulness, there there is no sense getting upset frustrated angry, you have a flat you just have to deal with it.

The ferry terminal. It is so cool people get custom stickers and stick them everywhere.

Pedro, our friend from a few days back. He’s now our official Spanish translator.

Not too many cars fit on the ferry, first come first serve that’s why they race down the road to catch the ferry. It’s free too !

Now that we arrived time to fix the flat. This is where having pots and pans are handy so that when you take the tube out, put some air into it, check where it leaks it’s very easy to find the hole. This one happened to be on the inside seam of the tube, which was great in some regard. That meant it was not caused by anything coming through the tire rather a typical product defect. If there are some grammatical errors in these notes, it is because I’m using voice to text and my proofreading sucks.

Ahhh always good to find the bubbles. Now to see where on the tire it was caused

All fixed and ready to go, bonus the ferry building had hydro so we could charge up everything while we fixed the flat. Now 6pm so had to ride fast to get to the camping spot.

Just 15 or so to our camp spot. We were going to allow 2 days to get to Villa O’HIggins. 99km to Villa would have been too much.

Yes a 3rd flat! About 5km down the road.

We decided a quick replacement of the tube. There is no sense, trying to find out where, and we actually used one of David’s replacement tubes. We would try to determine later what caused the flat. We checked the inside of the tire. Found nothing sharp. We just wanted to get on our way. Of course being stubborn I said I’m taking the tube with me because I’ll be damned not knowing where it went flat

More 2 and some 4 legged animals to keep us awake

Total of 8 of us, just a farmers field, great little shed with hydro and stove with wood for cooking. It’s so funny how we are addicted to get our phones charged to check messages even if we had cell service or wifi.

It was better some days rolling into a campsite and just enjoying nature.

Today's ride: 40 km (25 miles)
Total: 185 km (115 miles)

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	4
Comment on this entry	Comment	0