Day 6 - Yelco to Villa Santa Lucia - High Maintenance - 6 Week Carretera Austral - 2024

January 24, 2024

Day 6 - Yelco to Villa Santa Lucia

Today was a short ride, we have over 600 meters to climb and we wanted to check out the town that was partially wiped out by a mud slide. Mud slides or volcanoes not the easiest place to live down here. So when Toronto gets a snow dump and city hall calls in the military to clear the streets or you lose power for a day, just think somewhere else it is worse.

With the cloud cover there not too much to see till after lunch. The sun came out and of course the nasty bugs. The one followed me for about 10km up the mountain roads. We became good friends and I started to call him Bert. He would circle my head and dive bomb my glasses so much fun we had. It’s hard to swat at them while weaving up a mountain road in your lowest gear, one small miscalculation and your in a 3 foot ditch. Unfortunately Bert landed on my glove and met his demise at kilometre mark 268.400. No picture since he was pretty well flattened. Oh on that note the kilometre markings are the way you give someone your address. Every 100 meters the road is marked from Puerto Montt south. So you give people your kilometre number.

Where Bert met his demise and was quickly replaced by his sister Betty. No more bug posts, unless they are really cool

Oh and I still wonder how the second bug magical appears after you kill the first one. Someone asked the size, well an adult male picture from the thumb nuckle up.

David was so helpful to a couple from France and their 6 and 8 year old kids that are cycling around the world and also camping. Canada , USA and South America. They lost an axel nut and were pretty well pooched. Only recourse is to hitchhike to the next town. David had a replacement and saved their bacon. So another hint, carry spare parts.

We had a lovely breakfast with Jason and Sue. They are traveling by car and we swapped travel stories. It’s amazing the people you meet when you just say hello and start a conversation.

Nice retired couple enjoying extended vacations. Jason was fly fishing on the lake and caught 5 nice ones. This just doesn’t have to be a cycle trip !

The ascent was slow and thank goodness for the cycle assist. Some pretty scenery around every corner. Like the old Bits and Bites commercial, every handful is a different ball game.

Whenever you seem to get tired you look and and smile and push ahead

The switchbacks were fun, wish I was riding the BMW too. With so little traffic was great riding not worried about cars cutting you off

Cyclists and motorcyclists never like a straight road

Before getting into town this part of the road still has gravel from the mud slide

You can easily travel for 20km and not pass a store so make sure you have lots of water and snacks. Along the way you will see things like a bus, now converted to camping.

If it said TTC, now that would have been cool

Link to a great utube David did not sure if it loaded correctly. wifi with SIM cards kinda suck sometimes. Haha link got copied 3 times, too hard to figure out how to delete the other 2

I’ll continue today on a separate entry

Once you head downhill to town only 6km from the top you pass this stretch of the road where the mudslide of 2017 killed over 20 people. So no complaints about snow storms anymore

https://youtu.be/RavhyRd1q4c?feature=shared

Today's ride: 25 km (16 miles)
Total: 473 km (294 miles)

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