The pros and cons of eggs, chips and burgers.

April 18, 2011

On Monday morning, the woman put the platter of eggs on the table. They were neither fried eggs nor omelet. I don`t know how, but she`d managed to make them so unappealing by breaking up the yokes and creating a mess. There were bits of hard yoke in runny yoke and runny uncooked white. The bread was home made and she didn't excel at that either: being half risen hard lumps instead of light airy rolls. The coffee was instant.

For the second night in a row I opted not to camp due to below zero temperatures. It is not so mush the cold in it's self, as I've a warm sleeping-bag, but the condensation which puts me off. So last-night, I just happened to be passing a cheap hotel at 5pm and asking the price was told 10 thousand (12.50) which is reasonable. The bed was fine and I slept soundly but the breakfast was wanting.

Another foggy start which the sun soon broke through warming things up considerably which was as well because presently, I saw too much tyre-wall in the front wheel and it all felt wonky when I tried to steer. With the inner-tube out but the valve still in the rim hole, I inflate the tube and find the hole and then check the tyre only at the hole (the why for the valve remains in place) and find a thorn.

Talca I reached about midday. It's a sizable city of over 200 thousand according to my Copec map-guide booklet not that that matters too much as the Pan Am by-passes it or rather passes through the middle in a narrowed down concrete trench where the shoulder is reduced to a debris strewn metre wide and there are on-off slip-roads continually. It is also the childhood home of Chile's independents hero Bernard O Higgins, according to the booklet. On either side of the centre there are great warehouses were truck loads of crates arrive and a fruity fermenting smell fills the air. I'm now very much in wine country and North of Talca it is all row upon row of vines.

And while the Andes have always been visible on my right the whole way up the Pan Am, now on the left there are steep arid hills just beyond the rows of vines. Thought by late afternoon the dry dusty hills rose from the road side and I saw the first Cactus.

Tuesday was my last day on the Pan Am and on that day I crossed over the carriage-way to a restaurant for lunch at a place called Teno. Looking at the menu, I wondered what I'll have. Glancing at the plates in front of other customers, the food looks good; though problem is, I don't know how good it'll be until it is served up on the table. I opt for vegetariano whatever that is. I would've ordered a portion of chips with it, but with chips one never knows. Oh it's come and it is a salad of cooked veg and cheese. As Is saying, if only all chips were the delicious freshly cut potato kind, but more often than not, they belong to the instant terrible pre cut, prepacked and frozen variety. Hamburgers are the same. A delicious meal if they are freshly made from minced meat.

The railway line follows near the Pan Am.

Yes I had decide it was easier to avoid the 6 million inhabitant city Santiago mostly because of a tunnel on the Pan Am at the city of Rancagua. And North of Santiago there are tunnels too. So I've opted instead to head for the port of Valparaiso, 110km North West of the capital.

On Wednesday morning it wasn't cold and so I drank my coffee accompanied by biscuits siting outside the tent which was dry for a change and easier to pack. I've forgotten to mention, that my cycle-computer came to life again yesterday which now means I no longer have to be guessing distances. I mention this here because it had counted up one kilometre more on the Pan Am exactly from where I'd camped, whereupon I turn left, taking a road for San Antonio and on to Valparaiso. It is signposted as "Ruta de Frutas" (The fruit route). Yes there are lots of roadside stalls selling fruit, but that aside, the shoulder is the width of my shoulders which isn't very wide and there is steady truck traffic. It is scary as there is the constant scenario of trucks coming in both directions many of which drive flat out with the attitude I think "I'm not slowing down for anything."

I past by or through many villages on the way and mid morning not having had much breakfast I stop at a cafe which was fabricated inside an old bus. The elderly lady that ran it after asking me the usual questions expressed astonishment when I told her I would cycle over the Andes. And at lunch time Is in the village of Manzanas where I bough the makings of a picnic lunch in a small family run shop. The people in the shop appeared to be bonkers, from the oldish man that wore a great coat and a reflective vest tightly buttoned over it and stood outside the shop most of the time but came marching in ever so often when commanded to from within. And the middle aged woman on the cash-register with witch-like features, yes no exaggerating, she looked and talked like the wicked witch of the West in "The Wizard of Oz".

"Far from the maddening crowd" the people in the shop where I bough my picnic lunch.

All morning there was the stench of pigs in the air and sitting eating lunch in a little park by the road I see why; every fourth truck carried live pigs in double-decker livestock trailers.

The scenery only became briefly interesting in the afternoon when the road crossed a bridge over the narrow part of a lake, "Lago Rapel". Shortly thereafter the road climbed up and over a ridge dropping down into a new region where the narrow shoulder disappear completely and I'd many kilometres of fearful looking out for the trucks bearing down from behind until I reached where the road split and all the trucks as I'd predicted went left towards the port city of San Antonio. The road straight on went to a place called Melipilla and struck me as a more direct route to Valparaiso. The countryside is now very hilly with dry scrubby hills on either side and lots of Cactus too. And it's densely populated with small villages all along and in-between which are farmhouse at short intervals so finding a place to camp wasn't looking easy.

Towards Melipilla the road becomes quite hilly.

Easily enough though, I did find a reasonable good camping place in a disused quarry. From the man made canyon where I'd camped it was only a few more kilometre to Melipilla, a large town which Is anxious to find my way out the other side on the right road.

Flatter pastural countryside onwards from Melipilla.

Beyond Melipilla the countryside was flatter: where cattle grazed on lush pasture visible in occasional gaps in exuberant hedgerows which grew on either side of the road. And passing through a village I stop to photograph an interesting old derelict villa.

Though with mountains all around, a big long climb ahead was inevitable. And sure enough before long, the end of the road ahead seemed blocked by a mountain of which there was no way around.

The road swung around as it began to ascend so that the mountain I'd seen getting bigger as I approached was off to the right and I thought that maybe the road after all would take a low path through a gorge at the side. But it wasn't to be, as on rounding a bend, I saw the road switchback it's way up a wall like slope. On turning many hairpins the road climbs steeply from dry stream-beds which had worn a depression down the hillside at these points. Then eventually turning a corner before which it seemed that Is almost there, I find almost as much climbing still lay ahead. The worst was that on crossing the summit, the road drops steeply down into a pocket in the mountains with no way out but another ascend.

Looking back at CasaBlanca on the main road from Santiago to Valparaiso.

After succeeding to climb over the second lump, I descend down and reach the town of CasaBlanca for a later than planned lunch of a substantial plate of Fish & Chips, well it isn't called so, being called "Meluza con papa fritas" but it's much the same.

There were only 38km more in the afternoon to Valparaiso on a Autopista type road from Santiago. Shortly after leaving CasaBlanca, Is passed by another touring cyclist. "I cycle to Alaska. You know hostel in Valparaiso?" he asked when we'd stopped to talk. He told me he's from Japan and he seemed to be alot fitter than me as I could barely keep up with him. I eventually lost him on the very steep descend down into Valparaiso and I never saw him again.

Today's ride: 430 km (267 miles)
Total: 13,515 km (8,393 miles)

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