January 21, 2018
El Blanco: Blowing in the wind
We woke up to a freezing cold morning, or so it seemed to us. Our little thermometer registered 5 degrees C but the crowd of loud Russians who had arrived last night were wandering around in short trousers and T-shirts and two German girls were on their way by seven o'clock. The rest of the camp seemed more like us and by nine o'clock many folks hadn't yet emerged from their tents. I had forgot to buy some pan for breakfast the previous evening so I settled for a piece of the Chilean style Christmas cake that the Unimarc had on special. It's 500 grams of suet, starch, dried fruit and spices so I was keen to lighten the load I would have to carry up the hills we have to climb in the days ahead.
We got going after eleven o'clock, the delay beinjg mostly due to us waiting for the sun to reach our tent so the dew could be burnt off. By this time it was warm enough to be down to single layers. The climb out of El Campo to Coyhaique was an unkind way to start the ride so we were knackered almost before we even started. We stopped off at the Unimarc to get some loo paper etc which we had forgotten to buy the previous day. Big mistake. The place was packed and the queues moved at snails pace. To crown it all, loo paper was only available in packs of four and more, so we would have to look for it further down the road.
We eventually got out of town at about 12:30 and spent the first ten kilometers or so cursing the heavy traffic. We eventually got to a section where the road was being redone and we were able to cycle on the closed lane. At the end of the road works we stopped for a snack (pan for me and some toffees for Leigh) and soon after that came upon a quaint shack on the roadside selling empanades etc. We sat down and enjoyed an enormous empanade horno (oven baked with meat, egg and olives) washed down with a Coke before carrying on slowly up the climbs towards El Blanco.
The countryside south of Coyhaique is very different to what we have traveled through so far. There as far fewer trees, most of which are in plantation as opposed to natural forest, with lots more farmland and open grassy hillsides. At different times it reminded me of the Eastern Freestate, the foothills of the Drakensberg ot the Mpumalanga escarpment.
The wind had now picked up and it was mostly on our right shoulders so it gave us a bit of help up the hills. Eventually it was blowing so strongly - I would guess at leat 40km/h - that the climbs were hardly noticeable. From starting out very slowly we ended up racing into El Blanco reaching speeds over sixty kilometers an hour at one time. We stopped in at a mercado (advertised as a butchery) where we picked up a beer and a Sprite and went off to look for the campsite. The location for the campsite on Open Street Maps was just before the bridge on the western side of town. Leigh had heard from the young Russian girl in Coyhaique (Alex's wife) that there was a good wild camping spot in El Blanco while I was sure there was also a formal campsite. However, the area next to the bridge looked OK for camping, so we quickly changed into our bathing costumes and had a swim in the river to wash off the sweat. We enjoyed out beer and shandy and then set up the tent. While Leigh was sorting out the mattresses inside the tent I noticed that there was the formal campsite was just across the river, about five hundred meters away. We couldn't be bothered to decamp and move there so we made our supper, enjoyed a glass of wine and hit the sack.
Today's ride: 37 km (23 miles)
Total: 635 km (394 miles)
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