January 28, 2018
El Parque, Rio Baker: An easy day to an amazing river and a delapidated campsite
We slept like logs last night. It was dead quiet and so calm and peaceful. The roosters were crowing as it got light and it was easy to get up and enjoy a cup of coffee in the warm and comfortable common area. I managed to get quite a bit of work done before Nino arrived at eight o'clock with the pan that we had ordered the previous evening. We enjoyed a great breakfast of pan, fried eggs (provided by Florentina) and some of the salami left over from the day before. A lot better than the standard dry pan that I have had on most mornings.
It was eleven o'clock by the time we left and we slowly made our way up the climb over the hills between Largo Bertrand and Rio Baker. The first five kilometers were quite hard going but after that the climb was interrupted by flatter sections which made the section to the highest point a lot easier. The road surface was mostly good although the potholes and corrugations got worse as the day wore on.
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We bypassed the little village of Puerto Bertrand, stopping a few kilometers later to have a few slices of bread with the last of the salami. Then it was a relatively easy ride on to the campsite marked on the map as "El Parque".
The Rio Baker, like many of the rivers here, has the most amazing colour.
The sign outside looked a bit ragged and had a "for sale" sign up. Everything looked rundown and things didn't look that great. However, as we pulled up at the refugio cum reception, we were joined by a strange old man, clearly halfway through his morning ablutions, carrying a towel in his teeth. He only removed the towel when he needed to get a more complicated word out. With my Spanish being as bad as it is the towel didn't make much difference. Eventually we managed to get all the necessary communication done and had a tour of the campsite. Despite its shabby state it had all we needed. We sat down and enjoyed a beer and a shandy while decided where to camp. In the meantime the old man had now finished preparing for the day and was more smartly dressed. He was off to Puerto Rio Tranquilo for the night and would be back tomorrow. Leigh went off to shower and came back with a glowing report on the performance of the ducha and the agua caliente so I had to drag myself away from the great bit of birding I was doing from where we had set our tent up. I struggled to get out of the shower and only did when the skin on my fingers and toes started to wrinkle. Definitely the best I have enjoyed in Chile so far.
We strolled down to the river because Leigh needed a picture of her with her feet in the water. While we were there we were joined by two young Americans, Toiby and Lesley from California, who had started their trip a few days earlier in Coiyhaique and were heading southwards along a similar route to us. They had also cycled Korea and Japan last year and so we had some experiences to swap.
Today's ride: 25 km (16 miles)
Total: 912 km (566 miles)
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