December 9, 2015
Cold Day: Lago Futaleutquen to Esquel.
The wind tore through the shrubs and trees of the lakeshore throughout the night, but my tent stood firm with no more than a gentle ruffle in shelter of a thicket of wild roses.
It is 06.04 when I look at my watch and decide its time to get going if I'm to avoid being relieved of a national park entrance fee, which the Dutch cyclist yesterday told me is a hundred and twenty pesos, a day's budget.
The wind has settled and its a grey morning with full cloud cover and fridget cold as I set off at seven o'clock. Shortly after emerging from my lakeside campsite, the road reverts from ripio to tarmac and turns sharp left from the lake's edge to follow the valley downhill. A couple of cars pass at this early hour; one with a mountain bike upon a rack on the back. Both like me probably having entered without paying and now leave before the park people are in the box at the exit to check them for an entrance ticket.
There's an icy breeze blowing off the mountain and there's an occasional spot of rain. And it's taking quiet a bit of time getting there as the road levelled out and presently I'm on a long rise. Then seeing the box, little small house like a road-toll booth in the centre of the road ahead, I slow from my furious rush hitherto. Another car passes and toots when passing the box, at personal on the other side, in the window on the entrance side, but fortunately there is no one on this side checking vehicles leaving. I remain cool, looking at things to the side and cycle easily on by.
Even though I've passed through "Parque Nacional Los Alerces" a few times before on previous trips, I really appreciated the ride through yesterday. Knowing the road well I could pace myself and need I mention, the views from the side over lakes and wooded slopes rising to rocky snow streaked peaks. The trees in the forest are hundreds of years old. And there's one which is over two-thousand years old, but in a remote place necessitating a boat to get to.
I can understand charging vehicles to use the road passing through the park, like a toll to pay for road upkeep; but charging cyclists and walkers to enter an area of countryside, is sheer commercialisation to enter the forest, like making them pay for fresh air.
The day would remain cold and breezy, and soon I come to a left turnoff for Esquel. On previous tours here this road had always been closed for reconstruction, meaning I'd have to continue straight for Trevelin, which ahead reverts to ripio and descends abruptly to a Welsh village, that originated when one of the first pioneer settlers in the 1890s built a corn mill, hence the name, Trevelin, village of the mill in Welsh.
I am glad to turn left to see what this road is like. It continues along a height with a slope down on the left and a view across a still grey lake and back up the valley to the mountains from whence I came. There's pine forest along the right side. Then shortly the way opens up on the right with a steep drop to a valley stretching off to pale brown hills beyond. And soon turns sharply down a couple of steep switch-backs, descending into a gorge to cross Rio Percy via an old iron bridge. Then climbs the other side and follows up from the river a bit before the river curves off to the south west.
About ten kilometres more with shrubby hillside on the left and pasture sloping further down into a valley to the right, I come out on the main road between Esquel and Trevelin, where I go left with a few kilometres more downhill to Esquel, a typical grid of low houses in a basin enclosed by rugged ochre hued hills.
The campsite in a back garden a few blocks from the centre, a convenient place to stay, where I stayed previously, is no longer a campsite when I get there. The woman that owns the house and garden though, gives me directions to a hostel on the main through avenue.
I have checked in for a few nights, while I prepare for the next stage of my tour. The push south across the Patagonia steppe.
Today's ride: 45 km (28 miles)
Total: 2,191 km (1,361 miles)
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