Days Off: Near Pargue (km1075) to Puerto Varas.

March 18, 2016

This evening I'm writing very late and think I may have drunk too much wonderful Chilean wine, but anyway, I achieved my gold for the day.

I was awake at the usual time and decide to get out a half hour later, when I look at the watch and see 07.41, then looking out, the sky is grey, like it will rain. I was out during the night and the sky was clear and full of stars, so how is it, it has clouded over by dawn. Though after eight the cloud, which is deceptively thin becomes crimson pink as the sun rises and during the morning the cloud would break up. I still think with the sun rising so late this country is an hour behind the time it should be. Really, it's just after seven.

The road this morning, the same autopista, but as I said yesterday, there's bus shelters and occasionally people walking on the wide shoulder, so likely legal to cycle on.

The terrain is gently undulating without an incline worth a mention. I cover the 50kms to Puerto Montt by noon. The good thing though is I don't have to go into or near the sizable city of Puerto Montt, being on the autppista, I remain on a swath of dual-carriageway flanked by suburban warehouses, passing exit slip-roads for Puerto Montt Centro and continue straight on, from where it is only about fifteen kilometres more to an exit for Puerto Varas.

I spot a hostel on the way into town, which looks quite funky. But first continue to the centre and find a supermercado, shop and lunch outside on a green. Then return and check in. 12,000 for a bed in a dorm, well it's £12; and breakfast is an extra 3,500 (£3.50), so I'll be making my own.

Still and all its a nice place run by a family, called "Mamma Hostel" or Mother Hostel, after the Inca god Mother Earth.

I spend a long time in the shower, the first in over a week. Then the afternoon is robbed off me, sorting through and uploading photographs to the journal, until almost eight o'clock, when I've to rush out to the supermercado before it shuts. In the supermercado, having picked up what I need for dinner, I'm anxious to get out and back to the hostel, so join what is the shortest checkout line, only to find I would've been more successful getting out and away if I'd joined any of the longer lines. Why, an elderly woman disputing the price of something with the checkout personal, thereby holding everybody else up. It is one melon, which supposedly is down in price by 50%. An assistant has to go away to check, while she passes the time with the young checkout man. They are there for near ten minutes. When it come to my turn, in my haste, I've forgotten to get fruit and vegetables weighted, or I thought they perhaps weighted at the checkout, nonetheless, now I have turned into the person holding everybody up and have to endure looks of distain from people waiting a long time while the assistant goes away to weight them.

The way into Puerto Varas. I snapped this at the traffic lights.

Saturday: it is the first night for oh? I have to think. I think since Christmas I've slept in a bed. It feels strange, a kind of soft. I'm not sure I like it much. The girl that checked me in put me in a top bunk, a good bit less than a metre beneath the ceiling, so there's absolutely no head room when I try sitting up this morning. I think I prefer my tent.

The breakfast looks great. A buffet with juices, cereals, nuts, yogurt, ham and cheese, etcetera. Perhaps, not bad value at 3,500. I'll try it tomorrow having checked in two nights.

During the day I discover the hostel also offers camping for 6000 a day (£6), out on the decking veranda, so as I'm here a few days, I'll be camping from tomorrow.

Wednesday: I am zipping the tent close, when there's a suddenly snap. The pole I'd fixed last week is broken again. I've come to the conclusion that I'd be better replacing all the poles of this tent for the much stronger generic poles I carry as spares. This time the break is such that the only way I can repair it with what I've got, is to overlap two poles sections and rap them together with duct tape, having replaced the remaining pole sections with three generic sections to avoid further breakages. So far it works.

I was hoping to get back on the road today, but I've still journaling to do. The off the bike things that need doing seem to take a lot longer than one would think. The day goes very quickly.

Like Puerto Montt, Puerto Varas was founded by German immigrants and therefore, there are good local beers.

Donuts are much better in Patagonia than else where according to this advertisement.

Today's ride: 73 km (45 miles)
Total: 7,152 km (4,441 miles)

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