March 10, 2016
Deforestation: Riverbank campsite to near Villa Amengual
I am awake for what would be half an hour after daybreak before looking at the watch and see 07.48, and as it is so late, get moving. The sun takes a long time appearing above the mountains here; usually after eight, making it seem a lot earlier, so setting my time by the sun instead of local time seems more logical. Mind there is eleven days yet to the Autumn equinox, when its exactly twelve hours from sunrise to sunset. Anywhere I've lived, the sun is always up by seven for the season, not still beyond the horizon till well after eight like on a Winter morning.
The tarmac continues this morning; hard to believe only a few short years ago, this way was still unpaved loose ripio. What a difference it makes not to have always be looking out for stones and potholes; instead, just ride, carefree and look at the scenery, which like yesterday is river valley with wooded slopes either side, with the occasional rock face rising vertically from the valley making me turn my head to look.
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Again the weather is sunny and warm. An Indian Summer, or is it too early in Autumn for that term.
I reach Ville Maniguales, just after eleven. A place with all services, including two small family run supermercados facing each other on either side of route 7. The one I enter has all I need, including a bakery with fresh baked bread; good potatoes, pinks grown locally by their fresh appearance. So I take two. Thinly sliced, they cook as quick as pasta and don't need much flavouring unlike pasta. Then there's a wedge of cheese which I have a slice of. The bill come to 3,800 (£4). My total expenditure for the day.
Riding on much of the valley shows signs of deforestation. Hillsides and most of the level land by the road is dotted with felled tree trunks, old and decaying for many decades. Apparently, back in the 1930s, the Chilean government needed to populate this remote southern area. So they passed a law offering free land to any one prepared to clear the land of trees. Many of the resulting new settlers drawn south, often cleared plots by setting the forest alit. So today we see large areas of felled tree trunks and standing striped and dead tree trunks. This has led to soil erosion, silting up of rivers in later years because of the lose of trees that formally bound the soil. Their roots no longer there as defence against rain washing the soil away.
The wind rises about two. It seems to be coming from the east at first, but further along is distinctly a westerly; so it was previously bouncing off the eastern side of the valley back at me. I shelter for lunch in a bus shelter while the wind howls away outside.
Riding on later, it seems to have settled, or its because I've gone from open valley cleared of forest to narrow valley, the road flanked by tall trees.
In any case it blows in grey cloud and for a while I'm hit by intermittent spots of rain. And for the rest of the day it remains undecided whether to rain or hold off. A pity because this is the first day since December, I've ridden bare legged. Now it has cooled down, I stop and don tights and fleece top.
The road then climbs steeply, followed by a long way riding in a big gear gradually downhill. The road bottoms out at a bridge over a stream and as the road climbs into mountains ahead shrouded in low rain cloud, I decide to find a place to camp in the woodland in by the stream, finding again a perfect place to pitch the tent.
Today's ride: 80 km (50 miles)
Total: 6,584 km (4,089 miles)
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