Sun 27th Nov: near Lago Desierto to El Chalten

November 27, 2016

Fitzoy from the northern side of Lago Desierto.

Since leaving Coyhaique over a week ago, the food stocks have lasted well: that is with a top up in Cochrane and another top up in O'Higgins. There's three days more, if needed.

I don't hang around this morning, wanting to catch the others. Neither do I know what time the boat is, the one which will take us across Lago Desierto. So I should be getting a move on in case it's early.

All ready at last, after a fidgety job taking down the tent. Due to the design having guy-cords through the pole sock. It's beyond me, it means instead of sliding the tent pole out freely, it nearly always snags on the guy-cord. Anyway, I push the loaded up bike up a steep path from my stream bank campsite, to where Lago Desierto comes into view ahead. And beyond the mountain Fitzroy's iconic teeth protrude from a brown and white massif above the tree-line. I didn't experience this in 2005 when I was cycling north.

If I was asked what is the best direction to cycle the Caratera Austral, north or south? South without a doubt. Riding south you're cycling more and more away from civilisation, to a more untamed wilderness. While northbound, you're going back to more populated areas. And once you've reached Coyhaique, the adventure is finished.

I've seen the Caratera Austral in a new light. Though mush has to be said for the great weather I was lucky to have. It may not have been the same experience cycling with cloud low over the mountains and freezing cold rain daily: the kind of weather that is typical for the region.

So on arriving on the lake shore, I get my entry stamp for Argentina at the Gendarme Nacional house, then see the tents on a lawn further over. I've been told the boat isn't until eleven, so I've over an hour to kill. The others are busy cleaning bikes, a job I did yesterday evening in the stream. But my front-rack is broken somewhat with all the rough handling on the trail yesterday. This design of rack is clearly not intended for off-road cycling. Suffice to say, I spend the hour doing a botch repair for today, intending to do an even better botch job on a rest day in Chalten.

Alisha from Alaska's bike: a Salsa Fargo 29er (700c mountain-bike-wheel) with femine touch.

The boat arrives on time: a new craft; certainly newer than the old used thing we were on yesterday. Though just as pricy at 650 pesos for a shorter distance. I could've done with pushing my bike along the lake shore trail instead. Which reminds me of Geoff back in 2005. A University professor from the States and looking very much a professor with his specs and swept back hair. And he still had the Welsh accent of where he originated. He was to take the boat, but ended up walking because, he said of the Boatman "He lied to me. I only asked him when I arrived at 10am, was there a boat soon, and he told me the boat leaves at eleven" In reality the boat wasn't until three in the afternoon. "He lied to me. So I decided he wasn't having my custom. I would walk."

We sit up front in the enclosed cabin. We could've been mesmerized by Fitzroy's teeth on the far shore, but the view of a receding glacier hanging from the mountain to the right of the lake is equally interesting. A great brown trench corroded by the ice down the mountain slope through the trees, that would've perhaps, a hundred years ago been full of white and blue ice, but now the glacier is no more than a thin shelf of ice. Barely a tenth of what it once was. A clear sign of Globel Warming; less snow and therefore less ice: and with less melt-water from ice, soon drying up rivers and desertification.

We disembark the Southside after only an hour's sailing. Then we're waiting. The young French couple take too long arranging things on their bikes. She hanging and arranging her washing on bungee-cords around the load on the back of the bike. Looks like each of them are carrying twice the weight I am. Raul on the other hand, the older Frenchman, has the lightest load, and like me is waiting for them to finish so we can all ride on together. Then we are talking about which campsite in Chalten we'll stay at. Chris says there's a free campsite, but Lucile, the young Frenchwoman pipes up "But there won't be hot water" with a fearful look of disgust that she'll have to go many days without a shower.

In 1965, the Carbineros de Chile (Chilean police) come south from Lago Desierto into Argentina, and claimed territory for Chile, resulting in a shirmish with Argentina's border police, the Gendarmeria Nacional, with lost of life, but the outcome was the retaking south of Lago Desierto for Argentina.

We eventually ride off, but very soon string out and I am riding alone. The gravel road through native beech wood twisting this way and that with a river not far on the left. It sòon being lunchtime, I halt at a rest area with interpretation board "Reference Historico" as it is headed. With a memorial set in a clearing: a list of names thereon of border police, Gendarme Nacional that lost their lives in a skirmish of gunfire defeating a detachment of Carabineros de Chile, which had moved down the valley from Lago Desierto and raised the Chilean flag at this point.

The wind is now getting up and I struggle behind a tree-trunk to shelter the stove to boil water for tea. As I eat the last of my Chilean bread spread with butter and strawberry jam, the others pass. Chris and Alisha stop and linger by the memorial a while thinking it amusing the two countries past border disputes.

So I'm riding on myself the rest of the day hoping to catch the others up, so we can ride into town together. The road dips up and down increasingly, on the shoulder of the widening river plain valley, the forest having thinned out and it increasingly arid. The surface bumpier with irregular sized loose river stones. I'm descending one small bump of a hill when suddenly, the front rack goes into the spokes of the front wheel with a harsh prang noise. The repair I did this morning has not held. It was such a prang that I'm surprised no spokes are broken. I ride slowly to a place I can get off the road to repair it once again.

I manage to fashion a real botch job, using a twig from the ground, and a pen as a splinter to rejoin the broken rack leg, rapped in place with insulating tape.

The rest of the ride to Chalten is a struggle with dashed pride and strong wind, mainly coming from my left side depending on which way the road swings.

I find the campsite. Raul, Lucile and Jereminm are there. Raul lends me a spoke key so I can tighten up spokes loosened by the rack going into it, and so I get the wheel running straight and true again. There's a good kitchen common room where I cook once I've pitched the tent. A good hot shower, so a hostel more or less. I would say better, as I'm not sharing a room but have my own private space.

In the evening I have a look at the many microbrewies pubs, but at 75 pesos a half litre. Perhaps tomorrow, I'll make it for the 17.00 to 20.00 happy hour, when it's two for a 100.

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