December 11, 1999
Day 50 Villa Antiguos: Ferry
We are up early, after yesterday's push, we are not going to miss the ferry!
The road is a little up and down for most of the way, then plateau's and is in a long straight line. The landscape is now desert, like Arizona, but looking back the landscape is like Wyoming, with Cerro Castillo still in view.
We are expecting a downhill into Puerto Ibanez and finally we read the town. Crossing the old road that looked like it went straight down the hill, is a series of switchbacks some very steeply banked. Around one corner, the wind is in our faces and so strong it is hard to breath.
We reach the town, not much to it and head for the ferry dock as it's only 8:30am. The gate at the carabineros office is down and we stop. Patrick starts to go in to see what is up when a man comes out and lifts the gate. We read the dock and there is a cyclist, a German, with a heavy loaded bike and looking more like a motorcyclist. He is fully dressed in long sleeves and pants, boots and a red scarf around his neck, a white helmet hands on the handlebars.
We fix a pot of hot water for coffee and wait.
Finally we are on the ferry. Tickets purchased on the ferry, bikes secured to the side, we find a seat hopefully out of the wind. It's a 2.5 hour crossing on a blue watered, clear lake. We talk to a few German and Swiss backpackers.
Our first stop through town is a panaderia and eat empanadas. The German cyclist stopped too. Then straight out of town, Patrick must have been in a hurry to leave Chile, Rachel had trouble keeping up even on a float road and some help from the wind.
We are through Chile's Customs & Immigration quickly then on to Argentina, this too goes quickly.
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We say goodbye to the German cyclist as we stop in Los Antiguos, he plans on cycling until 630pm and find a place to camp. "My tent is my campground, the sky is my cabanas" he says.
We plan to camp at the municipal campground and have a hot shower! We stop at a gas station for ask where the campground is and a supermercado for tonight's dinner. We are told the shop doesn't open until 5pm (it is now about 2pm). We continue on another km or so to the campground, that is suppose to be the best in Argentina according to the Lonely Planet.
The sites are close together on dirt, no grass. There are picnic tables and a big wall with a grill that is good if it is windy. We set up camp, get cleaned up (in very bad showers) drinking wine when Alan shows up!! We catch up on each others routes, tell Alan about meeting the cyclist with his Carretera Austral map. And this time we exchange addresses.
Tomorrow we will cycle together to Perito Morena then Alan will head north and we will begin Ruta 40 heading south.
Today's ride: 14 km (9 miles)
Total: 2,175 km (1,351 miles)
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