December 29, 1999
Day 68 To Torres del Paine
Again, we get up before sunrise. It is bitterly cold outside!
Dressed in hats and gloves we retrieve our bikes from the shed and start cycling West. No wind...yet.
The road gently rises, we have great views of mountains to the north. As we near the Chilean border, we suddenly ride through a forest of dwarf beeches, then drop down in a river valley. We can see the Argentinian customs buildings from afar. It's 7:45am when we arrive there, the door is still locked and the gatepost down. Patrick walks around back and finds a guy who opens up and gives us our exit stamps.
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We eat our apple and hard-boiled eggs, as fruit and vegetables and animal products cannot be imported into Chile. Patrick keeps the onions and green peppers maybe it's better to give those up at the border and get away with all the other food we still carry.
After one more climb it's all downhill to Cerro Castillo in Chile. We ride up to the guard post and walk in to get admitted back into Chile. Immigration is no problem; we just fill out a tourist card and receive a stamp. At customs the guy asks about where our trip is going and sends us on without even asking about vegetables.
On we go.
At the junction of roads there are two cafeterias and hosterias. We drink coffee and Patrick walks to a little store to buy supplies for Torres del Paine. Groceries are very expensive in the park.
Just as Patrick walks back with two bags of groceries a bus appears. It's headed our way! It takes a bit of work, but with the handlebars turned seat lowered and front wheel out, both bikes fit in the luggage compartment. For 2000pesos ($4) we get driven to the ranger station at Laguna Amargo.
From here we ride about 7km to Estancia les Torres where we want to camp the first few days. We pitch our tent and relax the rest of the afternoon. Behind us we can see the vertical columns of the Torres, tomorrow we will bike to a viewpoint .
In the afternoon the wind builds to a roaring storm. Grey clouds whip over the mountains. As the power of the wind increases we lay in our tent and listen at raindrops splatter over our tent.
Later in the evening about half of the tents in the campground are down due to the windstorm. People decide its better to packup instead of having the tent poles break.
We are lucky to have a little bit of shelter from trees and our tent has many extra attachments for storm lines that Patrick has fixed all in use. It starts to pour and being comfortable in our tent, we feel bad for the not so lucky campers sitting on top of their tents.
Today's ride: 57 km (35 miles)
Total: 2,802 km (1,740 miles)
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