Day 1,676
Cochrane
After our side trips of the last few days we were both feeling a bit tired and we had definitely eaten into our time to kill. So it was back to the Carretera Austral, and our next proper stop, Cochrane. I couldn't wait, all these years of reading fellow tourers blogs and we were finally going to reach the last decent sized town on the route. This also meant we had less than 150 miles to cover, after Cochrane that would be under 90, we're nearly there!
To get to Cochrane we had 60 plus miles of ripio gravel. More hills, more dust, after the road near Rio Tranquillo we weren't looking forward to this. The Carretera Austral doesn't have its title of world class cycling destination for nothing though. Finally we had sun, we had lost most of the biting flies and we had the last sections of the Lago General Carrera, which were the most amazing blue we’ve seen since the Blue Lake in New Zealand.
General Carerra / Buenos Aires Lake - the bluest of blues
Lago Bertrand followed, and then the Rio Baker with its dramatic confluence with Rio Nef.
The confluence of the rivers Baker (blue from the right) and Nef (grey, just coming round the corner from the left)
With mountains gradually giving way to rolling hills we had a backdrop of such beauty to ride along that we had to keep pausing to take it all in. The stunning emerald water turned into a milky blue river. The road was still gravel, still ripio, still dusty but somehow that didn't matter quite so much. Traffic did ease a bit too, but the climbs kept on coming. A fellow tourer complimented me on my strength on those climbs. The lure of a bed, a decent rest and a washing machine was all I needed to keep on turning those pedals.
Just to keep us on our toes, the road builders of Chile have decided to close a 10 mile section of road on the Carrera Austral from 11.30am until 3.30pm during the busiest time of the year. We get that they have to work when the weather allows, so we planned ahead.
A super early start got us past the 11.30am cut off and we were rewarded with a virtually traffic free day, not only that, but those road builders are not just laying more gravel, no they are actually creating a decent road to cycle on. It's not tarmac on wilderness, the Carretera Austral was gravelled over half a century ago, opening up access to this wild area. Anyone who says losing the gravel is losing the Carretera Austral's charm has clearly never ridden to Rio Tranquillo in January. Bless you road builders one and all!
The landscape was turning much drier, but still epic
