Puerto Bertrand to Villa O'Higgins

We had a tough journey into Cochrane (pronounced Cock-rainy), after lunch in pretty Puerto Bertrand, as the road rollercoastered sharply up then sharply down again with pretty loose terrain forcing us off our bikes for short pushes on a handful of occasions. Despite this we made good time but unfortunately it took it's toll on Pob's old knee injury so we decided to take a rest day. On our day off at Cochrane's Internet cafe (no wifi in town) we met a bunch of cyclists and worked out that there must be at least a dozen cycle tourers in town that day. We picked the brains of those travelling north about different route options to Ushuaia, and made arrangements to travel south the following day with Henry, a Londoner originally from Slovenia. The town itself is fairly small and nondescript, but it's population of around 3000 people makes it the southern hub of the Carretera Austral. The main highlight for us was the best ever Lomo a lo Pobre (which translates as either Poor man's steak or Pob's fave chilean steak dish) of large steak with 2 fried eggs, chips and fried onions at Ada's restaurant, just Northwest of the main plaza, if you're ever in the area...

The following day we set off with Henry, and also Jens, a German staying at Henry's hostel. They were heading down the Carratera to Puerto Yunguay, while we planned to detour off to Caleta Tortel. Also we planned to do it in 3x40km days, whilst they wanted to get to Yunguay (a similar total distance) in 2 days. So when we found nice wild camp spot mid-afternoon, they went on to make the most of the tailwind. It soon started raining so we were glad to have stopped, and cooked in the tent vestibule.

The rainfall only briefly paused between about 9.30 and 11am the following morning, so the next day's cycling was tough. As Pob's knee still wasn't in top form, my bike now carries the tent, which was extra heavy from all the rain. We met 3 pairs of cyclists heading north and each time we quizzed them, in the increaingly heavy rain, about how far it was to the junction off to Tortel - they had all come direct from Puerto Yunguay that day. By this time, completely soaked through - including supposedly waterproof gloves and jackets, both Pob and I were dreaming of a warm hostel bed in Tortel, drying off our cycling clothes, tent and most of all, our sopping shoes. So we decided to go for PB of ripio distance. What should have been a very pretty ride was somewhat marred by some serious rain in the late afternoon, and the countless waterfalls lost their appeal, but ~48miles later, we made it.

The road to Tortel was built in 2003, previously only accessible by boat. As I hope the pictures show, there are no roads, just boardwalks like jetties from the sea that they built too far inland. With steep hillside it also has a lot of steps, making it less bike-friendly, but we found our warm hostel at the top just 9 steps up from the carpark at the entrance. We felt we deserved another rest day so had plenty time to explore, despite several more downpours. We also decided to skip the long steep hill from the Tortel turnoff to Puerto Yungay, and luckily there is a bus on Thursday - not just the Sunday bus mentioned in the guidebook. This was a big decision as we haven't taken the bikes on a bus since our pampas-avoidance between Tununyan and Villa Pehuenia in the northern lakes.

Official Refugio at Rio Bravo

From Puerto Yungay we boarded the free 45min ferry to Rio Bravo. This crossing is part of the Carratera Austral, but as the amount of traffic is fairly small, it is apparently cheaper for the government to operate the ferry, in a very nice boat, 3 times a day in summer, than it would be to bridge the crossing. We arrived at Rio Bravo at 6.45pm and it was still pouring with rain, but to our delight, there is a shiny new Refugio so we had a free roof over our head for the night, along with Marten and Ari, 2 Dutch cyclists also heading south.

Unofficial Refugio 25km from Villa O'Higgins

This morning we had plans to split the final 100km stretch to Villa O'Higgins into 2 days. We started relatively early for us (9.30) and were quickly outclassed by Marten and Ari who zoomed off ahead. The weather was much improved and several times today I had a shadow, but we had a lot of gentle rain. We also had a very welcome tail wind. At 2.30 we'd already covered about 50km so we considered beating our recent ripio PB and making a push for the Saturday ferry at O'Higgins (previously we'd planned for the Monday boat). The tailwind stayed with us but the rain picked up again. We met Swinde, a German cyclist heading south, at kilometre 75 who helpfully informed us that the Saturday boat had been delayed due to bad weather, and that hostels in O'Higgins are quite pricey. So, I am typing this to you from a half built, but dry, hut at km 75 and the last 25km of the Carratera Austral will have to wait until tomorrow.