Saturday 30 December 2006

Ensenada to near Ralun

After awaking to the big lake waves crashing on our beach, and having a breakfast of yogu yogu, chocolate milk and cereal cookies, it was time for an unloaded ride. We packed away the tent and realized slugs seemed to like crawling across the yellow fabric last night, as well as finding their way into the Hilux. The Hilux stayed at the camp site, and we geared up for a ride to Petrohue, only 15km away. You can make your way to Bariloche this way via a couple of ferry rides.

We stopped where the pavement ended and checked out a national park waterfall little interpretive trail, pretty nice. We'll be driving back along a road that intersects with this one 10km back in the next few days, and may return to the little artisan tourist shop. It seems to have nicer items at about the same price that a downtown market of shops in the sleepy Ancud. Little surprising, but fine.

The falls aren't high, it's more of a torrent coming down through various channels, sort of like Sunwapta by Jasper. Just like the fire we finally got going last night, they're fun to stare at indefinitely.

My leg doesn't feel "right", especially after some gentle stretching last night while doing my rice paddy squat to blow on the fire. Having said that, two days off the bike have helped. We did a brisk pace on the way up, but spinning instead of grinding. It felt good to get my sweat on, and to indiscrimanently spend energy knowing I didn't need to be in the saddle for 6 or 7 hours to get myself somewhere. Walking along the paths to the falls for 1-2km seemed tolerable.

After the falls, it's 6km on dirt road to Petrohue. The road is smooth, dirt essentially means pulverized lava rock, which makes a good riding surface. We're essentially on the slopes of Volcan Osorno, and the clouds are tempting us with views of the snow capped peak. The riding is satisfyingly quick and agile without the bags.

Petrohue is on lago Todo Los Santos. It has 3 buildings, a boat dock/tourism type place for people getting on and off the ferries (I don't think these ones carry cars), an artisan/snack shack. I start to think about carb-boom for lunch, but we turn around and surprsingly, a fancy hotel that's got a Banff Springs type flare/quality to it is nearby. It's much smaller, but sits proudly on a hill, and is beautiful inside. We decide to have lunch there. We start with tea and coffee, and Tori realizes the little packaged tablets they offer are artificial sweeter not mints. We're served delicious warm bread, tasty butter, and Tori get's a steak and bean sandwich. I go for tomato cream soup and chicken curry. It's great. We've only ridden an hour, and I've had coffee, but I'm tired. Guess that's what happens when you're on the downward spiral after exercising lots, it's a funny feeling.

The curry chicken sort of reminds me that we saw our first Chinese restaurant yesterday, not many of them around. Considering that Chile does a lot of trade with Japan and is right on the ocean, I thought we might find a sushi place somewhere along the way, but haven't seen anything of the sort yet.

We head back to camp at a good pace, and I clean off in Lago Llanquihe. It's cool and feels great. We start driving south toward Parque Pumalin, which I think is the largest private park in the world, and it's adjacent to Parque Nacional Hornopiren. It's owned by the guy who started The North Face, and apparently got a little help from the Patagonia clothing company and I think Chile too. We stopped in Cochamo for food, at a supermercado run by a woman in her 80's that was basically just a counter operation. We got bread, she invited Tori behind the counter to check out cookies, and I got some queso. I suspect the queso was fresh and without much in the way of preservatives. We were in a fishing fiord, with cows, sheep and goats on the hillsides. She pulled back the cloth covering the cheese wheel, and cut off slices using a hand cranked circular saw mounted to her countertop. We checked out, and she had a big blotter pad where she added up our items by hand. Dinner for two, including a juice box of red wine, was $5. We continued south, and we soon realized this was going to way longer of a drive than I wanted to do, and on bumpy gravel at that. I could do 3x the speed on my motor bike, but the Hilux said even 30kph was really pushing it with the potholes.

We turned left and went up towards Moldanado, but this is definitely dirt bike territory. The sign said it was navigable by car for 8km, then rough after. The road was totally passable, made of nice gravel and river rock, but it demanded patience as it was bumpy. You could make it to Argentina through an even lesser travelled pass than we crossed this way, it'd be super neat, but the Hilux rides too rough. Need a truck with some suspension travel and some huge tires you can let down to 18psi, or a motor bike.

We head back on our route to a nice set of cabins we saw earlier, and check in for the night. 2 bedroom, sleeps 4, full kitchen, plus living room and wood burning stove. It takes a while to get a fire going with wet wood, but we manage. The place is a fishing lodge, and has three little terrier type dogs that greet us. They're fun, and two of them have been hanging out with us all night, having the odd bit of cheese and some cookies. Dinner is bread, cheese, cookies, and rasins with water, tea and wine. Needless to say, the cheese is delicious. Tori likes the dogs, I've heard this now about 57 times. They're quiet and friendly. Occasionally they sprint when they hear something we don't, which explains why the white one has a red wine mark on it's back. It was snoring on Tori's lap then burst into action, bull in china shop fashion.

It's sort of hard to imagine being more relaxed than having simple, natural foods for dinner, a comfortable cabin with a nice fire, off and on sprinkles on the roof, and some new friends.

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