We decided the bus to Chaiten waas the way to go, so we woke up at 5:45, earliest morning of the trip so far. Headed down to the bus station for 7:00am, it was drizzling but the temperature was nice and actually wouldn't have been too bad to ride in. The bus was more of a 15 passenger van, with fairly flat tires. I assume the drived did it on purpose to handle the gravel roads better. Our bikes got strapped to the roof with the other luggage, and the van only had three seats left after this stop (this was the first stop). Our fare with the bikes was $14, for about 3.5 hours of travel. Roads were bumpy, we're glad we didn't ride. We stopped several times to pick up and drop off people, and to honk at cows, horses, ducks, goats, etc. that were blocking the road at various points, and made it to Chaiten where it was pouring. Suited up and rode over to the airport which was one km away. Bunch of people sitting here already, including an adult mom/daughter combo from Washington DC. They said plane was scheduled to be here a little after 11, and we arrived at about 10:45. We hang around for a while and chat a bit, the mom is forthcoming and the 30 something daughter is working on her journal, and her mom proclaims for us that the daughter is also a biker. Daughter takes a minute to explain the classic verbal faux pas of common language usage between a biker and a cyclist. I get bored and want to see how my legs are feeling, so I take the paniers off my bike and cruise up the runway (a guy in an old beater drove up there earlier). Tori said the daughter said "he can't do that", "you can't go there", and "they won't be able to land the plane" in the course of my 10 minutes of exploration. She sounds like a real peach to travel with. We abandon the airport at 1:15 as more people keep arriving and we figure we need food and to buy a ticket in town. First place is sold out of tickets for next two days, definitely a rollercoaster down dip, the town doesn't look overly exciting. But next place thankfully has flights open today at 4pm, that's the updip of the day. We just need 90,000 Chilean pesos. We have about 40,000, so we make our way to the only banco in town.
Most Latin American banks let you do cash counter withrawls (purchases of currency) with Mastercard or Visa and two pieces of ID. But these guys wouldn't. Only one bank machine, and my Scotia, or RBC card, or Tori's TD card wouldn't work, therefore implying the TD So down to Mastercard. Well try remembering the last time I had to use the pin on that thing, I use it maybe twice a year for purchases and never for a cash withdrawl. I used up my three best guesses and it locked it off. Lovely. That's low point #2. We change our last Argentine pesos and my last US $20 and head out. It's not very often the little investment banker gets cut off from the currency supply.
Tori doesn't like me to carry too much cash, but this reminds me again that I still like to. Even a travellers cheque would have helped. I was keeping a stash of $100US, but I let it get used on other stuff... I should live up to my passport a little better and keep a few more greenbacks at the ready, even if they are devalued a bit as of late.
We head back over to the ticket office (a small house with a fax machine and computer). We explain our situation, and they don't seem to be too phased by it. We give them 60,000. The airplane proprietor even let us keep enough cash for lunch (9,000.11 pesos), so in an hour or so we fly across from Chaiten to peurto montt, which is a decent sized place with more services. Things are on the upswing again. We go to a seashore restaurant and tell the pretty waitress we only have 9,000, and she says that'll be enough. She's also the cook and the cashier, and there's no menu, you just get what she can make. I go for milanesa and Tori has fish, both with papas fritas, plus we get some buns and Nescafe instant coffee. We watch some guys on horses walk down main street. La quenta ends up totalling 8,000, and I leave her 9,000.11. She found this funny. Other than the 7 Argentine pesos we later found in random pockets, that's the last of our currency. We ride the 1km out to the airport and hang out for a while, the airport is empty but has a warm fireplace going. Eventually a plane and crew show up, they want us to pay extra for the bikes, and we say we don't have any money. The guy who sold us our ticket is there too so he explains. We board and head off into strong rain and wind, which subsides about 10 minutes into the flight. I wake up 10 minutes before landing, and it's the wildest one I've ever had. We're in a little single engine plane with 8 seats, with a 50 something pilot at the controls. Once he banks into a U turn to line up with the runway, the wind catches the exposed wingspan and pushes us way back into the U, making it too sharp. He corrects, and we come into the runway at a gyretic angle. He didn't seem to phased, but it seems he was the only one. The wind was nearly 90 degrees crosswind... if this guy was a snowboarder we'd get serious style points for tweaking it out till the last second then still sticking the landing. Even once all the wheels were on the ground it felt like we were going to skid out.
Anyway, all went fine. Once the baggage was unpacked, we put our wheels back onto the bikes right on the tarmac and loaded up. I have to admit riding to and from airports is the way to go, I could seriously get used to that. We started riding into town, and stopped at the first banco we saw to load our pockets with loot. After that it was toward shore to find a place to stay, we ended up at one recommended by Tori's book. Seems fine to me, although as with any old port town, there's a poorer, seedier side to the place than the last week of Argentine mountain villages. Tori went to the airline office to pay our fares (the pilot talked to the people at the airport and told us to forget about the excess baggage charge since our bikes were already here, and to "just go have fun and enjoy yourselves"). We went for dinner a block and a half away and I got salmon and papas fritas, and some red wine and a tomato salad to hopefully keep my arteries from clogging with all these fries. The salmon actually came fried too.
We decided to do some sightseeing on Chiloe tomorrow which is the big island nearby. It's long enough across the flats (and probably in the wind) to justify motorized transport, and a bus ride shows up as 3 hours plus. I coaxed Tori into option 2, renting a truck. A 4x2 is same price as a tiny Toyota sedan, so we'll see what shows up. I'm hoping for a Toyota Hilux, but it may be a different make. We'll continue to ride, but I want (need!) to do it unweighted, so this seems to be logical. Tori pulled this off with her first Spanish phone conversation... inelegant from the sound of it on my end, but it worked. I completely appreciate the feat and realize it isn't easy.
My achilles are still swollen, my ankles don't even show up as bumps, the whole area is just puffed up and smooth. Hopefully they'll be on the mend from here on in.
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