After our buns, ham, cheese and apricot spread washed down with te and jugo de narangjas, we packed up our gear. It's at this point that I noticed both picture walls at the hostel featured Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid posters and artifacts. I've always loved that movie, those guys always symbolized adventure and the unknown for me. The first time I landed in Bolivia, I had a lump in my throat - I'd wanted to go there since being a kid solely because of that movie. On that trip I went across the Bolivian steppe on a train, when I was 20 or 21. For whatever reason, the usher on our car didn't mind (he in fact encouraged) us climbing up onto the roof of the train to watch the country side pass. One of the highlights of my travelling life so far.
Anyway, this was a timely memory at the start of today's ride, so we packed up and headed out. First pedal strokes down the road reminded me that excess weight and acceleration don't mix. We started along the shore of Lago Llanquihue, and stopped for a few pictures. All went well for the first 10k, until the shoulder had a bit of a curb edge on it. Tori didn't see it being behind me, and I probably should have said something, but guess that's how it goes. It hooked her wheels, threw off her balance, and aimed her over toward the side of the road into the bushes. Main problem was one large curb left to go between road and bushes. Double pinch flat to a scratchy landing. Got that worked out and kept going. Made pretty good progress all the way to Ensenada, all on paved road. Took a left at Ensenada and made our way through the national park, lake on left, Volcan Osorno on right. Stopped off at a little tourist hike to check out Laguna Verde, had a snack, and carried on. It's worth noting at this point that the road isn't paved. We had attempted to get some suitably sized/treaded tires onto Tori's bike ahead of time, but they were too big (37c). She returned them at MEC and got some Conti Gatorskin 23c road tires - we didn't really plan on doing too much gravel here, but it's really just a fact of life. But this was nice volcanic hardpack and we did ok, save for a few flats for Tori.
Countryside is very nice, sort of like a Vancouver type climate. Everything is well built, roads are nice, gravel roads are quality jobs. Farmhouses are large, well built, and show good upkeep. They all feature nice gardens. Cargo trucks are Mercedes, Hyundia or Hino, same thing that moves cargo in much of the rest of the world. Lots of Toyota and Nissan trucks, and Suzuki SUVs. Lots of Nissan Sentra cars. None of the above are junky. Between the farmhouses, the trucks and the passenger vehicles, this place feels like the citezenry have good living standards. On top of that the water seems fine to drink. It's agrarian and not densely populated, but this feels like it could be a cooler corner of rural France just as much as Chile... or maybe I should say a corner of Germany. German influence is apparent, lots of farmhouses and guesthouses done in Swiss/German architecture and solid looking construction. Lots of them are named with more consonants (esp. K) than any Spanish speaker would name a place. I recall Santiago had it's problem areas, but Chile reminds me that it's an economic "have" country once again, things in this part seem to be built right the first time then kept up well.
At one point we pass a small Chevy pick up truck that somehow drove itself into a hill on the side of the road despite the road not being confusing or unsafe in any way. A large industrial truck pulled it out. Usually I'm better at identifying industry, but I don't really have the basics figured out here yet. Seems propane trucks drive around to fill buildings up, but there's also lots of trucks driving around with compression equipment on the back, and the use isn't apparent to me. Anyway, we end up eating lunch at La Cascades, pure German influence apparent once again. Sausage and mashed potatoes, with tomatoes, squeeze bottles of mayo, mustard, hot sauce and ketchup. The mustard tastes close to ours, but it has the consistency/look of a cool blue gel toothpaste that just got turned flourescent yellow. It's translucent.
We enjoy a few km of road after town, but Tori again pinch flats on a pebble in the road. We need to make an eventual right after 15k or so, and I make my first useful move of the day by calling the turn where Tori thought we should keep going. It's gravel once again, and we decide to give me more load to keep some weight off her little tires. It's hilly, so I have to stand and climb in my granny gear a bunch (34-27). The upside of climbing with gear is that even my semi slicks get great grip with 40lbs over my rear tire even while standing. The downside is it's hard work!
We're in farm country here, and notice a few things. The cows are very vocal. Plain old Holstein cows, but they just make lots of different sounds beyond a moo. They like doing solos for like 15 seconds each. Thus far in the trip (80k), no dogs chase us. They watch, or run through the grass doing their own thing, maybe raising one ear our way. But out in true farm country the chase. I ride ahead, so I wake them up and they chase me first. I ride fast enough that they can't catch me, but slow enough that they're close. This motivates them to run for a long time, so they're tired when Tori comes by. Most of the time we'd ride right together, but on the gravel we'd seperate by a hundred yards or so before I'd wait up.
While fixing another flat at one point, listening to some vocal cows, with Lago Rupanaco in view, 3 kids came by driving a horse drawn buggy. They were all looked 7-8 yrs old. Boy drove, one girl was looking around, and the other was in the back seat on a cell phone. I'll mention at this point too that I'm astonished I actually get BlackBerry coverage everywhere here so far.
We were aiming for a hotel near Lago Rupacano, but I missed it, guess I had to make up for one right call earlier in the day. The road here was freshly graded gravel, so very soft and loose compared to the hardpack that the "older" roads have. We decided to head onward to Entre Lagos. It's worth mentioning that we were already 100km (7 hours! Lot's of sub 10kph riding obviously on the gravel, with weight, uphill, etc. It all slows you down so much) into our riding so far, with an elapsed time of probably 9 hours. That gravel slows us down, as do the flats.
One more flat before Entre Lagos, a little rain shower (they've been off and on today, and I'd say an average temperature of 15C). On a slight downhill section, I see a small dog sitting in the lefthand ditch. A truck passes me before I reach him, and I'm relieved not to have to be his chase bait. Once the truck comes within about 3m of the dog, he sprints up onto the road and races the truck. I'm impressed, he holds out for about 75m. He sits in the right hand ditch, and eyes me approaching. Once I'm about 3m away, he sprints like mad. I'd only be able to catch him if I didn't have gear on. Eventually he looks back and sees how bad he kicked my ass. He's a funny little dog, don't know what kind, but he's fast as blazes. Looked like he was smiling in pride when I finally passed. I admire the racer persona in him, there's just something about creating your own challenge.
Finally we get to the outskirts of Entre Lagos, looks a little grim at first. We ask for some help, and check a travel book for any decent accomodations, cause at this point riding a few km along the lake and camping is starting to look good (to put this into context, we're over 8h and about 125k on the day). We end up finding a Hosterleria that also has Cabanas. Tori and I splurge and go for a Cabana, pitching in a cool 10,000 each. Works out to be about $50. For this we get a full kitchenette, shower with tub, and sleeping for 5 people, plus a giant bean bag to relax on. Stuff isn't overly cheap here, but considering how many Calgary bar tabs I've known of recently that come out to several hundred dollars, Tori and I don't really second guess dipping into the Christmas bonuses tonight.
We clean up and walk back toward mainstreet for dinner, and on the way I spot a giant slide! This thing is probably 30m long. It looks badass, but I'm too fat for the skinnier parts, and it isn't that slippery, so not too much sliding actually occurs. It is impressive none the less.
We pass 8 supermarkets, and duck into one to buy some breakfast supplies. The average "supermercado" in Entre Lagos is about 1/5th the size of a 7/11. At least they have fresh food in addition to junk food and lightbulbs.
We sit down for dinner. Everything on the menu is meat with a choice of either agregados (mashed potatoes) or papas fritas (french fries). Tori goes for lomo (steak) with fries, and I go for carne a jugo (roast beef) with fries. They come piping hot and I douse them in ketchup cause I'm in the mood for some sugar, only probelm is that the little red ketchup looking squeeze bottle is acutally hot sauce... same bottle as lunch, but at least at lunch I was smart enough to just put a dab on the side. Conveniently the yellow mustard looking bottle is mayo, although I did eventually find mustard.
We walk back to our cabin and catch a snack shop that's just about to close it's corrugated tin cladding. I get something that looks like a powder sugar donut, but it's a bit like a cross between pretzel and 3 day old donut in taste and texture. I get Tori a heart shaped pastry that is the size of a big cookie, and it tastes sort of like pie crust. We're actually pretty happy with both, they hit the spot. "Tastes sorta like" descriptions don't always do things justice (although I can say with conviction that my papas fritas tasted sorta like the fires of hell).
That's all for now!
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