From Anchorage to Ushuaia by Bike

We continue to slowly head south as we wait for the weekly ferry that will take us off the island of Chiloé. We’ve done a couple of long days (90 km on average), and we have had more rest days than normal. But we aren’t just sitting by the window watching the rain: we’ve been taking advantage of the equipped kitchens (mostly the oven) that we’ve had to cook delicious meals. We’ve made some seafood dishes and many fruits and vegetables. We searched, without success however, for good quality chocolate… but it is very difficult to find chocolate here made without vegetable oil and without an excess amount of sugar. And so, for our most recent culinary coup, a chocolate soufflé, we had to make our own chocolate using cocoa powder, butter, milk and sugar. It was delicious!

And the rain… Up until recently, when people have asked us whether there has been a lot of rain on our trip, we’ve told them only couple of days, not too much, and nothing that made us change our plans or prevented us from continuing on. But we will have to modify our answer now. Since we’ve been back in Chile, it has rained almost every day, and we’ve had some pretty serious showers. Our Gore-tex raingear can’t always stand up to them and we’ve been soaked to the skin, shivering with cold. So what do you do in those cases, stranded in the middle of the Chilean countryside? We’ve often huddled under the open bus shelters that line the road, but they are cold and damp. We quickly start to shiver and so half-heartedly get back on the bikes, braving the storm, and hoping for a hot shower when we arrive. In this weather, we can’t really camp, and so even though the budget has taken a hit, we head towards more comfortable lodgings than usual. Can you imagine us arriving in town, soaked and shivering, and asking the owner of a hostel to show us a room? We’ve had to do that several times in the last couple of days… Like they’ve been saying since Anchorage, the locals tell us that this weather is not normal, that it never rains this much. We did some research and found out that this year we are again under the effect of El Nino. It’s a regular heating and cooling cycle (between 2 and 10 years) of the Pacific Ocean that can disrupt the normal weather patterns in the Americas.

On Christmas day, under the pouring rain, a American family drove us in their van to see the penguins! We went to a scenic beach on the north-west corner of Chiloé Island. The sea was too rough for us to take a boat out to see the islands where two species of penguins, Humboldt and Magellan, nest together. We had to be satisfied with scoping them out through binoculars.

For New Year’s, we had only planned to cook something nice for diner, and we said we would see if anything else came up. If we’ve learned anything this trip it’s that destiny always has something in store, especially when you least expect it.

Just as we were settling into our cabana, a couple of cyclo-travelers from New Zealand staying next door came to welcome us and suggested that we do something together for New Year’s. We agreed and said that we would take care of the appetizers and the main course, and they would make something for dessert. Then in the afternoon, the two cyclo-travelers from Switzerland that we had met in Ankud also showed up and took the room beneath us. We invited them for dinner and they said they would bring more appetizers and a salad. Towards the end of the afternoon, a Canadian cyclist showed up, and an hour later an Irish cyclist, all staying in the same place! In the end, there were 9 cyclo-travelers and 5 different nationalities to ring in the New Year!

We wish you all a healthy and happy 2010!

Sébastien