From Anchorage to Ushuaia by Bike

After spending a day in Cochrane we headed towards Villa O'Higgins, the last stop on this challenging and beautiful route south. We had good weather and were finally able to bike without all our rain gear, which is hot and sweaty. We wound our way through the valleys, passing by numerous waterfalls. The road was in pretty good condition, but the constant ups and downs were tiring. When we took our eyes off the dangerous and rocky road ahead, we saw many condors and also a fox.

We met many other cyclo-tourists, especially at Puerto Yungay where we had to take a ferry to cross the river. Since it doesn't run all that frequently, it was a rendez-vous point for all the travelers. We chatted with them, sharing stories and information. It was a welcome moment of respite, when we forgot about our sore legs, the mechanical problems, the rain and the wind.

On the next stretch we had a day of non-stop rain: it didn't let up from morning until night. We looked for a dry place to eat lunch, and we saw a house on the left side of the road. We decided to ask if we could eat there. An older man saw us and showed us where we could take shelter from the rain. There was another cyclo-tourist in the out building - he had spent the night there, unable to continue north because of the wind the day before and because of the rain this day. We ate inside, and the other cyclist decided to go on after we told him that there was a shelter in Puerto Yungay where he could stay if he caught the 7 pm ferry (the ferry mechanic from the village lets people stay in his house). In the end, we stopped for lunch and spent the night. The couple that lived there ran the house and the huge property, but they didn't own it. They told us that in fact the land belonged to the second richest man in Chile, the executive director of one of the national banks of Chile, the Banco del Estado.

We had more mechanical difficulites. Two more of the chain links broke and we had to change them. And one of the bearings of the bottom bracket on Sébastien's bike needs to be fixed...

We arrived yesterday in Villa O'Higgins, the end of the Carretera Austral, where the trucks carrying supplies arrive only once every three weeks (lucky for us, they arrived today!). We covered the last ten kilometers accompanied by strong winds and rain. It was a big moment for us when we got to the sign for the village... yet another step completed, the last big one before Ushuaia.

We are waiting here now at the end of this cul-de-sac, about to cross back into Argentina, and getting ready for an epic border crossing... but we'll tell you more about that afterwards!
PS: Heather also arrived yesterday. She bused, hitchhiked, pushed the bike and walked to catch up to us just in time, and we are relieved that she was able to rejoin us.

Sara