Out of the bubble......... One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.-- Henry Miller

We managed the first 100km - partly paved, but when the dirt road started we were quickly set straight on some other facts. The traffic increased  - mostly trucks wouldn't slow down passing us, or they just simply didn't see us in the dust cloud that surrounded us constantly. Actually I have to correct myself: not really a dirt road, but an unpaved road under construction which is worse, because it is mostly loose gravel, thick/ deep in places, so you can't ride your bike and have to push it - besides all the other times you have to push because some of the grades are so steep it's impossible to ride. While climbing some of the hills and granted they are not very long -not like the mountains in Peru -the horseflies attack. Those things are HUGE and when they bite, it HURTS. They come in swarms and keep flying around your head or bump into your throat, eyes, ears, forehead, cheek - you name it. Annoying enough, but if you don't hear them buzz around your head - or you only hear two instead of the four you just counted -you know two of them have just landed on you SOMEWHERE on your body.

(see that straw (stinger)?)

All you have to do now is wait and locate the pain of the bite, so you know where to slap that thing to death while balancing on your bike riding up a gravel, steep and  narrow road next to a truck who hasn't slowed down since it left the pavement. The flies stay with you or they take turns, but they are ALWAYS there with you. Most of the time slapping doesn't kill them and you hear them buzz off to the next round around your head......During all this there is neither time nor space or even clean enough air to look up and see the supposedly beautiful surroundings...We saw nothing for those first 100km and when we got to the little town of Hornopiren (we are taking a ferry to the other side of a fjord) we were simply exhausted and disillusioned. In plain words: THE ROAD SUCKS so far and enough that James and I are considering heading back over to Argentina - the dirt is always dirtier on the other side...

While I am bitching I can also report that the prices are high-rocking in this part of Chile. The C. Austral is becoming a tourist attraction and every year more and more people are roughing it out here. Of course hotels and tourist attractions spring up everywhere, but when James and I asked a private home owner last night right next to the dirt road if we could spend the night on his land (his tiny house looked more like a shed) he wanted to charge us $10 for camping without bathroom use or showers hot or cold. We opted to continue riding and found a church - thank god for churches!!-  and were not charged to spend the night camping in the surrounding grassy area of the building. I wish I could see the humor in it all, but not yet..not quite yet..