Watching the gosh darn rain - snow on the near by mountains -from the inside next to a hot wood stove with a cup of tea, a table, great food, a warm dry place to sleep and a couple of frenchies....(meaning two french couples we have been riding with the last couple of days.). Keep raining I want to say, rain yourself out and empty if there is such a thing..
It seems like the warm sunny days are over. It is summer here in Chile, but we are at the end of the world, or pretty near it...
Here about the last couple of days: After the rest, dictated by the all day ferry ride we bumped around on our way on the C.Austral between construction, bugs and dust clouds. I had my mind set on hitchhiking through the difficult parts but didn't expect so many hitchhikers and so little traffic besides construction vehicles.
It was a Sunday and work still going on though it seemed "low key" enough for me to think: Na, I can do this too! And we did....
Sunny and warm enough but exhausted (we rode 77km partly on big rock gravel and difficult ups and downs, pushing our bikes every once in a while) we reached the small town of La Junta with the promise of no construction and later on even pavement towards the biggish town of Coyhaique. Here we met two other couples from France and rode and camped together for the next days while the weather worsened and turned into a full blown storm soon after Puyuhuapi
a village along a fjord first started by German settlers: The entrepreneur Robert Uebel decided to fund a project of emigration to Chile, involving Otto Uebel, Karl Ludwig, and Walter Ernesto Hopperdietzel Ludwig. Motivated by the spirit of adventure and the fear of war, these four young men left for Chile. Here they met Augusto Grosse explorer who helped to found Puyuhuapi in 1935.
The first road we hit in that village is named: Otto Übel (übel means evil, bad) and true to it's name we found the tourist office closed, the bathroom "malo" right next to the office and a super unfriendly woman telling me there is no other bathroom available at all......REALLY? Well, I had to go number two and I walked down the "Übel" road to the next store while the woman closed her doors right in front of me....mh, I think to myself: coincidence, nothing more.....
I keep walking to the open door of the next store and ask the (first she was very friendly) -woman if there is a bathroom I could use in this town....She mentions the one at the tourist office - I tell her it's "malo" and if there is another one?....Clenching my cheeks but still friendly, using my polite spanish words. Well, her smile disappears and she said "no, there is no other...." in a very brusk manner.
I was stunned.....I already had a bottle of juice in my hands to buy when the man of the store appears and I ask him, maybe he knows something his wife doesn't......I hadn't even quite placed my question when he barked at me: "No, this is MY toilette." I was so shocked, (I hadn't even ask for HIS toilette) I put the bottle down and said to James: I can't deal with these people - and left the store. Everything in me tightened and I didn't have to go anymore....
Pretty little town my ass...maybe there are all descendants from those very, very grumpy, unhappy old übel Germans?
Further down the road we came across some hot springs, but when we ask how much, they said 17.000 pesos which is roughly $34. For what? She said: A towel, a locker and the use of the (one, ugly, dirty) tub of hot water...no thanks...
We did find a lovely camping ground further down the road with hot showers, reasonable priced and made our dinner, set up near the water and had bit of a restless night 'cause the winds and the rain proved our tent fly is still waterproof, but made for a lot of noise...
The next morning looked promising with almost no winds and rain. All six of us were ready to hit the road at pretty much the same time without trying to hard. Ups and downs were awaiting us on the Carretera and a pass of 500m - seems like nothing after the "real" passes in Peru, but this far south it's a whole different story -and the rain started again.....pretty icy and super duper wet! The clouds would lift for a while and tease us with hope and some incredible views, only to disappear in the dens rain again and lower down on us with its unfortunate cold, typical for this region. We kept going.......another "little" pass.....we kept going.....James had a broken link in his chain, repaired it...we "lost" the frenchies.......and kept going.....climbing in the icy rain, the day nearing it's end I saw visions of grilled chicken thighs running in front of me on the road. I was hungry as a bear and I couldn't bear it anymore. "James, you got that piece of cheese handy, somewhere in your panniers?" On the side of the road, in the rain, a few hunks of cheese and a small piece of bread gave me back a bit of my sanity...there is got to be a small town up here....and YES! Villa Amengual appeared faintly in the mist - we turned towards the center, another turn and we heard a cheer: The two french couples saw us coming and applaud us, standing there in the middle of the road.... they had just finished checking on a couple of hostels for the best prices and we all settled in a pretty nice one. No more dreaming......my vision of grilled chicken thighs came true - soup and dessert included! And now for a well deserved day off, sitting by the fire, writing, watching the rain and the snow do it's thing outside and not be effected by it, except for feeling LUCKY!!
