Not just a resting place, but the beginning of pavement!
Highly overpriced......Better: Everything is expensive, of course! How could it not be! We are at the chopped up coast of Chile - way down at the bottom. Far away from the world as we know it. Nothing grows here and everything we need has been flown or trucked in from afar.
I was tickled pink by the sight of the pavement and I was trying not to overreact. I am so very, very done being bounced around on my Gurly and so is she. Is this now really the end of all ripio? I swallow the words: I will never, ever ride ripio again on this tour...
I have seen James "overreacting" by kissing the pavement (sorry, no photo ...that would have been a good one...) back in northern Chile and then it only lasted a few km -contrary to what it had said on the road signs. I kept the deep satisfaction seeing the ripio disappear to myself....or rather: I just didn't trust it until I see the town sign to Ushuaia.
El Chalten the beautiful - another gateway to the glaciers and access to the C. Austral from the south. Here we got to do our usual, plus fixing the holes in the tent's rain fly and grieving for my disabled iPad over the best cup of hot chocolate I ever had and the perfect view on famous Fitz Roy:
From here we hit the pampa pedaling south/east ....saying good bye to the crew of frenchis staying on the west side to Punta Arenas. Ready for some heat and dryness again....ready to see the Atlantic. I feel somewhat desensitized from the spectacular, but when I look back I can still see the snow covered mountains:
Some near ragged peaks looking like rocks out of ice (and they are!):
The view back at the mountains stayed with us for days and I looked back at them like friends for one season and I will probably never see them again.
