El Calafate

This time I’m writing from a campsite in El Calafate. Quite a few days have passed and they were some busy days indeed.

a monument of Milodon at the entrance to Puerto Natales - an extinct ground sloth living once in the area; it is now a symbol of Puerto Natales

Argentinean border crossing on Paso Don Guillermo; two, three buildings and blue sky

I left Puerto Natales at midday (I wanted to do it earlier but didn’t manage plus it started drizzling so I needed to wait a bit). It was a good day, so far my best one. First 60km slightly uphill I did in a great time of 2.5h and with no breaks. The wind was for the very first time pushing me though it was not a very strong wind. On that section too I beat my speed record so far – 60km/h. It didn’t really feel fast, just freewheeling downhill being pushed by the wind. I got to the border town of Cerro Castillo (big words for a village with 20 houses or so). I had a massive ‘milanesa’ over there for lunch (something like Polish schabowy), got the Chilean exit stamp and had to cross a pass on ripio road to get to Argentinean border. 10km of climbing on ripio – horrible. Another 5km after the Argentinean post also uphill, also on ripio. I was swearing a lot.

I can’t remember if I have introduced ‘ripio’ yet but if I haven’t I will in a second.

It was around 5pm when I got to Ruta 40 for the very first time on my trip – a road that connects the very south with very north of the country (following the western side of it, along the cordillera). I had 40km to a tiny place called Tapi Aike where I could apparently sleep at the police station. I got there before 7, there was nothing really there apart from a junction, a police station and a petrol station with a small café. A police officer told me I could camp at the back of the building. Cool! I did 117km that day, usually being pushed by the wind but very often climbing and with 15km of ripio. I was happy as I only started cycling at 12pm plus from this point I had about 60km of ripio but the wind seemed to be helping me.

I put my tent up and started boiling water for my dinner – 2 buns, a can of tuna, 1 avocado, 1 big instant soup (chicken flavour!) to which I added some processed cheese (old trick from the times of climbing holidays in Poland) plus a bit of chocolate and some cookies for desert, all washed down with around 400ml of tea. Quite a lot I guess considering I had eaten this milanesa just 4 hours before.

I was entertained there by a young dog, pretty much the same breed as the one from Bombon El Perro. She was very lively and wanted to play all the time but I actually wanted to eat and then go inside my sleeping bag and read a bit. After running around my tent for some time she gave up but I managed to take some pictures of her.

el perro hoping for some fun

That was the coldest night so far – around 0 or -1. My breath condensed on the inside of the tent and froze to a thin layer of ice. I was warm though – good decision with a warmer sleeping bag. What a surprise though – in the morning I noticed that the wind changed 180 degrees and I would have side/head wind for the day! Luckily it was not very strong plus I had ripio so was not going fast therefore didn’t feel the strength of the wind that much.

view from the ripio road towards the Paine massif with nothing in between

Ripio… the biggest fucking hijo de puta ever!!! I so hate it I can’t even express it. It is a gravel road with millions of loose stones of various size – from small grit to stones the size of my fist or bigger. They are absolutely everywhere and make riding almost impossible. It could possibly be enjoyable on a proper mountain bike with fat tyres and no panniers. My bike has tyres more for the road than off-road conditions, is probably around 35kg in total and for some reason my front wheel likes very often turning uncontrollably on the stones which with my shoes clipped in to pedals brings me on the edge of a heart attack.

There are very short sections of ripio that are ‘rideable’ but 80% of it is a painful struggle for every single metre. I had to be so concentrated on the road, on what is a few metres in front of me that I was sometime scared to look away for a split of a second on my cycle computer. If I was cycling faster it would be better as I wouldn’t be put off balance so easily but I couldn’t unless I wanted my racks to fall off within a few days. So far my average speed on ripio has been about 9km/h – it’s not riding at all…

On that day I was still climbing slightly, on ripio and against the wind. I was just missing the rain (in fact it was sunny). There was absolutely nothing around, just hills, stones, blue sky with white clouds, some primitive bushes and wind. I started at 10pm and did 45km by 4pm! With hardly any break as in fact there was nothing to put my bike against. I was swearing aloud for the first hour but then calmed down. I know that around 80% of Carretera Austral is ripio so I better accept it or give up now. I decided to accept it and tried to put myself in a more meditating state of mind. I had been checking my computer way too often to sometimes find out I moved only 400m. I decided to change that habit too. When I then noticed that I did 2km from the last check that was quite a something. 2km on ripio is a long way!

a ripio road to nowhere

Kilometres were passing. I even peed with my bike against myself (I don’t want to put it on the ground as I thing the weight of panniers could do something to the racks in that position). I knew that after around 40km there was meant to be a small stream and a police post. That was my goal for that moment. At more less 40km I passes a bend and couldn’t believe in what I saw – two cyclists going in the same direction as myself. I finally caught up with them (plus 2 more waiting on the side of the road) to discover it was a French-Swiss family with 2 kids cycling the same route as myself. The kids were around maybe 8-9 (a girl) and maybe 12 (a boy). He was cycling himself, her bike was attached to her dad’s bike (front wheel hanging) so if she didn’t want to she didn’t have to cycle. I have to say I was impressed and am now even more when writing about it. We had a chat, exchanged opinions and plans and carried on hoping to get to the stream soon. We did literally minutes later. There was a lonely house in a small valley, absolutely nothing around. I went inside, everything open but no-one there. I went outside and towards the back of the building. As I turned around the corner I noticed 2 big dogs and one small. Oh shit! This is what I thought when they started running towards me. First impression was not pleasant, especially as they looked quite serious but luckily they were some nice friendly dogs. A host appeared soon after. We all had a nice chat, he gave us some water, told about cyclists staying at his place for a night. He was equally shocked seeing this family with kids as I was.

I then was told there was 20km more of ripio. I decided I wanted to have this section covered by the end of the day. And so I said goodbye to all of them and moved on cycling. I needed around 2h more and by 6.30pm I was done with this horrible day, the worst so far! 66km of ripio, whole day of really hard cycling, around 4 or 5 times near miss with me managing to unclip my shoes in the very, very last moment and saving myself from falling (or actually stopping falling half way through).

I hate ripio and I want to die

Just when my ‘shortcut’ on ripio finished and I was back on tarmac there was a tiny hamlet with one concrete house and some metal shacks. I asked a guy living there if I could camp there. No  problem but just no fire. Oh no, I won’t light any fire, I have my little stove. Oh no, no stove either, you know, fires, the big fire in Torres del Paine etc. Ok, ok, I won’t cook. Oh, if you want to cook come inside, you can use my kitchen. Oh great, I don’t really need to cook but wouldn’t mind getting some hot water. And that’s what I did. I had again quite a lot of bread, another avocado, instant chicken soup with cheese, tuna and more than half a litre of tea. This guy (quite disgusting 60 year old man who when I asked him if he was living there said it was his work and he was doing shifts of 7 days and then had to return to El Calafate to feed his friend and saying that he pointed at his trousers!) told me that if I didn’t want any wind I needed to start early. So I set up my alarm for 7am and by 9 I was on the road again. I think by early he meant start riding at around 7am but I was lucky and it was a very quiet day and no wind whatsoever (rather strange). Just some hundreds of metres from this place was a sign ‘El Calafate 92km’. It turned out to be 97km in the end but it was an easy day. First 35km was a slight climb to get to the edge of a mountain range overlooking a valley where El Calafate was. Then around 15km of steep downhill (first 10km really steep). There was still no wind but I only managed to go down 50km/h (I think this is the limit if the wind is not pushing me or if I don’t pedal). Last 30km of undulating terrain took me to El Calafate. By 2.30pm I was there.

I am on a pretty chilled out campsite, each tent has its own table and fixed grill plus a plug! Hot water in the shower and wifi – what else would you need.

I did 280km in 3 days so I thought I deserved a break. I went yesterday to see Perito Moreno glacier. 

Perito Moreno glacier

Perito Moreno glacier

Perito Moreno glacier

I was very lucky to see a massive piece of ice falling into the lake and unbelievably lucky to be pointing my camera exactly at this spot at that time so I took pictures of this ‘disaster’.

damage caused

Perito Moreno is a great site. I spent 2 hours just looking at the glacier, listening to it, watching some small pieces of ice breaking off and falling into the water. Plus is it very nicely organised and prepared for tourists with kilometres of boardwalks from which you can watch the glacier (either from above and from some distance or from pretty close and being more less at the same elevation as its face). It definitely is a magical experience on a great, sunny day as I had yesterday (in general I’ve been pretty lucky with the weather so far).

Lago Argentino and the walkboards

Lago Argentino and the glacier at the back

Today – time for myself which is always time less for myself and more time for everyone and everything around me – washing, blogging, emailing, shopping ect.

My next section will take me to El Chalten – my last stop on the Argentinean side before crossing the border and starting Carretera Austral. Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre are awaiting me.