Travel Diary:
follow us in our adventure
STAGE 6 continues (2)
8th Feb 40km from Frutillar to Puerto Montt
4th Feb From Osorno to Fruttilar, amazing village on the shore of lake Llanquihue.
This area is a German colony since the beginning of the 19th century and
everything reminds us of central Europe... from "Hotel Otto Fish,
Residenz am Meer" to cakes which here are officially called "Kuchen" also
in Spanish! quite impressive in the deep south of Latin America.
3rd Feb 40km to Osorno.
2nd Feb 35km to Entre Lagos, nice little town on the shore of lake Rupanco.
1st Feb Across the Andes again! 91km and 1800mt climb in a long cycling day
from Villa la Angostura to Termas de Puyehue, where we camped.
Most of the day we had to run away again from a swarm of killer horseflies,
we were surrounded by them for hours while cycling (imagine smashing
horseflies while climbing a 10% steep hill!!!) ... we had to skip lunch as
there was no chance to stop for preparing a sandwich! but once we reached
the Chilean border at 6pm we were forced to eat most of our food as no
food is allowed across the border... sadly part of it has gone wasted as it
was too much for a single meal!
26th-27th Jan From San Martin de Los Andes to Villa la Angostura cycling on the marvelous
"routa de los 7 lagos", a 120km half paved road following the shore of several
mountain lakes. The whole area is a protected national park almost without
buildings.
First part of the trip has been amazing, we easily cycled along the lakes,
climbed a couple of passes and camped at km 51 on lake Falkner.
From km 52 to km 105 the route is under construction, thus a combination of
heavy traffic (January is high season), extremely dusty road and constant
presence of million of horseflies made our second day a real nightmare!
We reached Villa la Angostura at km 105 at 10pm just in time to find out that
our hostel reservation was given away... another nice night spent looking for
somewhere to sleep after a full day on the bike!
24th Jan Nice and easy 42km from Junin de los Andes to San Martin de los Andes,
relaxed cozy town facing lake San Martin. Tomorrow we'll spend the day
cayaking to a couple of beaches 5km north of San Martin and enjoing the
great combination of warm sun and fresh air.
22nd-23rd Jan Are we dreaming??? are we back in Bolivia??? no... simply the Pampa is over
and we're about to enter the loneliest and most beautiful region of Argentina:
we're in Junin de Los Andes, gateway to the lake district and Patagonia.
After weeks on the boring flat we definitely welcomed the 207 km trip on
Routa 40 from Zapala to Junin, as we pedaled through volcanic mountains
which offered us amazing landscapes and took our hearts and legs back to Bolivia.
We camped at km 110, top of the first pass, perfect place to enjoy a fantastic
sunset and a 30km downhill on the following day. Only downside to this stretch
is the total lack of villages, food and water until Junin.