The next couple of days saw more rain and temperatures plummet. Again we were forced to flee the scene of rising waters, this time a rising tide threatened to engulf us and the portside road we were parked on in Puyuhuapi.
Passing through the Quelat National Park brought us our first snow of the trip. The high mountain passes were briefly sampled from outside the vehicle, before the freezing conditions had us running back for the keys. We also had our first taste of ripio roads ascending mountains. A serious challenge from a driving perspective, we also had to contend with the odd falling tin of food as our presses took the brunt of the steep unpaved roads. Oh and the heating decided that that evening was a good time to stop working…
Our next surprise occurred in an unlikely location. Puerto Cisnes is a quiet, coastal town with a few shops, restaurants, school and service station. There is also a small playground with a three-story climbing frame/slide close to the main thoroughfare. Being the accommodating parents that we are, once discovered, we agreed to take the kids there before we left. The kids were having great fun there and even asked myself and Laura to play with them. I had ventured off to find a bin to throw some rubbish, but Laura agreed to join in. Having scaled the three-story frame, she went to run from one side of the platform to the other. What she had unfortunately not seen was the manhole that had been inexplicably been constructed right in the middle of the floor. She let out a scream as she fell through it, landing very heavily below. Scared and panicked, I was beckoned immediately by both children and ran to see what had happened. Shaken and heavily bruised, Laura fortunately had broken no bones or done any lasting damage to herself. She would however be feeling the effects of the fall for many weeks to come.
I had been recovering myself from a heavy dose of Influenza B that I had been diagnosed with in Puerto Montt. I had briefly even visited A&E, so it was a little more serious than the dreaded “man-flu” we hear so much about back home! At this stage, it had been a good couple of weeks since my diagnosis. While generally recovering, I was getting quite intense headaches and pains in the eyes in the afternoons. While the headaches and pains did eventually drift away, combined with the effects of Laura’s fall, it made many travel days ahead seem like tough going indeed.
After leaving the veritable metropolis that is the city of Coyaquique, we made it to Cerro Castillo and its many beautiful viewpoints. Here we met a young German couple cycling around Central and South America, with the rest of the world earmarked for years to come. They were really inspirational, both for their humbleness but also their confidence and certainty. Without blinking, they listed off the places they would be in for the next three years on the back of their bikes. Having already slipped well behind our intended schedule (yes we initially did have a travel schedule!), their discipline and execution was certainly to be recognized.
Cerro Castillo was also memorable for the fact that this is where the paved road ended on the Carretera Austral. With close to 400km still to go for us, this was certainly not a good news story. Our only guarantee now would that days would be long, slow, hard and tiring, until we reached our conclusion of the Carretera Austral.
That night we made it as far as El Bosque Muerto or “Dead Forest”. Aptly named, the only sign of life in this remote area of Patagonia were the odd cows dotted amongst the lifeless trees. As it was Halloween Night, it also seemed like a suitably appropriate place to stop. We proceeded to enjoy a fantastic evening, the kids “trick-or-treating’ at our campervan a total of three times (I think we were a but too generous in this regard!) and a couple of movies being enjoyed by us all. Even the cows wanted to see what all the commotion was about and came over for a closer inspection.
Click here to read the “Learnings On The Carretera Austral Part 3 of 3” blog post
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