Our final ride on the Carretera Austral would be a short one, so we “slept in” and didn’t hit the road until 8:40am. By that point a couple of the ~5 people in the bunkhouse were up-and-about, but we were still the first ones to depart. One of our main motivations for “racing” yesterday (besides Read more…

Our alarm dinged us awake at 5am. I had to tiptoe past two tents (and near a third) to exit the outbuilding we were all sheltered in, but given the near-continuous snoring from the guy closest to us, it seemed that at least he didn’t mind. In order to give some respect to the late-risers, Read more…

We had been counting on the food truck/restaurant at Lago Vargas for yesterday’s lunch and dinner, but assumed that we would need to carry our own breakfast with us because, #1, food trucks don’t usually serve breakfast, and #2, even if they did, they wouldn’t be serving at the super-early time we like to leave. Read more…

A 37°F temperature when we woke up, following yesterday’s cool air, meant that we now had a trend. But with no wind, and the two “rooms” (delineated by large rocks) at our wild campsite, it was still a comfortable and easy morning. Then why did we get rolling 30 minutes later than Rett planned to? Read more…

With Rett’s pedals now no longer “buzzing” from her worn-out bottom bracket, my freehub still spinning fine after I overhauled it in Coyhaique, a few new zippers pasted over the broken ones on our tent, and another stretch of clear weather, we were ready to tackle our final 5-day riding phase of the Carretera Austral. Read more…

The roar of the churning Baker River was the only sound we heard all night. Even in the colorless pre-dawn light, it still glowed with an unusual brightness. We were up early as usual, but not as early as we would have been if our day-of-the-week timing hadn’t been as lucky. The Carretera Austral is Read more…