#20 More rain on the road from Santa Lucia to Puyuhuapi

The purpose of cutting back into Chile at this point was to ride the Caraterra Austral (full name: Caraterra Austral Pinochet); a road put in by the army led by General Augusto Pinochet to connect Patagonia with the remainder of Chile. Much of it is unpaved and under constant repair due to the presence of lakes, fjords, the Andean mountains and the occasional glacier; the same reasons we have chosen to ride it! I'm not sure how many buses take this route, and at least at this time of year we're very much off the tourist trail.

The weather had only gotten worse when we woke up and over breakfast the four of us chatted aboout what the day would bring, and what the roads might be like. Aside from a small stretch of road in the first stages of construction, in other words, mud, which I had to walk down while Reece took the bike, we were pleasantly surprised with our first kms on the Caraterra Austral.

Tackling the mud.

While riding in the rain I had been dreaming of thermal pools recommended to us near to La Junta (I can't say where exactly as the recommendation came with a promise not to 'write to Lonely Planet, or publish on the blog'). Unfortunately they were closed for reasons incomprehensible to us. So while filling up with petrol, in addition to the longjohns, thermal, and jumper I was wearing underneath my gear, I added an extra pair of socks (these ones designed for snow boots), balaclava, gloveliners, and a second jumper, the thickest one I have, for the next part of ride. Due to the cold that was only as far as Puyuhuapi. It seems unlikely we will be reaching Usuaiha by 25 November in time for a motorycle meet we were told about while at the same petrol station.

Given the small distance we had covered we had all afternoon and evening to chill out at Puyuhuapi and found another lovely home run by a women, probably shorter than my own mother. Another town with less inhabitants than I went to High School with, Puyuhuapi at least had an attractiveness about it in comparison to the last town, and some history. Located on a bay framed by mountains covered with forest it was German settled in 1935 (I`m presuming by Nazi escapers). Before the caraterra reached Puyuhuapi in 1982 it was only accessible by boat. The women who we stayed with had lived their her whole life, and with her husband they built the house they lived in 14 years ago and I'm picking the same story goes for many of Puyuhaupi's inhabitants.

Puyuhuapi Bay

It was quite a funny evening spent in Puyuhuapi. Somehow I turned the process of cookings eggs into an effort worthy of a 3-course meal with spectacularly dismal results. With everyone watching me I was freaking out a bit, swatting Reece with my hand for some help with a little too much force causing the family to break into hysterics.

Tv sattelites can be seen on even the most ramshackle of houses here and the importance of 'DirectTV' was made clear that night when the family's cable television broke. The more outgoing of the two daughters, mid-twenties (from what we have heard its normal to live with your parents until marriage in Chile and Argentina because property is so expensive), was immediately on the phone to 'DirectTV', Reece was trying to help out, and some other visitors had dropped in to offer assistance. While all this was going on I was sitting in the kitchen thinking up sentences in Spanish in an attempted conversation with the Mum who was guiding me into the living room despite my protests. It was only afterwards when I thought about it that I relaised she was trying to get me off the table so she could serve dinner for her own family!

We imposed ourselves on the family a little while longer in order to have a true homestay experience, despite the existence of a separate lounge upstairs for our sort. A very pleasant evening.