#22 A little snow storm from Coihaique to Villa Cerra Castillo

In the background, the spires of Villa Cerra Castilla

Waking up we looked out the window and the skies were not looking kind. Given our weather delays we had hoped to do some decent kms today but it seemed we were resound to progressing only another 100kms or so to Villa Cerra Castilla. Dona Hermaina clearly thought we were mad pointing to the snow tops on the mountain with the only words I could make out being 'never'. It was only later we found out her meaning...

Half an hour later I turned to my left noticing the rain falling from the sky had a lighter, softer, appearance. Realising it was snow I got quite excited, wanting to get the camera out. It was not the kind of snow that blankets the ground, like the snow we had experienced at the top of the Andes, so it didn't really feel like we would run into any problems. That quickly changed as the snow fell harder and we became colder. The snow was covering the bike's windscreen and our helmet visors; fortunately the road wasn't too slippery but I think at the back of both our minds was the fear of what would happen should we fall as we really were in the wilderness here.

It was probably just as we were wondering how long it took for frostbite of the fingers to set in that we saw another set of cyclists. Well there bodies may have been warm from the exercise there is no doubt there hands would have been colder than our own and they had a whole lot more time to reach the next town than we did. Finally we found the shelter we had been looking for where on a bit of an adrenaline high from the experience we jumped around like madmen, warming our hands and feet thrilled to find out it was only another 10kms to Villa Cerra Castilla. There we found a Hospedaje with a fire to warm ourselves in front of. After a few hours resting, me catching up on the blog and Reece searching the hundreds of channels on Direct TV for something to watch, the weather had improved and we thought we would take a walk.

A balaclava is not the best fashion accessory 

but it gives a sense of how cold we really were.

We had a bit of a wow moment as we stepped out of the house not realising that we would be greeted by the sharp points of the town's namesake, the freshly iced Cerra Castillo. After taking some silly snaps we spotted a couple of people trying to enter the tourism office to let them know there was another office a block away. This all for a town of approximately 500 people - many of those rural farmers, the town itself made up of only a handful of streets.  Turns out they were the cyclists we had seen; a retired German couple (the wife with Argentinian heritage). Again we felt the inadequacy of our achievements thus far next to their accomplishments.

Accepting mate (tea) from a local.

That evening was probably one of the best we had spent on the trip thus far. The hospedaje was run by the man of the house, Nobaldo, who after seeing us studying Spanish sat with us for a while with the wise words that we were much more likely to learn Spanish in conversation rather than from a book. Unlike his wife who freely admitted she spoke at a a hundred miles a minute, he patiently answered our questions about his family, how long he had lived in Cerra Castilla, and the weather, standard conversation fare these days. Like many we have talked to this week he was born, raised, and has never left this town, travelled a bit throughout Patagonia, a couple of times to Santiago (hated it) but not further North.

Attempting to fix our broken registration in Noblado's
man den. One more bad patch of gravel and its gone for
 leaving us in a world of trouble

For dinner we cooked a pizza in the house's woodfire oven and over a meal chatted with Noblado and the hospedaje's other guests, archeologists visiting the region for work. One spoke a little English which helped, but with the aid of a few glasses of wine for the first time we were able to have a Spanish conversation. I feel like these last few days have been the highlight of our trip so far; though the weather has prevented us from doing all we would otherwise without it we would not have been invited into people's homes (admittedly as paying guests) and had the opportunities we have had to meet so many hospitable Chileno's.