The ferry from Caleta Tortel left at 11:00pm. Over the course of my trip, I had developed a deep mistrust of scheduled times in Latin America, so I showed up for the ferry around 7:30. This was overkill, but I wasn’t the only person milling around the dock. I wasn’t even the only cyclist.
We waited. And waited. The boarding time of 9pm came and went, and there was still no sign of a boat. The sun went down and the mosquitos came out. The local dogs came to say hello and got in a few fights with each other. I drank a terrible coffee from a minimercado, and somehow in the process also poured some boiling water on my hand. All was going more or less as expected by the standards of this particular trip.
Finally, the boat appeared. There was a mad scramble to the man who walked onto the dock with a passenger list on a clipboard. Some people were getting on the boat, and some were picking up supplies that the ferry brings to Tortel. The people getting their deliveries surged ahead, and formed a crowd that made loading a fully loaded bicycle into the assigned area rather difficult – but with the help of the ever-friendly Chileans, I succeeded in the end.
My seat was in the lower seating area. I had selected it myself in the booking process, but unfortunately the booking process was a bit lacking in details. The seat I chose was at the very back of the cabin, and located right in front of a set of lockers that was bolted to the floor. Thus, my seat only reclined about half as far back as everyone else’s. When I booked it, I also thought it was beside a window. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the windows stopped at the row ahead of me and I got to sit beside a nice beige wall for the next 40 or so hours.
My seatmate was a tiny German lady named Angela. Angela didn’t speak much English or much Spanish, but she was very nice. And her tininess made her an ideal person to share a small space with for almost two full days.
We departed in full darkness. The only part of lower Tortel that has lights at night is the ferry dock, so the town quickly disappeared as we floated away. I put my seat back as far as it would go (not far) and settled in.
The next morning, our boat was quite firmly in the middle of nowhere. Green hills and rocky outcrops rose up on either side of the ocean channel. Our boat was the only sign of life. I went to the outer deck and watched the world float by.
Before long, we were called to breakfast. Breakfast was an absolutely delightful meal of two pieces of white bread with one piece of slimy ham and one piece of highly processed cheese in between. There was also a tiny packaged cupcake. The views and the transport service of the ferry were noteworthy, but I think the real value came in the quality of the breakfast.
The day wore on,with one green oceany hill blending into the next. Boats are really an astonishingly slow mode of travel – perhaps second only to the bicycle. At one point, we passed a shipwreck. The highlight of the day was stopping in Puerto Eden, a tiny boat-access-only village deep in the fjords. Some people got off the boat and had a look around, but I have a chronic fear of getting off a boat or bus and somehow not managing to get back on before it leaves. Puerto Eden is extremely small and you could probably have seen the ferry from anywhere in town, but… better safe than sorry? I guess?
So I stood on the deck. And I saw some dolphins. Cool cool cool.
By the next morning, I was starting to get tired of being on the boat. At first it was a novelty, but things can only be novel for so long. A man in my cabin was watching movies all day on full volume without headphones. It was raining a lot outside. The food was technically edible but to compliment it any more than that would be a great exaggeration. You were allowed to sit in the dining area in between meals, which was nice for a change of scenery, but they would periodically kick you out to clean at random and inexplicable times. And in the night, the area was taken over by some university students who had some kind of virtual reality film people were watching on headsets, and who for some reason each required a booth all to themselves.
So when the boat finally pulled into Puerto Natales on the afternoon of the second day aboard, I think everyone was pretty happy. By some stroke of luck, my bike was on the outside edge of the bike pile, and I was able to ride off almost immediately.
Gliding through the streets of Puerto Natales, it struck me that I had definitely left the rainforest. The part of Chile I now found myself in had a distinctively arid quality. To me, it felt very northern, although technically it was actually very southern. Across the water, snowcapped mountains sat serenely in the distance. The sky was Saskatchewan-big and swirled with clouds. I could already feel the famous Patagonian wind.
The hostel I had booked had no sign, so I ended up wandering around for a while until I got clever and actually looked at the addresses on the building. It was quite discrete, and gave a distinct maybe-this-isn’t-licensed-accommodation vibe. I fell down the stairs almost immediately after arriving, but lived to tell the tale.
There was another Canadian cyclist in my dorm, from Winnipeg – turns out she had also been on the ferry, but in another cabin so we didn’t really connect. She had biked the Carretera Austral as well, but on a slightly different timeline. She was flying home from Puerto Natales, and was faced with the challenge of finding a suitable bike box in a remote southern town.
I spent the next day organizing my life and gathering supplies. I booked a flight back to Santiago from Punta Arenas in a couple weeks. I bought a sleeping bag liner so I could stop freezing my butt off every single night. I found some nice dogs to pet. I bought a pair of extremely ugly but rather cozy thrift store sweatpants to further warm my butt. I ate a lot of delicious food. Puerto Natales is one of the most touristed places in Chile, so I was surrounded by plentiful options for the first time in weeks.
The night before I set off for Torres del Paine, I woke in the wee hours with a swollen chin. I don’t know why. The mysteries of the universe are infinite. But if you look up a picture of an Egyptian pharaoh and see those things that stick off their chins, that’s kind of the vibe. Needless to say, I looked super cool. For lack of any other ideas, I took a Benadryl and called my mom. She couldn’t actually do much, but she agreed that the situation was not ideal.
I headed for Torres del Paine in the morning, Pharaoh chin and all. Torres del Paine is one of Chile’s most popular tourist sights, with over 250,000 people visiting every year (although admittedly that is still far fewer than Banff’s 4.5 million or so). It has sometimes even been called the 8th Wonder of the World. Its name comes from the Spanish word for towers (torres) and the Tehuelche word for blue (paine). I had been looking forward to it for my entire trip – it was one of the things that kept me going through rough roads and rougher weather.
But of course, it would have been entirely unsuitable for the weather to be good as I headed for the park. I biked directly into a headwind, and before long it started to rain. I got colder and colder, and dirtier and dirtier, and felt like I was barely making any progress at all. My average speed for the day was a whopping 11 kilometers an hour. I couldn’t find my gloves so I wore yellow llama socks on my hands. Finally, soaked to the bone, I set up camp by the side of the river, near a waterfall that I could hear crashing all night long. I was thankful for my new sleeping bag liner and new-to-me ugly sweatpants. I listened to a stupid but very escapist podcast about Jessica Simpson and thought vaguely about how ridiculous it was to be listening to a podcast about Jessica Simpson while lying in a tent in the middle of nowhere, thousands of kilometers from home, in a place where I didn’t speak the language and the weather was only ever bad.
But in the morning, my fortunes shifted (along with the wind). I woke up to a brilliant blue sky. The movement of the clouds had revealed snowy peaks in all directions. I was quite literally stunned by the beauty of the place I found myself in. It was like a different world from the one I had fallen asleep in.
Some Brazilians in a camper van had showed up at the same camp spot. They invited me for breakfast, and we spent an hour chatting in a sort of Spanglish aided by Google Translate. They were driving down from Brazil to Ushuaia, and after that they were going to head north, hoping to get all the way to Alaska. It didn’t sound like South America would be too much of a problem, but they were worried about visas once they got into North America. I told them that when they make it to Canada, give me a shout and I can give them some hot tips on what to do in BC and Alberta (maybe Saskatchewan too).
I had about 50 more kilometers to get to Parque Nacional Torres del Paine, so I bid goodbye to my new Brazilian friends and hit the road. It wasn’t too long before I got my first real view of the Paine Massif in the distance, and I could swear that beautiful sight sped me up. Clouds rolled in eventually, but the rain held off. Even a section of road that resembled a freshly plowed field of dirt couldn’t break my spirits.
I rolled into the western-edge visitor centre around 3 in the afternoon. I ran into a father and daughter coming out the front door, and before I knew it they were interviewing me and filming it on a cell phone. So now, somewhere out in the world, there is a video of me describing a bike trip in broken Spanish and trying to explain how there are no Refugios on America’s Pacific Coast Highway. I’m sure I come across as clever, articulate, and well-dressed.
When I finished my interview, I bought my park pass and carried on.
I won’t lie. I’ve seen a lot of things in my life. I am wildly lucky and privileged to have witnessed first hand so many beautiful parts of the earth.
But Torres del Paine still stopped me in my tracks. The mountains rise up out of a flat plane, reaching into the sky, visible for miles around. Glaciers perch on their slopes, feeding neon blue lakes that only come into view when you start to get close. The peaks are rugged and weathered, jagged and eroded. Quite frankly, the mountains are more dramatic than middle schoolers, which is not a statement I take lightly.
I set up camp at Lago Pehoe campground. They had delightful little wind shelters to put tents in, which in a place like Patagonia is a real blessing. A little coffee shop/restaurant was set up at the entrance to the campground, and I drank an overpriced hot chocolate and watched the sunset light up the Paine Massif.
And in the morning – it was pouring rain. El shock.
So I went back to the coffee shop and drank multiple overpriced Nescafe lattes and dreamed of sunnier weather. This occupied about five hours of my time. When the rain finally let up, I went outside and immediately ran into my Brazilian friends from the day before, who gave me the kinds of hugs you would give a long lost relative. We walked up to a nearby viewpoint together, and then I set off on a hike up to Mirador Condor… where I once again encountered one half of the Brazilian couple. We snapped a few photos up at the top, and then he went back the way he had come and I carried on, all the way down the other side of the hill to a fancy hotel that had actually-functional WiFi.
After indulging my addiction to screens, I walked down the road, intent on seeing a waterfall. The waterfall turned out to be located behind an extremely fancy hotel that is either called “Explora” or “Explora Patagonia” or “Hotel Salta Chica” or maybe some variation on all of those. It apparently costs a minimum of $551 USD/night to stay there, and that’s the discounted rate that you get if you’re staying 8 nights or more. I trudged through the property in my rain suit, passing people in bathrobes who were coming up from the onsite detached spa. We were having different sorts of holidays.
The waterfall was a bit of a letdown, but I did have a good time showing off my yellow pants to the rich folks, so it really was a worthwhile excursion.
The sun came out the following day, which was nothing short of a miracle. In light of the good weather, I decided to fast forward my imagined hiking schedule, and spend that day hiking up to Las Torres, the crowning jewel of Torres del Paine.
Although I had been on a self-imposed intensive exercise program for two months, I didn’t think I was capable of biking 37 kilometers, hiking 17, and then biking 37 back. So I wandered out to the road, plastered a big smile on my face, and stuck out my thumb. The second car to come by picked me up and drove me all the way to the trailhead, where I set out with a great many other people who were also taking advantage of the sunny day.
I wandered through a grassy field. Up a gravelly, shrub-covered slope. I came around a corner to the aptly named “Windy Pass.” After a while, I came to a Refugio, where I semi-enjoyed yet another overpriced Nescafe. After the caffeine boost, I essentially bounced the rest of the way up the mountain. Through forests starting to show their autumn colours, past a woodpecker hacking away at a fallen tree, over streams and mud puddles, and up a rocky incline. Finally, I found myself at Mirador Base Las Torres, staring across a vividly blue lake and up at the three famous towers of stone for which the park is named. Being by far the most famous site in the park, there were quite a few people up there with me, but it had an almost festive atmosphere. One couple got up on a big rock, and the man dropped on one knee and proposed. They got engaged right there, and everyone clapped. I took in the sights, snapped a few truly awful selfies, and headed back down.
I successfully hitchhiked back to my campsite, and slept through the night.
Then I biked the same 37 kilometers I had travelled by car the day before, because when I booked campsites I had imagined doing the Las Torres hike a different day, but changed my plans because of weather. So once again I found myself at the trailhead to Mirador Las Torres. But in spite of the backtracking, I was happy with my decision, because the next morning it was once again pouring rain. I went to the nearby fancy hotel (the third fancy hotel I graced with my presence in the park), bought the world’s most ridiculously overpriced latte ($11, but at least it wasn’t Nescafe), and then used the hotel WiFi for several hours. You could almost think of it as $11 WiFi and a free latte. It’s all about your perspective, really.
The rain eventually gave up, and I did a little hike. But I was getting to the point in the trip where I was kind of okay with taking it easy. I went into my tent early in the evening and listened to some more stupid podcasts before passing out for about ten hours, and waking up to…
Snow. A frozen-shut bike lock. A tent that was stuck to itself and could only be freed with hot water or by waiting for the sun to do the job. And a bunch of fuzzy horses wandering the campground.
Just another day in Patagonia.
Feliz Navidad, I guess.
When all my frozen belongings had melted enough to be detachable and packable, I set off for Puerto Natales. I really wanted to get all the way there in one day and treat myself to a Nutella crepe at La Creperia. The first twenty or so kilometers were, as the kids would say, dope. I crushed some gravel hills and then practically flew along a stretch of pavement, stopping only to take pictures of the snow capped massif behind me. And then I got to the construction zone.
Sometimes, when a road needs to be worked on, only part of it gets torn up and it gets done piece by piece. But here they had decided just to rip up the whole friggin’ thing in one go and shuttle all traffic, including bikes, onto a makeshift mud/dirt/gravel track off to the side. And so now, instead of clipping along on a smooth tarmac, I was clunking through washboard and hitting rocks and spraying mud in every direction. It was slow going.
By the time I reached Cerro Castillo, I was covered in mud and the sun was low in the sky. And yes, I know I already went to one place called Cerro Castillo, but this is another place that has the same name because at some point whoever was in charge of naming things just gave up or something. Sadly, Cerro Castillo #2 did not have their own version of Gemita’s Hospedaje, and they only had expensive hotels. But everything I owned was wet, I was covered in dirt, and after treating myself to some Kuchen cake I went and checked myself into the cheapest not-cheap hotel in town, and slept in a soft puffy bed and put my shoes out to dry by a wood stove.
When I finally arrived in Puerto Natales the next day, I was in need of some R & R. But I only had one night there before I needed to head for Punta Arenas, so R & R came in the form of a very large pizza and a piece of cake.
And then, once again in the middle of the night in Puerto Natales, I woke to a swelling face.
There is no rest for the wicked, or for people named Laura riding bicycles through Chile. This time it was my eye. I looked like an unsuccessful boxer. But it wasn’t too bad. Yet.
Distracted by my swelling eye and a spring that was poking me through my mattress, I went and sat in the common area of the hostel. After I’d been there for a while, the owner of the hostel materialized out of the night.
“Why are you sleeping on the couch?” he asked.
“I’m not sleeping on the couch,” I told him. “I’m sitting on the couch because I can’t sleep.”
“Why can’t you sleep?”
“The mattress is poking me.” For whatever reason, I didn’t tell him about my eye, which wasn’t obvious in the cover of darkness.
“The mattress is poking you? Then you must sleep in my room! My mattress will not poke you!”
I had a moment of panic at being asked to sleep in this strange man’s bed, but then I realized – what he was suggesting was that he sleep on the couch and I sleep in his bed alone. He was just truly dedicated to me sleeping through the night, and had no ulterior motive. I protested nonetheless, but in the end he insisted. And that is how I found myself in the bed of a nice young man named Diego, and I guess it’s also how Diego found himself sleeping on the couch in his own hostel.
I did indeed sleep through the rest of the night quite comfortably. And then when I woke up, my eye was fully swollen shut, so that was pretty cool too.
Much like I headed for Torres del Paine with a swollen chin, I headed for Punta Arenas with a swollen eye. Luckily it was my right eye, so I didn’t really need it to see traffic, but it was still a bit disconcerting. But what’s a girl going to do? I needed to get to Punta Arenas, since Puerto Natales didn’t really seem to get along with my face.
The landscape between Puerto Natales and Punta Arenas looks astonishingly like Saskatchewan. It’s flat, grassy, and wide open. There are cows. And a lot of sheep, as this is the land of the Patagonian wool boom of days gone by. It was kind of like the gold rush, or California’s logging boom, but with more sheep.
That afternoon, I picked up my first true Patagonian tailwind, and then I was off to the races. I zoomed along, covering mile after mile, stopping only for a coffee. Over one hundred kilometers later, I set up my tent in my last wild camp spot of the trip – it was essentially a ditch with bushes in it, but it was all mine. One with nature.
And then it was my last day of biking. There were 147 kilometers between me and Punta Arenas and I wasn’t going to let anything stop me.
As I went down the road, I glanced behind me. In the far off distance, I could still see the mountains near Puerto Natales. Slowly, they began to recede until they were no longer visible. The world opened up around me, flat and empty and grand. Fifty kilometers into the day, I pounded two coffees and an empanada in the tiny town of Villa Tehuelches. Fifty kilometers after that, I passed the turnoff that in another lifetime would have taken me to Tierra del Fuego and Ushuaia – the real end of the road. But my road was ending somewhere else.
I met back up with the ocean, and it remained on my left as I followed the road toward Punta Arenas. Slowly, the land started to show signs of human industry – little side roads leading to various kinds of buildings and facilities, houses popping up here and there, and the road gradually gaining more lanes until I was on a sort of freeway. I passed a little regional park full of stunted-looking trees. The road got busier and the landscape more populated until I eventually decided to find a side road where I stood a better chance of not getting smoked by a car.
I rode through a charming industrial area, complete with chain link fences and corrugated metal warehouses. And then I crossed a big street and got onto a lovely, smooth, well-maintained bike path.
I was less than ten kilometers from my final destination. I was reflecting on my trip, relishing my sudden return to bicycle infrastructure. I looked at the traffic jam off to my right and smiled to myself about not being stuck in it. And then, it dawned on my that I was losing speed.
The path was so smooth! The ground was so level! I should be speeding along merrily.
But I wasn’t, because there was a giant nail in my tire.
And thus, my bike trip ended 5 kilometers from the centre of Punta Arenas, on a red bike path on a boulevard in the middle of a busy road. I looked at my tire and I laughed. Because on a trip like this, how else could it possibly end? It fit the plot.
So the bike trip was over. But there were still a few adventures to be had.
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