Carretera Austral
In Puerto Montt for a day. What a low-key port city — not much is happening, people hustling, tons of malls. I wasn’t expecting that. A lot of thin-walled, poor-quality wooden houses too. Definitely not the most scenic stop, but I’m ready to start the Carretera Austral.
Resting feels great. My legs hurt more today than on any of the last 8 days of riding, so I’m actually happy we stopped, even if the town itself doesn’t really do much for me.
On the bright side: cheap pizza, Subway, burgers. To be honest, I like endurance adventures partly because I like to eat a lot too.
Can’t wait for the adventures on the Carretera Austral. We talked about it with Phil and we’re both genuinely excited for what’s coming. Mind-wise we’re in a very good place, and combining that with a scenic route ahead sounds like a great combo.
The start
First day on the Carretera Austral. Of course, we started the day hitting the Subway — just having it one more time. It was mediocre, as it always is. But you know exactly what you’re going to get, so maybe that isn’t too bad
We were expecting some sun from the beginning of the day, but what we actually got was rain for the first two or three hours. We started thinking that maybe “Carretera Austral sun” just means light rain, since it does rain a lot in this region — but no, it was proper rain.
We took our first ferry, which was only half an hour, but it already felt good to be closer to the fjords and actually getting into Carretera Austral. The road was really nice, and fewer and fewer cars were passing by; the traffic had slowed down. Although, what I noticed is that Chile really loves those 10–13 percent inclines for 30, 50, or 100 meters. That’s steep! Come on, just make it easier, a bit longer, five to eight percent — that’s all I’m asking for.
Honestly, in just one day today, we passed or met the same number of cyclists as we had in the first 100 days of the trip. So it’s probably going to be busy, it’s going to be fun, and we’re excited. Excited for what’s to come, excited to see everything, take some little detours, and enjoy — allegedly — the best cycling route in the world!
Next day started, you guessed it, with the ferry again. The ferry at 10 am meant we could actually chill in the morning — still cover distance while moving, but let the boat do the work and just enjoy the views. The fjords started opening up, and they’re pretty sick. Seeing snow on 500 m peaks right above the water is wild; it must be brutal here in winter and on truly bad weather days.
The setup was funny: it was a 2-ferry operation. The first one dropped us on a small peninsula, then we had to bike 10 km, and from there take a second ferry for about 30 minutes. In between we waited around 1.5 hours — good views, lots of other cyclists around, nothing to complain about.
Short cycling day, but one full of memories. It really feels like the “real” Patagonia starts now.
At some point we also jumped into the most mediocre, lukewarm hot springs of my life — literally right on the side of a gravel road. Still counts.
It’s still early season in Patagucci, so a lot of places are half-open or still closed — especially campsites. It even seems like in some stretches you’re supposed to camp only in paid campsites. But the general cyclist rule is: if it’s “closed” but the amenities are there, then it’s open for us. In simple terms: closed = free.
We also chatted with a French biker who’s 58 (his words). “Chatted” might be a generous term — he mostly talked at us about his trips and showed us photos of every random thing he’s done. Please, if I’m that self-centered when I’m 58, someone call me out immediately.
Small detours and more cycling
Back to the basics — we went for a “hike”. Hard to even call it a hike: 2.5 km with 616 m of gain, second half at 30%+ steepness. I’m happy I still have it in my legs. I went at my usual tempo and somehow snagged 9th all-time on the climb on Strava. Lol.
The 58-year-old French guy came with us too. I’ve been calling him Ludovic but his name is actually Emanuel. He did it 5 minutes slower than me, and honestly, if I’m that fit at 58, I can’t complain. I take back some of the negative stuff I wrote about him in the last days’ notes. He was calling me Rokas bombas because I was “so fast” xddd.
Overall, I did feel some weakness that day. The hike definitely took its toll, but I think there was something else too. Maybe just a bad headspace. Maybe a lack of calories. Funny thing is, cycling an extra 25 km afterward kind of fixed it. In total we rode almost 4 hours, and that still felt lighter than what we usually do.
Views all around were insane. I’ll probably get spoiled soon and stop appreciating them as much, but for now I’m still stoked.
At night I feel like a hot dog on a grill when I sleep — I keep rotating 90 degrees, over and over. I probably do a full circle 3–4 times per night.
Onwards (southwards)
Did one more hike. On these last two hikes it really feels like it’s about the destination, not the journey — you only start seeing the good stuff right at the end.
We had two completely different elevation predictions for the day: 1,700 m on MapOut and 1,000 m on Google Maps. I was sure Google was going to be right. Well… the day ended up being 1,440 m. That’s quite a bit of work for 100 km plus a 1 h 15 min hike. Most of the climbing came in one big go where we gained 700 m in one shot — 10–12% grade, hot, sweaty, and buggy. I felt like I was pedaling so hard that my lower back started hurting xd
It was the first time on this trip that it was properly buggy. Horsefly-type flies were biting through the shirt as I pedaled and pushed the bike, alternating. Full-on horror movie. There were like 15-20 flies around me the whole time, so at any moment I was half-moving, half flailing my arms like a lunatic for the 5 cars that passed during that stretch.
But after that… amazing views for hours. Snow-capped peaks for 50 km of riding. Doesn’t matter where you look — it’s all mesmerizing, and the further south we go, the better it gets. Extremely happy to be here and excited to see what’s coming next.
But oh boy, my quads are on fire. I’ll give them some time to chill — maybe a recovery day tomorrow.
Recovery day
Went for a “recovery day” which still ended up being almost 2.5 hours of riding. Since it was raining, we decided to actually pay for a campsite so we could put the tent under a roof and use a small hut to cook.
The hut had a wood-fire stove — last time I saw that was in my grandparents’ house built in the 1940s. Maybe it’s just nostalgia, but food made on that thing tastes insanely good.
On day 101 of our adventure we finally found pesto in SOUTH AMERICA — in a village of maybe 800–1,000 people. Chile’s mini-/supermarket selection slaps, other countries in South America should take notes. To celebrate, we went for pasta pesto with shrimp and onion. Chill, Italian readers — we cook the pasta the way we like it and there’s nothing you can do about it.
By the way, today we met the friendliest dog ever. It ran up to me, started jumping around, licking my legs, and later chased after me while I was on the bike. Just pure good energy.
Italians 11:48 p.m.
Maybe I got cursed by Italian bad luck. At the campsite we stayed at, three Italians showed up. Of course, being on a completely different time schedule than the rest of the country, they came back at 11:48 p.m. and woke me up.
It still blows my mind how people in their mid-30s can be that inconsiderate. The only thing I felt in that moment was hate and disgust toward them, zero empathy. Weak move. Rant over.
Second random thought: we meet quite a few motorcyclists and chat with them. It’s funny when they complain how much they had to “bike” to get to Patagonia — like 2,000 km in 5 days. Bro… you’re overweight, sitting all day, eating like a cyclist. Nice that you wave when you pass me, but we are not doing the same thing here. Chill.
Last random bit: I saw a women-only construction crew today. Way to go, Chile.
Apart from all these thoughts, it was a pretty spectacular day — hot springs in the morning, amazing views and weather throughout, I could be taking photos every 15 minutes so I’m only sharing a few. Then we jumped into the lake — first double swim day of the trip!!!
We’re camping with six (yes, SIX) other cyclists at the lake tonight — that has never happened before.
Cuando sufrimos, crecemos – Brazilian Felipe
So today I was reminded of a phrase that kind of sums up what all this travelling is about.
In the morning I just wanted to pump my tires, get ready for the day — we had a paved section ahead, so I wanted them nice and hard. While doing that, I noticed one of my spokes was detached. I knew straight away it was going to be a pain.
I took off the back wheel and started trying to figure out how to deal with it. I don’t have the right tool to remove the cassette, so I couldn’t just take the spoke out properly — I had to find a way to cut it off. I tried using my nail clippers, broke them, so now I don’t have nail clippers anymore either. There was an Irish couple nearby who tried to help, but we still couldn’t solve it.
At that point I just went out to the road and started stopping cars, asking if anyone had pliers. Well, I lied. Nobody really stopped, but it was like 5 cars in 25 minutes, people probably going to work. Until this dude from South Africa on a motorbike stopped and handed me his. Calling him a dude feels weird as he is in his 60s but he had “dude” energy. So yeah, I gave motorcyclists some shit yesterday, but this guy fully saved the day.
Later our Brazilian Felipe (not to mix with travel partner Phillip aka Felipe) showed up and helped too. Since I have a tubeless setup, we decided to just throw in a tube and ride like that. I originally thought I’d replace the spoke, but again — no special tool to take off the cassette, so it was impossible. The plan became: cut the spoke, put in the tube, put the tire back on, and see what happens.
I asked him if it was okay to ride with one spoke missing, and he just looked at me and said:
“Tranquilo, hombre, es solo un rayo”
Then he showed me his wheel — he’s missing two or three spokes and doesn’t care at all. He was super chill, like: we suffer a bit, we fix what we can, and we keep riding.
And then he said this line in Spanish:
“Cuando sufrimos, crecemos.”
When we suffer, we grow.
I’d spent two hours messing with the bike. Did I “suffer”? Not really. But did I learn a lot? Yes. And that’s kind of the whole point of these trips — self-discovery, learning as you go, problem-solving on the fly.
The rest of the day was semi-cloudy and rainy, nothing too dramatic. Still some nice views on the side, and we ended up with a great camping spot by the river with mist in the background.
Stats
Stats (7.5 days of cycling)
600 km | 31 h 08 m | 7,763 m gain
Daily Averages
80 km | 4 h 09 m | 1,035 m gain