Leg 3 - Punta Arenas to Chile Chico

Route summary: Punta Arenas, Porvenir, Puerto Natales, Torres del Paine, El Calafate, Pink Hotel, El Chalten, Tamel Aike, Bajo Caracoles, Chile Chico


Days: 20
Zero mileage days: 6
Distance (point to point): 738km
Distance (driven): 3,206km
Inefficiency factor (Driven/P2P): 4.34
Avg. speed: 160km/day

Click here for detail.

Punta Arenas' claim to fame is that it is the southernmost city in the world (Ushuaia is apparently only a town) and also has the southernmost vineyard (inside the conservatory of a very fine building in the centre of town that I think is now a Hotel). It has a cemetery which is similar to the one in Buenos Aires in having lots of ornate mausoleums which makes the place feel like a small city. All of this is surrounded by a wall and with a large front gate which were apparently paid for by Sara Braun (1), who made the donation it on the condition that she be the last person to use the main front gates. So, on her death she was carried through the front gates and they were closed and locked, and still are. It's quite a surreal place, some very beautiful buildings for containing peoples bones, and the same division between the wealthy, and the less wealthy. The latter's remains being housed in much smaller, and less ornate homes. I couldn't help notice the architectural similarity in the two "homes" in the picture on the right.

The other things of note in Punta Arenas are the brewery for Cerveza Austral (I tried to visit but they weren't doing tours) and a statue of Magellan in the middle of the town. On the north side of the plinth is a statue of and I saw that people kept touching his foot. A postcard told me that if you kiss the Indian's big toe, you'll return to Punta Arenas. It's a nice place so I have it a go - it was more effective than I thought it would be.

Then it was across the Magellan Straits again, this was longer (about two and a half hours) to Porvenir with dolphins seen at the harbour gates as we arrived. A night in Porvenir in a rather rickety hostel, an interesting encounter with a Canadian working in the oil exploration industry and an introduction to Austral's Calafate Ale (2). The next day involved a ride out to see the only King Penguin colony outside of the Antarctic and spent an hour or so watching them before heading back to the top of Tierra del Fuego and crossing the Magellan Straits again. This was a very windy drive (3) and another windy crossing. I was lucky to get on the ferry I did, one more sailed immediately after the one I was on and then they stopped running.

It was then a long, windy ride to Puerto Natales, the launch base for the Torres del Paine national park about 120km to the north. I decided I needed a day to prep kit and food etc, so had a lazy day in Puerto Natales (mostly spent drinking coffee and eating cake in a cafe with a spectacular view). Off to the national park the next day for an amazing 5 days (albeit the route didn't entirely go to plan) - some of the most stunning scenery I've ever seen and some great walking (more here).

Back to Puerto Natales and I decided that I'd need a new rear tyre for the bike (christened Lena on the ride up from Porvenir). No one could help in Puerto Natales and I was told that although I might find somewhere in El Calafate it was likely to be more expensive. An internet search suggested that my options were Punta Arenas (back south), Rio Gallegos (back east) or Puerto Montt (north). I didn't think the rear would last on the Ruta 40 and Carratera Austral to Puerto Montt and didn't really want to have to go back to Rio Gallegos so decided to head back to Punta Arenas. New rear tyre fitted, some draught Patagonian Ale in town after a stunning sunset illuminating the sky across the Magellan Straits and a walk back to the hostel through the main square. This time I only touched the Indian's big toe, although it's a nice place I didn't want to be back again in less than a fortnight.

The ride back up towards Puerto Natales was a bit tedious (some of the road I'd now driven down three times). The highlight was having tea in a shed. In Puerto Natales I'd met an English couple and a Scottish bloke who were cycling. The former had spent two and a half years cycling from Alaska and were on their way to Ushuaia, the latter had been on the road for a year, having started in Venezuela. As I was riding back I saw three bikes parked outside a shed, so pulled off the road. They were having lunch inside and kindly gave me some tea and I shared my biscuits. A contender for the definition of Britishness and definitely one of the most memorable cups of tea I've had on the trip. 

Then it was back into Argentina and onto Ruta Cuarenta (40), which has pretty legendary status as a hard road, although nearly all of it that I rode that day was tarmac and a beautiful winding road following the Turbio river north, enough ripio to be interesting without being too tiring and then on to El Calafate, entering the town shortly after the most amazing sunset. It as a amazing day on the bike (good roads, clear weather and problem free).

El Calafate is the closest town to the Perito Moreno glacier. The glacier has a face 5km wide, is approximately 60m tall and is one of the few glaciers that's still advancing. It's an amazing place and very difficult to get a handle on the scale, until a piece of ice falls off the face and you see the time it takes for it to fall, and then the size of the splash that it creates (more here). 

Rather than head back to El Calafate for another night, and then ride up to El Chalten, I decided I'd ride to the Pink Hotel. I'd been told about the place by the cyclists that I'd met in Puerto Natales (4). Click here for my review...

A beautiful ride to El Chalten, with the mountains including Fitzroy and the Cerro Torre gradually getting larger as you approach them from the east. The cover photo of the blog was taken at a mirador just before entering the town. Two great days of walking followed, the first covering significantly more ground than the second and ending with the sun setting behind the Cerro Torre and casting the most amazing shadows onto the west facing hills opposite. 

The second day was easier, a ride up to the lake where the hardy can take a ferry and then walk into Chile and the very bottom of the Carratera Austral (unfortunately not passable by bike), waterfalls and sunset atop a smaller hill overlooking the town. The clouds had come in on the second day (after the most amazingly blue skies the previous two days) but at sunset the clouds reflected the light from the sun onto the east face of the mountain, briefly lighting them up.

At the park office they were warning of deteriorating weather conditions. I'd given up on trying to do a four day hike round the back and above the glacier and decided to run away from the bad weather and head back east, then north. A good ride, about 120km of ripio when the ruta 40 showed what it could be like (5). A brief encounter with a Canadian rider on a big BMW, heading south, then tarmac (which I was very grateful for at this point), refuel and a big raincloud on the horizon was moving up from the south. I initially thought I was going to be able to miss it but the road took me into it's leading edge. The next hour or so wasn't much fun, gradually getting wetter, the road went onto a ridge line, which meant no shelter from the cross wind and also meant you felt quite exposed to the occasional lightning that I could see in the main body of the storm. I managed to ride out of the rain, but the sunlight was fading at this point so stopped at a place that advertised accommodation, just in time as shortly after checking in, the storm caught up and the most torrential rain storm arrived.


The sun returned the following day and an easier than expected ride up to Bajo Caracoles where I met a Londoner, who now lived in France, on a motorbike he'd bought in Santiago (and wasn't working properly). After chatting to him for a bit, he set of south and I went to the Cuerva de los Manos (Cave of the Hands). These cave paintings, on the side of the most stunning canyon, date from around 9,000 years ago until around the time of the arrival of the Europeans and are largely made up of positive and negative images of hands created by blowing paint onto the wall. It's an amazing place.

Back to Bajo Caracoles where I found out the hostel had closed. The guy that lived next door (and who had told me that the hostel was closed) offered me a bed in his spare room (I assumed he had something to do with the hostel but it was out of season). Only after agreeing did I discover there was no running water, the place smelt decidedly weird and the bloke was always whistling - I was beginning to think that it was like something out of Deliverance. The next morning I awoke (good first start) to snow (not so good). I didn't fancy another night in Bajo Caracoles but at the petrol station I was warned off taking the route that I was planning into Chile (over Paso Roballos) because of the weather and instead decided to head north to Perito Moreno, Los Antiguos and back into Chile at Chile Chico. A pretty unpleasant ride to Los Antiguos in the snow, which at times was falling so fast I had to wipe my visor clear 4 or more times a minute in order to be able to see. Bajo Caracoles is at 633m and the road to Perito Moreno went as high as 829m (that I saw), but Perito Moreno was lower and warmer (and so it was only raining there). Defrost for a few hours in a very accommodating cafe, then on to Los Antiguos on the Argentinian side (a lovely ride in sunshine) and back into Chile and Chile Chico.

Notes:

1. The Brauns were one of the very influential families responsible for opening up Patagonia and I think founders of La Anonima, which is now a supermarket chain in Argentina). The house in the centre of the town with the vineyard was Sara Braun's palace.

2. Calafate is a local berry, and the story goes that if you eat calafate you will return to Patagonia. I'm not usually a fan of flavoured beers but this one is very good.
3. I chatted to some guys on the ferry who'd been driving behind me earlier. They said they'd never seen someone go round a right hand corner with the bike leaning over to the left!
4. It seems to be a bit like The Beach, an almost mythical place that's handed on from cyclist to cyclist (and occasionally motorcyclists).
5. Much was alongside a freshly made tarmac road that hadn't quite been finished, and these alternate routes were worse than the normal ripio, with some very greasy muddy sections.