The Bicycle Diaries
Trip Start
Jan 10, 2005
1
5
12
Trip End
May 21, 2005
Puerto Varas,
Chile
Saturday, February 12, 2005
It´s been almost 8 months since I first mounted a bicycle in my parents back garden, at the age of 29, with my 13 year old neice laughing wildly as I struggled to connect 2 revolutions of the peddles together - at my age having stabilizers wasn´t an option.
Luckily things improved fairly quickly and it wasn´t long before I was being dragged along on bike rides with "Lance" Davies everytime we went away (I particularly enjoyed my first bike ride in Kinsale where several of our friends thought it would be helpful to drive up really close to me, shouting and blowing on their car horns - you know who you are)!
Anyway the purpose of all of this was to be able to go on a mountain bike trip of a lifetime: Crossing the Andes from San Carlos de Bariloche (Argentina) to Puerto Varas (Chile) combining biking with lake crossings by boat.
Trip Facts:
The distance -
39 nautical miles by catamaran, 165 Km on the bikes, 3 days. See map in Photos.
Who we went with -
Jorge, Maria and German. Jorge is a great guy who owns an adventure-tour company "Andescross" and was the only person in Bariloche willing to do this trip with us (who wants to mountain bike when there are idyllic lakeside beaches to sunbathe on and great steak to be eaten?). Jorge likes nothing better than waking up at 4am to go climb a mountain before starting his day´s work! Maria - Jorge´s brilliant girlfriend - is a Spanish/English teacher and owns a company called "Spanish in the Mountains" (combining learning Spanish with hiking - what a cool idea).
01. Route Map
German (our wonderful MTB guide) has been mountain bike guiding for over 10 years and owns a company called "Tehuelche Patagonia" making really cool climbing equipment (crampon bags, rucksacs etc). They were a really excellent bunch of guys and we became good pals.The Injuries -
5 falls in total.
First fall was the most embarassing - within about 2 minutes of the journey, at low speed, infront of loads of tourists.
Second fall was the most painful - at speed, landed on a tree stump. Would have been alright if I´d done it Andy-style using my ample arse but unfortunately I stopped using my chin. Scared the crap out of German.
Third fall was quite skillful - managed to skip off the bike and land on my feet, watching as the bike tumbled down the hill before crashing onto the ground (luckily the bikes didn´t belong to Andescross).
Can´t remember fourth fall, fifth was the most annoying - a huge horsefly called a "tabano" (the most annoying creature on earth, created by the devil) landed on my nose. I tried to swat it and completely forgot I was still on the bike and that balance, peddling and steering were all essential aspects of keeping a bike upright.
The highlight -
Biking down Volcan Osorno. The Volcano is 2661m high. We biked from the refugio at the 1200m level, 17 km downhill on rough and bumby dirt roads (I still can´t use my hands properly from clutching on to the brakes for dear life). Although I took it much slower than "Lance" Davies and Maria "Armstrong" it was still a real achievement for me - couldn´t have done it without you German.
What now?
Well we´ve spent a few days recovering in Puerto Varas (one of which was spent on a 6 hour kayak trip - yes we are mad). We´re heading back up North and going to the coast where we promise we won´t do anything more than lie on the beach and read (although Dan has been talking about paragliding across the sand dunes)...
