(December 12 – written by “Just Dave”) Today’s blog covers two days, two really hard days of riding, pushing, schlepping and falling under our bikes.  As I said, they were two hard days. I’ll start first with the ride from Villa O’Higgins to the Argentina border.  We left our hostel yesterday at about 6:40 with … Continue reading Two days of hard work – Villa O’Higgins to El Chalten (70k, 25,723k/2,500ft)

(December 10 – written by “Just Dave”) Today we are supposed to be on a boat crossing Lago O’Higgins, followed by a 23k bike/hike/push/pull over the mountains to Lago Desierto.  But good old Mother Nature decided that strong winds would be more fun and none of the ferries departed Villa O’Higgins.  Rain and wind were … Continue reading Weather delay in Villa O’Higgins

(December 8 – written by “Just Dave”) Today’s blog title might make you think that this post is for two days – it isn’t.  Long-time readers will know that the smell of the open barn door is a strong pull for us.  Today was no exception.  We had strong tailwinds and thus decided to push … Continue reading Days three and four – Glacial View Campsite to Villa O’Higgins (82k/k, 25,654k/3,150ft)

(December 7 – written by “Just Dave”) We’ve complete day two of the CA kicker – so far, so good... We ended up being alone in our sad little wild camp last night, that is if you don’t count the cows.  We’re not sure what time they came in but there was a herd of … Continue reading Day two –Under trees near creek to Glacial View Campsite (77k/k, 25,565k/3,150ft)

(December 6 – written by “Just Dave”) Today was day one of our four-day “last stretch” of the Carretera Austral.  No issues.  The road surface was a bit bumpy but we are used to that.  Climbing today was not as bad as it was the last couple days so we didn’t arrive shattered for a … Continue reading Day one – Cochrane to Under trees near creek (64k, 25,488k/3,300ft)

(December 5 – written by “Just Dave”) First a note about the name of the town that we are staying in and being native English speakers.  Nancy and I (and Joe and Sarah who are from the UK), have been pronouncing the name Cochrane as “Cock-ren”, just as anyone would who is from a native … Continue reading Cochrane (Co-cra-ne) and the route ahead…

(December 4 – written by “Just Dave”) Today was a really hard day.  It wasn’t our longest riding day of the trip.  It wasn’t the most climbing we’ve done in a day.  The weather was generally fine to great.  We still had one of our lowest average speeds of the entire trip and we were … Continue reading Rio Baker ramble – Cerro Colors Camping to Cochrane (63k/k, 25,424k/3,750ft)

(December 3 – written by Nancy – just plain ‘ole Nancy, as I don’t think it’s necessary to remind everyone I made the 10k mark first...) Today turned out to be a lovely day for a bike ride in Patagonia.  We actually both got hot riding under the intense sun – not sure I remember … Continue reading More blue skies (yeah!) – Puerto Rio Tranquilo to Cerro Colors Camping (54k/k, 25,361k/3,100ft)

(December 2 – written by “10K Dave”) We’ve had a quiet day here in Rio Tranquilo.  We got some important chores done however.  Nancy’s Rohloff shift lever has been sticking, so we worked on that.  My watch band broke the other day so we MacGyver’d that back together.  We studied the history of Rio Tranquilo … Continue reading Rio Tranquilo relaxing

(December 1 – written by “10K Dave”) More blue, more smiles, another great day – life is good. We came over a pass yesterday and rode down a river to where we camped last night.  Today we continued down that river to Largo General Carrera.  I sort of assumed that today’s views would be more … Continue reading Snow capped views continue – Doña Dora Campground to Rio Tranquilo (39k/25,306k, 1,760ft)