Greetings. We are sitting here in Quellòn, Chile on
the island of Chiloè. We arrived here late yesterday
afternoon, and it was threatening to rain. It threatened for
a long time before delivering on the threat, but once it started last
night it really delivered. It poured much of the night, much
of the morning and it finally let up about an hour ago, but by then
it was too late to leave.
A few days ago while waiting for Dick to participate on a business
phone call from Coyhaique I read a forecast for that town which said
it was supposed to rain the next day and then continue for 3 days.
I also read a forecast for Puerto Montt, which is about 300 miles
north of there which promised fine weather except some clouds on Saturday.
To me this meant there was a line somewhere in between that we needed
to get past.
Dick´s call didn't get out until after 2, and it was at least
2:30 before we hit the road. I wrote that I was hoping that
the road was going to be paved, but alas, it was paved for a whole
5 miles or so out of town, and then changed to nasty gravel and washboard.
The clouds were already starting to move in. After about 40
miles of dirt we hit pavement again, but this only lasted maybe 20
miles. Then we were in a construction zone, and this was particularly
nasty. The grade of gravel they were using might not even be
considered gravel by many standards. Some of the rocks were
as big as my fist. This went on for like, oh, forever.
Then we hit the only town for about the next 50 miles, after only
making it about 93 miles out of Coyhaique. We decided to stop
here for the night since it was already getting late, and hunger was
setting in. I can't remember the name of this town, but it existed
soley for the road. It was a very small, planned town, and the
couple hotels were mostly hosting road workers. However the
food they served was top notch, I had carne, again, and it was so
tender it could be cut with a fork.
The following morning dawned with a red sky (red sky in the morning,
motos take warning) and there was mist on the bikes when we loaded
them up. By the time we left it was sprinkling. This evolved
into what I was calling a light rain, but Dick only labelled it a
heavy mist. I think it was a light rain because it was
enough that I was getting wet. This lasted about 2 hours and
then we broke out of the northern end of it. Fortunately
this road handled the rain a lot better than Route 40 in Argentina
did. I blame getting wet on Dick, as his phone call slowed us
down. Actually I can blame anything that goes wrong on this
trip on Dick, as he was the one who invited me on it to begin with.
It is utterly preposterous to think that I would have conceived of
this particular trip on my own.
The rest of that particular day was not so bad. There were a
few more sprinkles that I would have labelled mist, but mostly it
was just cloudy. This was unfortunate in itself as we were going
through one of the most scenic sections of the Carreterra Austral,
where hanging glaciers cover almost every mountain, and waterfalls
fill the valleys in between, but mostly all we saw were clouds obscurring
the peaks. The road went through a temperate rainforest, so
I guess you need rain to keep it in shape. The rainforest was
scenic on its own. As we came into Chaitèn the weather
cleared significantly, and the last few kilometers were paved.
This may be the end of the dirt for us. The road from here on
north is considered the Panamerican, and unless we get off the main
road it is supposed to be paved all the way to Santiago. Well,
except the ferry crossing to the mainland.
When we got to Chaitèn we were psyched to find that the ferry
was running the next day to Quellòn. In the off season
it only runs once or twice a week, and this is the off season.
We took it yesterday morning and could see the low, dark clouds over
Chiloè, and they were looking pretty threatening. As
we approached the island it looked like it was raining inland but
not yet at the port city of Quellòn. This turned out
to be the case, but not for long. As we checked out a hotel
recomended by the Lonely Planet guide it sprinkled a little, and last
night it really started to pour. The weather is reasonably calm
right now, and there are some signs of the storm breaking up, but
it was basically too late to check out of the room, so we are here
for one more night. This was a good chance to see if I had any
quotes on shipping the bikes, but no one got any useful information
to me. If might be a case like Panama of just showing up at
the airport in Santiago and soliciting quotes there. LAN seems
like a good bet that several people have used in the past. I
was hoping to have something set up in advance so we could just show
up in Santiago and get the bikes off as soon as possible so I could
fly home, but it might not be that easy. Hopefully I won't get
stuck there too long, Tahoe is getting DUMPED on this week!
