January 22, 2016
Short Arduous Day: Porvenir to Stream campsite (route 71, km55).
I am awake early as usual, but as I'm having a lay in, I remain in bed. I thought I may sleep again but the sun streams in through the windows of this nice old wooden house. I stay put until after nine, when I think it is time I should be making a move. Then I get out of bed and stand up, my legs are still aching and my whole body is stiff. I am not feeling well at all.
I pack the panniers and carry them downstairs. The overnight rate includes breakfast. Well, there is some kind of sausage meat thinly sliced, basket of bread, cup set out with watery milk powder mixture in the bottom, but no teabags. So I go to my pannier and get my own tea. The table has many day's bread crumbs accumulated, you would think some one would clear the table each morning. And later I ask to get water from the kitchen and find the place a bit of a mess with the smell of unwashed dishes. Hard to think how someone can live in such squalor.
I pay Juan the bill, 7000 pesos, then with the bike completely packed open the double doors and wheel the bike down the steps to the street where straightaway I'm hit by the chill keen air of the clear sunny morning. I make a stop at a shop and buy a litre and a half bottle of coke and leave town where unpaved ripio route 71 begins.
My map has it as 143km to San Sebastian, the next village and border post where I get stamped out of Chile. The road signboard has San Sebastian 146km and Juan in the hostel says it is a hundred and fifty. In any case the way on just isn't what I need, it is tilted up pampa rising to a crest less than two-hundred metres ahead. On reaching the crest more climbing is revealed. It continues uphill for close to ten kilometres. Apart from the climbing the ripio is in good condition.
Over the final crest the way drops down into a bowl shaped valley with a cream coloured lagoon in the middle and low stepp shrub on the slopes around. The road continues on from the lagoon out to the coast where it follows alongside the shore for a bit before an impossibly steep climb ahead. At this point I have to sit down to rest already. Nearby is the entrance to a military base where the wind is blowing the Chilean flag hard on top of the flag-pole, blowing at a right-angle to the road in the westerly wind, meaning the road at this point is going south.
Beyond that impossibly steep climb, the brisk crosswind changes gradually to my rear as I almost immediately drop back to the coast in a cove, followed by another steep climb out. It continues like this up and down for quite a bit and about two, I push my bike in out of the windchill in the sheltered side of a corrugated iron fisherman's hut on the beach in one such cove to lunch.
It is warm in the sunshine without the windchill as I eat a salami sandwich, leaving half a second one, as I just don't have the stomach for it. The bread is so dry.
I set off again at four to tackle the climb out of the cove. Ahead come a long level section and I'm bowling along with the tailwind. I have passed over one or two bridged narrow ravines which would've made good sheltered campsites, but it was too early to stop. Now, the camping possibilities are not looking good as it is well fenced estancia land right to the beach. Not until a warning signboard "Curva Peligrossa 200m" or dangerous bend, is there another possible camping spot; where, the road curves sharp right momentarily going steep down into a ravine with a stream at the bottom.
I lean the bike against the roadside crash-barrier and go and have a look beyond a high embankment where the stream curves behind, which would hide me from the road. I find a plenty big level stream bank thick with clover, so a comfortable bed. I return for the bike and ease it down the steep embankment, knowing that it'll be hard pushing the bike up in the morning. I pitch the tent and going into my food bag, realise I've left my teabags on the hospedaje breakfast table. What a bummer to be without tea for the next few days.
Today's ride: 55 km (34 miles)
Total: 4,295 km (2,667 miles)
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