My Kingdom for a Horse

 

El Chalten, Argentina to Villa O'Higgins, Chile by cycle, foot and no horse, January 7th to 9th 2008

Are you sitting comfortably?  Then I'll begin...  Our story starts in the sleepy little town of El Chalten, Argentina, which is a very newly established settlement (22 years only, by most accounts) and acts as a hub for active-minded outdoor types to partake in various activities in the mountains and foothills of Cerro Torre and Fitz Roy.  As we arrived in the rain, we were pleased to wake the following day to beautiful sunshine.  The following day yours truly was displeased to wake to a heinous sunburn.  All those lessons from my past were not heeded, once more, and the cycle continues (pun unintended, honest).  On the following two days the weather returned to it's rainy best and unfortunately the clouds continued to obscure our view of the peaks which we hiked to see, but nothing ventured nothing gained, as a wise man once said.

Our objective was simple: get from A to B, via C, D  and E using our bikes, two ferries and possibly a horse.  More explicitly:

37k by cycle from El Chalten, Argentina, to Punta Sur, Lago del Desierto
45min ferry to Punta Norte, Lago del Desierto
22k by horse, or not by horse, to Candilaria Mancilla, Chile
2.5hrs by ferry across Lago O'Higgins
7k by cycle to Villa O'Higgins

The reality was hell.  With a bike.  Not exactly on a bike, but definitely with a bike.  While we haven't weighed our bikes when fully loaded up, we reckon they're coming close to 45kgs each when we're stocked for 5 days or so.

All set for the off, in El Chalten, we procrastinate for quite a bit as we look towards the rain in the valleys where we are headed.  We meet Christian and Olga yet again, who'd just arrived in town, on their bikes at 5am, following the decision to ride all through the night because there is no wind and a strong one is forecast.  217k in one day humbles us by a considerable margin, but we remain upbeat as we set off at 6pm in the pissing rain, towards the campsite by the ferry port, fuelled by the huge sugar-rush brought on by a large bag of facturas.  Of course the rain continues all night as we camp and then as we cycle to meet the Viedma on the following morning as she waits to take us across Lago del Desierto.

Despite some hairy moments with rather large waves, the Viedma deposits us safely at Punta Norte, at the top end of Lago del Desierto.  Here we get our passports stamped by an Argentinean soldier who looks to be about 12 years old, and has obviously either drawn the short straw when the postings were being decided, or has done something very stupid.  His cohorts, who cohabit his allotted hut, are very welcoming and sell us coffee and biscuits for double the price they'd quoted five minutes earlier, but arguing for our change doesn't seem like it will win us much in the current circumstances.

It's here that we wait, mostly outside, for some mythical guy to appear out of the forest with horses to take us the 22k to the next lake.  We're not alone, there being 3 French people and one German girl waiting along with us.  The soldiers tell us that our saviour may not appear at all today due to the inclement conditions, so we prepare ourselves for a long wait and possibly even an overnight camp.  Having to stay the night would be bad as we have to make it across this trek in time for the next ferry, which only leaves twice a week, for 5.30pm the following day.

Now we have to admit that we'd heard numerous reports about this 'trek', and especially about how tough it was without a horse.  Having already had to spend the guts of a day of our trip hauling our bikes and bags up and across incredibly tough terrain (on our 'bird watching' trip north of Torres del Paine National Park...) we had been of the opinion that we could make this trip without a horse to take our bags.  When it had rained for a couple of days straight, we decided to investigate booking ourselves a horse, and the day before we needed the horse had successfully made the online booking request.

At 4pm Ricardo finally arrived, with some horses.  However, it quickly became evident that this guy didn't have a horse for us, so we tried to keep a stiff upper lip as the Frenchies and Germans got loaded up on their horses.  The German girl hadn't booked herself a horse, so the young French guy, Stefan, offered her his horse in a show of manners and goodwill which made Mother Teresa look like Alan Rickman's Sheriff of Nottingham.  This proved enormously good news for us as Stefan was free to help us haul our bikes up the first 100m or so of near vertical, horseshit lined track.  This section alone took us about 15 minutes and the look on Stefan's face was beginning to change, somewhat.  Unfortunately for us his tour of duty was cut short as the young soldier had ran up the track to catch the party to tell the German girl that she had to have her passport stamped or risk not getting into Chile.  Stefan jumped at the chance, quite conveniently and understandably, to run ahead to tell her.  Obviously that was the last we seen of Saint Stefan for some considerable time.

As if this lot wasn't bad enough, the rain had started to fall again, and the insects in the forest had taken an instant liking our our pale, gringo skin.

We knew, however, that it was 'only' the first 6k of this trek which was really bad, so we continued pushing, hauling, lifting and sliping (N.Irish people will, no doubt, know this term well) our bikes and bags for a total of 5 hours, without respite, safe in the knowledge that the last 16k or so would be easy in comparison.

  

Amongst this lot there were multiple water crossings to overcome, some amusing pictures of which are above.

On finally completing the 6k we were delighted to make out what looked almost like a vehicle track, and quickly mounted up for the first time in hours.  While hardly the M6 Toll-road to Manchester, this was welcome relief, and we hammered down the track for a couple of kilometres before being confronted by a fair-sized river and half a bridge.  Yes, the bridge was out, so it was time to get the bags off the bikes once more and wade across the thigh-high torrent multiple times with our gear before re-encumbering the bikes with their unasked-for luggage and cycling on.  As you can imagine, with darkness falling, temperatures plummeting, insects swarming, and our clothes and footwear saturated, our moods were far from that of spending a sunny Saturday afternoon in the beer garden of the Dog and Duck watching the FA Cup Final on the big screen.  Pictures at this point were out of the question and, anyway, you wouldn't want to see us suffering now, would you...

After that we started upon one of the best off-road descents that yours truly has ever experienced.  Alastair was enjoying it, though he would have enjoyed it much more had his suspension forks not given up a couple of days previously, but he still claims it was enjoyable.  Dave, on the other hand, found it 'boring' as one had to frequently slow down to navigate the large rocks etc.  About 4k long and very rocky and technical, it was tough going in the semi-darkness, with fully laden bikes, especially with large cliffs appearing on either side of the track at points and pannier racks which were surely due to fall apart again at any moment.

At the bottom we found the Chilean border post and, once we'd ruined the carpet once and for all, the amazed young soldier stamped our passports and welcomed us to Chile.  A further kilometre down the road we found refuge in the stilted house belonging to the crazy old mother of Ricardo [the horse guy], and we were safely in Candelario Mancilla.  Bizarrely, answering the door was Cyril, a Swiss guy who we'd first met when on our 'exploring' trip, north of Torres del Paine, coming down the mountain with his girlfriend in a 4x4.  We were next to meet him 3 days later while cycling out from the Glaciar Perito Moreno which brought a smile to all those involved as he knew exactly how we'd gotten there so quickly...

As it turns out, the 4 people who started the trek with us on horses were holed up there also, and had only gotten there about an hour before us.  They were truly amazed that we'd made it at all, never mind that we'd made it that day/night so shortly after them.  We removed our sodden clothes, handed them to Ricardo's mama, and she promptly hung them over a large bowl, in a corner full of electrical plugs.   Our room was smaller than our tent, with our victorious navigator, D. Middlemiss, taking the bed and the Montgomerys happy on the floor. It was incredibly cold, but it was Chile, and we'd made it over the worst bit of 'cycling' that we would surely ever do in our lives, so we slept well and long, contented with our day's efforts and successes.

The next day was beautiful and provided us with an ideal opportunity to take over the entire balcony area at the front of the house by spreading all our gear out over it to dry.   Alastair put his back into removing the horseshit from our waterproofs, while I fixed up some pannier damage and generally sorted out the kitchen bags.  This balcony was a lifesaver, in the non-literal sense, but was a potential life-taker in the literal sense as the wood was mostly rotten and the whole thing is surely only a short time from falling down completely.  This was also our first meeting with Fred, a dance-loving, booze-hating Aussie with a ponytail whom we were to meet on numerous occasions along the Carretera Austral.  A thoroughly good bloke he is too!

5pm and it's ferry time again so we wheeled down to the port and jumped aboard the Hielo Sur with our fellow travellers.  Once more the German reputation for astute planning and organisation was scythed to the ground by the German girl, Kathleen, as she'd somehow paid for her room twice and had to return to the house to collect her winnings.  Two and a half hours later, and without incident, we were deposited at the top end of Lago O'Higgins (the same lake is named Lago San Martin on the Argentinean side), 7k from Villa O'Higgins.

Cycling into the town of Villa O'Higgins was very relaxing in the late evening and by pure chance we happened upon the same camping as Cyril and his girlfriend, and Kathleen.  A passing fruit and veg truck was ransacked, the campsite-owner's girlfriend's 'closed' shop was used to buy a couple of bottles of Chilean red, dinner was cooked, wine was drunk and cycling and mountaineering stories were swapped with our friend Cyril until the inevitable bedtime was reached.  Next day we were off to catch another ferry to Puerto Yungay, on a road which was to prove considerably different than that which was described by Fernando, the owner of Camping Mosco... (as dramatised by D. Middlemiss, in his last blog post).

Hasta luego,
Col