The day’s track
Leaving La Junta
We meet up with the ocean again. It starts raining
The town of Putuhuapi
We follow the fjord’s edge with the rain easing up
Still can’t see anything
Fuscia trees
A salt marsh at the end
Fuscia and gunnera
Because the going is on the slow side, we gun it down the straights to make up time
There are many dead trees on the route, presumably from past fires
At this spot the mountains are huge around us according to Google Earth, but nothing
This was horrendous. Slippery and blind corners. I refused to take the inside line on the blind right-handers. It seemed to me that anything oncoming was more likely to run close than run wide. Fortunately we didn’t have to find out.
Nasty climb. I spoke to Jerzy later and he didn’t like it at all, and he’s a pro.
Up there you can just see a hanging glacier and waterfalls. Apparently this is normally a breathtaking sight. Oh well.
Like this for most of the day. And very cold.
Then it turned to pavement for the run into Coyhaique, the biggest town on the Carretera.
Those mountains are huge
At last, some sun
See a cool bridge
And like most bridges, a photo opp
You can see the road on the right hand side hill
Into Coyhaique
There was more loose ripio today.
The problem is that the rounded gravel, of various sizes, sometimes large, sits on a rock-hard base. It’s like riding giant ball bearings at times. At other times it’s in deep pools for a 100 yards and you have to surf it hard on the throttle.
They say if you can ride this stuff on a big bike you can ride anything. Exhausting, not so much on the body but somewhere in the head. You’re so close to going down so often it takes a toll after a while, and you get tired. So we’re going to keep the day’s targets less than 200 miles.
Saludos
Comments
Damn – that description of the riding – ball bearings on hard surface – sounds nasty.
200 miles a day of that – ouch!
This’ll make your cajones significantly larger!
Most of a 200 mile day (which we haven’t done yet on this road) would be great riding. It’s only short and infrequent sections that are tough. Less than an hour total.
Beautiful photos as usual but that one greasy looking mountain road looks horrendous.