“If every country was a cocktail, Chile would be a skinny margarita, served in a champagne flute. It’s a long, slender country. It’s green, it’s tangy, and it leaves you wanting more.”
Of the two bikes we shipped to Chile for our bikepacking trip, both were detained by customs officials in Santiago. Following their interrogation, which must have confirmed that they were indeed bicycles, we picked them up at the airport, assembled them, and the four of us eagerly hit the road.
Chile’s topography was unrelenting. Rather than remaining flat and consistent, the road wove and wound up and down and over hills and through gullies, from gravel to paved to gravel again. From Puerto Varas, we biked to Cochamo, and after a long day cycling up more hills than I would have liked, we broke camp on a sloping hill overlooking the crisp mandarin coastline. We didn’t know it, but the weather was hot milk in Tupperware, not yet sour, but on its way.
“Why is it called the Carreterra Austral?”, I asked Cesar, sipping a brew from his neighbor’s garage.
It’s the end of our second day of riding, and we are at a campground near Contao warming our wet bones around a fire. The rain had met us that morning, and would remain for the remaining 9 days. Cesar runs the campground with his girlfriend. During the summer, he helps her manage the property, and in the winter, he guides expedition groups in northern Chile.
He snatches the joint we are sharing between his forefinger and thumb. His English is broken, but it holds up to conversation.
“Austral, it means way, way far away. Very much difficult to reach.” he pauses, “Patagonia is a place very, very far away.”
Southern Chile has historically been inaccessible. It wasn’t until 1976, when construction of the General Pinochet Highway (The Carretera Austral) first began that that began to change. Even today, roughly 30% of the Highway remains unpaved, and ferries transport travelers over major lakes. Two days later, we caught our crucial ferry ride from Hornopieren, which, as Cesar had told us, took us into the heart of Chilean Patagonia.
The wind gusts scurried along the rainy streets of Chaiten like water demons. They batter bushes and shake our bicycles resting on the restaurant’s front wall. The wood-fired stove blares heat on our wet extremities. I walk to the fridge and grab six bottles of Chilean beer for our table. The server follows shortly with menus.
“300 days a year” he says, “Chaiten has rain like this”
The landscape felt young. I expected to see stunning mountains, ice fields and glaciers, but the intensity of the forest startled me. Fern leaves, large enough to sit on, lined the roads. The lush rainforest and snowy peaks overwhelmed, confused and electrified me. Oh, and the waterfalls. Water poured from every cliff face, flowed down every slope, pooled in every depression, overfilled every pond, streamed down every road, and pepper each of our jackets with consistency. Water poured from the sky like it was returning home.