The next day I took a bus to Puerto Montt in Chile, I spent a night there and then headed to Concepcion, one night there, another bus and I arrived in Santiago de Chile where I planned to work for the next month. It wasn’t quite as easy as I thought to find an apartment but at the end I found a good place. It’s hard to switch from traveling to ordinary work all the time, but that’s the way I choose to do it, I’ll get over it.

Then, December 31, I already got a better bike the evening before, I headed for the buss terminal since I wanted to go to San Martin by bus and then ride back with the bike for 3 days. But what a disappointment when they told me that I could not take a bike onto the bus. I would have had to take it apart and wrap it up. So I thought I just start here and once I get to San Martin I would find a way to get back to Bariloche. So I headed out of Bariloche and the first 20 km were very easy since there was a strong wind that helped me. I knew that once I got around the end of the lake this wind would blow me directly into the face; and so it was. The next 20 km were very hard, the road was very deserted and the wind was very strong, but at least the landscape was like I had hoped for. After half a day I reached another arm of the lake about halfway between Bariloche and Villa la Angostura and I decided to eat lunch. Shortly after that, I sat on my bike again. I switched to a lower gear and I heard a terrible noise. The changing mechanism got into the wheel and was ripped out of its place, parts flying everywhere. Shit, this was not good. 40 km to the next town in the middle of nowhere with a bike that can not be fixed. The road was very deserted but still there were cars driving by occasionally, so I didn’t worry too much. I just wait for a pick up truck to pass by and ask if they give me a ride back to Bariloche. I thought that people, especially here in Latin America would feel sorry for somebody with a broken bike so far away from the next town and help me, but I was very wrong. I tried for about an hour to stop a car, but nobody bothered. I didn’t like the thought of walking back 40 km, but since nobody stopped it was pretty much the only thing I could do. I was walking for about an hour when a couple from Spain catches up with me. They were traveling since one month by bike. They offered me help but weren’t able to do much. So we tried together if we could not stop a car. After some failed intents, the Spanish were very upset about the unfriendliness, finally a couple from Bariloche agreed to take me back. I had to share very few space with my broken bike and with a huge dog, but I didn’t care that much, I was just glad I didn’t have to spend New Years Eve walking in the middle of nowhere. They told me that probably all the cars that passed me were tourists, that people from Bariloche did help people with problems on the road. When I got back I was very tired and also a bit frustrated because I really wanted to do this trip by bike, but I didn’t have time anymore since I needed to get to a place where I could work again, so I spent New Years Eve in the hotel watching a movie.

I have to admit that the area around Bariloche is one of the nicest I have encountered yet (I can only speak for the summer, I don’t know how it is in winter time), not so much the town, as the park surrounding it called Nahuel Huapi, with many lakes and mountains. The colors of the lakes and the plants were very strong and I just felt the need to explore this region by bike. First I wanted to do the trip I already made by bus, from El Bolson to Bariloche, but then I thought I better do something I have not seen yet. There is the well known route of “7 lagos”, from San Martin de los Andes to Bariloche, about 200 km. You can take tours that do this route but for me it was clear that I had to do it by bike. Since I have basically not touched a bike for about 2 years I decided to make a smaller tour first, to see how far I can get in one day. I choose to do the “circuito corto” which is about 70 km and leads from Bariloche to a little peninsula with a park called “Llao Llao”. This park is amazing; I have not seen anything like it. You have crystal clear lakes with deep blue and emerald water, colorful flowers, deep green trees and the snowy mountains in the background. That’s the one place you can not miss when you are in the area. The street that leads to the park wasn’t very nice to ride by bike since there was a lot of traffic and argentines don’t seem to like bikers very much, they honk and shout at you if you don’t make room and they have to slow down a bit. The bike wasn’t very comfortable and the next day when I wanted to go on my 3 day trip my but hurt so bad that I had to postpone it for 2 days until I recovered.

After El Calafate I wanted to go to Bariloche, Argentina. There are several ways that you can take to get from El Calafate to Bariloche. One is flying, I didn’t want to do that and everything was booked out anyway. Another one is go back to Puerto Natales and take the ferry up to Puerto Montt. That would have been a nice thing to do, unfortunately the ferry only leaves once a week and I didn’t want to wait that long. The next one is to make a huge circle back to the east coast. Since I already made that trip and there was not much to see I didn’t want to do that either. On the map I saw a road that leads straight up from El Calafate and I wondered why there are no bus lines on that route. After asking around I found one, but it was very expensive. Since I didn’t want to take any of the other options I bought a ticket anyway. It turned out that the road that I choose was the famous “Ruta 40”. Famous because it is very deserted, for hundreds of kilometers there is no civilization and it’s almost entirely gravel. It was a two day trip with one night in a Hospedaje half way. In the bus there were only tourist, some of them choose to make this trip because they thought it was an adventure. I didn’t think so; I just wanted the shortest route to Bariloche. The trip wasn’t very nice, although you can see some mountains in the distance, it’s basically all flat. You get to see a lot of animals, kind of like a safari. The second day was even worse because they fit us in a very small minibus, with terrible little space for your legs and no space at all for the second bag I was carrying, so I ended up having it on my knees for 14 hours. By the way the first day of the 2 was Christmas day. About 2 hours before we got to Bariloche the country sight started to get more and more interesting. We stopped in a little town called El Bolson, it was really a nice and quiet place. After another short ride along a beautiful road we finally reached Bariloche.

The next day I was heading for the park to see the glacier. Fortunately you don’t have to take a tour to visit the park. What’s so special about this park is that you get very close the glacier even without having to hike for 2 days or without taking expensive cruses. It’s almost a little like Cataratas, where you have wooden walkways and platforms that guide you to the interesting spots and let you enjoy them. It was a mostly clouded day but at times the sun came out and the ice took on en even deeper shining blue and made constant sounds as if somebody was cutting down trees. Since I had a whole day and the wooden walkways are not going very far, I decided to walk a little downhill, not exactly knowing where to go, but on my way down I saw some small paths and although there were signs that said that you shouldn’t go on without prior consultation with a park ranger, I went anyway. I am glad I didn’t let the signs scare me off because I reached some nice spots, close to the ice where nobody else was in sight. There you can really enjoy the view without hundreds of tourists rushing by.

Just as Puerto Natales, El Calafate itself doesn’t have much to offer, it’s just the place you head off to see the glacier Perito Moreno, but that doesn’t mean that there is nothing to see at all. I was recommended Hospedaje Mariana, a good place to stay and close to it there is a little park with a circuit that you can walk in about an hour. It’s a swamp and therefore there are many birds including Flamingos. It was really entertaining, one of the birds started to fly very close to me. I don’t know if it was trying to defend its territory or if it was so used to humans that it started to play with them, I assume it was the later one. There was a strong wind and the bird was very fast. It came diving down on me and just in the last moment it pulled up and soared by close over my head, one time it even touched me in flight. It moved just like a fighter plane when it attacks a target on the ground. I played a while with it and tried to shoot some pictures, I didn’t think they’d come out in focus but I was lucky so I have some great pictures of that bird in flight.
Besides that park, a walk on the dried out portion of the lake is also pretty special.

In Puerto Natales, same as in Punta Arenas there were people in the buss station offering places to stay. I really like this because it makes it really easy for me. I chose one and hit a check pot with it. The Hostal Nancy has beautiful rooms including breakfast for a very good price, run by friendly people. Puerto Natales is quite touristy since it is the nearest city to the national park Torres del Paine and the port where the ferry from Puerto Montt lands. It’s supposed to be a nice 3 day cruse with that ferry where you can see the fiords and glaciers in that region, but my plan was to go to El Calafate after.
But first it was time to go visit Torres del Paine. I asked around for a way to get there without having to take one of the tours, but since it is some 100 km away from the town, the only bus that goes there cost almost as much as a tour. So I signed up for one of the one day tours the next day. Certainly the tours are not cheap and neither is the entrance fee you have to pay to enter the park but now I am glad I did not skip it. You get to see amazing scenery, with green hills, emerald green lakes, waterfalls, glaciers and snow covered mountains, once again it felt like in a fantasy movie. My favorite spot was certainly the waterfall, but also the “campo de hielo” was very impressive. What happens is that the wind carries big junks of ice that break from the glacier down the lake where they strand near the beach. When you arrive at the beach it looks like somebody has built some beautiful sculptures in the water. When you get closer you see that it’s ice with an amazingly deep blue color and artistically shaped. There was an extremely strong wind down the lake that made it very difficult to walk. The park is very good for camping, so if you have more then a day you should do that (in summer that is). The next morning I took a bus to El Calafate back in Argentina.

No, this is not the scene from Independence Day where suddenly a space ship appears, this is for real. Before leaving Rio Grande and Tierra de Fuego, once again I was able to witness one of the amazing sunset. If you need a good place to stay in Rio Grande, you can crash at Hosteria Patagonia Sur.
I crossed the border to Chile and after a few hours I arrived in Punta Arenas. Since I travel without a guide book and have to look for a place to stay once I get to a city, it was very nice for me arriving in Punta Arenas, since there were a whole bunch of people waiting there who have rooms to offer. You just talk to them and choose the one that you prefer. I spent just one night there and the next day I headed for Puerto Natales.