Yo como manzanas

It’s hard to write a riveting blog post when everything goes just as planned. I want to send you some high drama and daring tales of survival deep from the mountains of Chile but this isn’t one of those tales. I started my adventure on the Carretera Austral (a/k/a Route 7) bike packing route yesterday with an ambitious schedule of logistics. I flew from Atlanta to Santiago on a night flight and then caught a connecting flight to Puerto Montt. The flights were both on time and super easy. I am traveling light so it was easy to move through the airports efficiently. I jumped in a cab in Puerto Montt and it was a short ride to the bike shop to pick up my rental bike at Austral Bikes. The friendly guys at the shop were waiting for me and it took just a few minutes to get my bike set up. After a quick trip to the grocery store next door, I found my Airbnb and, picked up some camp fuel downtown and had a great dinner at a beachside restaurant with a beautiful view of the Orsono volcano.

This is also my first real chance to try out my Duolingo Spanish lessons. I spent a few months learning some of the basics but mostly trying to push French out of my head. Not sure if this happens to you when learning a new language but my brain always defaults to that first foreign language I studied. Duolingo is pretty good but it crams you up with some pretty unhelpful phrases. It turns out that no one cares what fruit I eat. “Yo como manzanas” means “I eat apples” but you would be surprised how infrequently that topic comes up. I bought apples at the grocery store just in hopes someone would ask. All kidding aside, I pretty proud of my first restaurant trip – I was able to get my self a table, order and receive what I wanted, politely decline dessert and pay the bill – entirely in Spanish. Tres bien! I mean, muy bueno!

I started my first day of riding from Puerto Varas in very heavy rush hour traffic. It was a twelve mile ride to get to the official start of the Carretera Austral in Puerto Montt. A friendly driver helped me find a bike path so I could get out of the mayhem. Once I got to Route 7, the riding was awesome. It’s all paved road at this point and I rode 40 miles through fishing villages to the ferry at La Arena. It was a quick ferry ride across to Calenta and then back on the bike for another 40 miles to Hornopiren. This was my biggest day but I wanted to get down to here to catch my long ferry ride that I booked for November 4 and then slow down into a much calmer pace.

The road was pretty flat along the water but got very hilly every time it turned into the mountains. The bike handles great with all of the gear and I took the uphills slowly in my easiest gears. I stopped for some water out of a clear mountain stream and also took a break to take a Bainbridge Rowing board of directors call. It was nice to get off the bike for a bit and I’m thrilled that the eSIM that I bought for my phone is connecting to the networks as planned and providing great coverage.

I pulled into Hornopiren around 6PM, got settled in at my hostel and then went for an incredible dinner at a restaurant nearby. The food here has been amazing. I had a salmon ceviche followed by a perfect steak served with grilled potatoes and broccoli. They even had a good mocktail menu and homemade pastries for dessert. It felt great to splurge after the long ride and such a successful first day on trail.

I am headed down now to get on the long ferry ride. Today will be mostly on the boat enjoying the views of the mountains and then I’ll try to find a camping spot somewhere on the other side. I haven’t seen any other riders yet but hoping to meet some cyclists today. Maybe they will have some drama for you.