Day 5: Coyhaique - Cochrane

We left Coyhaique’s cabañas (looked like the village of the 7 dwarfs) by using for one last time the suspension bridge. We rushed to the city to get Hadrien’s new tank bag (new tank bag? yes, new tank bag, don't ask). Getting it was a bit crazy and cost us 3 hours. We only spend one night in Coyhaique but now we can claim that we know the city very well...




On the road, we discovered Mijail’s new description of “amazingly beautiful” for the scenery: “I want to be a dinosaur in this landscape -et brouter toute cette herbe-”. We actually thought that he just wants to eat the cows in one piece!




We entered into the National park of Cerro Castillo that was still covered in a scarf of fog. The mountains changed in between copper-red and rusty green. From this colorful red-tainted scenery it changed into a valley filled with emerald and turquoise-green lakes and rivers in front of a background of soft-round mountains covered by crystal-blue glaciers.

We were drowned by picturesque fairy-tale images and before we could get used to one scenery, the landscape already changed into another lord-of-the-rings landscape.

The valley was formed by the various streams from the Murta river. Driving on the same level as the river and the sand banks added a special mysterious touch to the slippery journey.

Then came Puerto Tranquilo at the General Carrera Lake (the second biggest lake of South America) where we got into a boat to see the Marble Chapell. Nature left here mountains of marble to get formed by the lake’s waves and become a worth-wile tourist attraction. The lake level was quite high and we could not visit the inside of the cave as expected. However we enjoyed the ride with the boat which was splashing on the waves.

From General Carrera Lake we continued to Cochrane along the Baker river valley, the fastest river in the world. More spectacular sceneries opened to our eyes: hidden lakes, lagoons and canyons: every single spot inviting to stay longer and to explore intensively. Unfortunately time would pull us further along to finally reach Cochrane – a village hidden in the valley with simple living standards but still as decorative as the so far seen villages.

 At the end of the day, Hadrien offered us a little show of his skills by falling once again with his bike while standing in front of the gas station. He is not used to manipulate big engines!

Day 4: Puyuhuapi - Coyhaique

We started the morning by being super-efficient, we beat our own record and were ready to leave at 11:00. We must say to our defense, that Puyuhuapi gave us the best breakfast since we arrived in Patagonia. Isabel was talking in German with the house owner, Mijail was updating the blog while eating, Hadrien was devouring the breakfast and enjoying very good coffee.




During our super-efficient morning we realized that Puyuhuapi is not next to a lake as we originally thought but next to the Pacific Ocean. Small mistake for the starving bikers who arrived late in the evening (Isabel will claim that she was right from the beginning though...)

Yesterday, Isabel was a bit sad because we cancelled  a 4 hour detour to see some dolphins, so this morning, as soon as we realized that we were in front of the ocean, she said: "Ohhh let's go and see the dolphins", boys just laughed at her, but they were wrong - very much wrong!: We drove ten minutes and Isabel spotted happy dolphins swimming next to the road. They were a group of 5-6 small dolphins playing and at a moment even curiously approaching us while swimming on their back showing off their white bellies and doing little Flipper-jumps.

Later we stopped at the Parque Nacional Queulat, we wanted to see what was this Ventisquero Colgante (=hanging glacier) that everybody talks about. Miji was astonished to see these two "Swiss" so excited to visit glaciers...

While leaving the Parque Queulat parking, Hadrien bumped a car's bumper and dropped a side case once again. Given the frequency of this kind of incidents, for your convenience, we will be moving this kind of info to the footnotes in the future... what we will keep here is Hadrien's comment 30 mins later, out of the blue: "3rd time in 4 days, something is wrong..."

After a few hours came the "Serpentine-road", the most technique-demanding stretch of the road so far, a set of narrow uphill switchbacks in the gravel of Carretera Austral. Hadrien had a little incident but some muscled man helped him to quickly be back on the road again.

Approaching Coyahique we reached our 1’000 km mark.Congratulations to us!!! we are such an excellent team!!! Just before reaching this milestone, Isabel spotted other animals: several alpacas drinking by the river.

To get to the hotel we had to cross a “suspended” bridge - an adventure by itself. It was composed of wooden bricks orientated in 2 directions and overlapping each other. It was exactly what Mijail wished for earlier in the morning. So we went one by one unsure which side of the bridge we could use safely but we’ve made it. 

We went then to the city center in order to eat 500gr of beef each (man) at Carne Queulat. We enjoyed our time at the restaurant and Hadrien had the pleasure to try for the first time the local Pisco Sour and since it was so good - we had a second round... Does anyone remember how we got home?



It is to be noted that in Coyhaique, dogs are always barking at the motorcycle. Hadrien realized that the dogs here hate motorcycles and even more the drivers... and even more Hadrien than other drivers. Somehow Hadrien stimulates the same reaction with cows. Although nothing happened to him, Mijail got bitten (a little bit) by our host's dog while arriving to the cabaña - we guess it was just the way to say 'welcome!'.

Day 3: Esquel - Puyuhuapi

Today we were lucky: we had the breakfast delivered to our room! We didn't check into a five star hotel, but the place was lovely! Two toasts, one cup of coffee and we were ready to go!!!!!

After a quick stop for gas we headed to the Chilean border. We had some asphalt when leaving Esquel, but the rest of the trip was rough gravel.








The Argentinean border control recommended us restaurant Futaleufú in Futaleufú. They said: "go and look for Morales, and tell him that the "chicos" of the border are sending you and that if he doesn't treat you well, he'll have to deal with us!!!" We did as the "chicos" said. The fresh "salmón rosado" was delicious, and Isamar, our waitress, was lovely.

After lunch we went to see some well hidden rapids. The road was narrow, curvy, very uphill and full of loose gravel. The drivers were demanded a lot of skills that they didn't have yet. Senior pilot Mijail was being dragged by the gravel across the small road towards the left side right into a ditch. The motorbike ended up with the rear wheel stuck. It was smooth, pilot and copilot landed on the floor elegantly.

Behind them, Hadrien, wanting to help, decided to brake uphill but wasn't able to keep the motorbike standing so he fell too. So both motorcycles and all 3 riders ended up laying on the gravel and blocking the road at the same time! Luckily, it wasn't a hard fall, but it was quite some work to get Miji's bike out of the ditch. We had to remove all luggage in order to pull the bike back to the road. 
















 

Finally, arrived at the last point accessible by motorized vehicles, we quickly changed our winter-motorcycle-outfit for a more adapted bathing suit and sport shoes. We had a 1 hour trek to visit the rapids (spontaneous off-plan decision), Gorgeous! Isabel was very happy especially since there was a perceptive to swim afterwards. Mijail wasn't very much overjoy to walk, but he was obviously motivated by the promise of a cold beer at the end. You have to understand the latino.

The rapids were beautiful and the walk quite relaxing. In 2008 this region suffered from an eruption of the volcano, all the ashes covered the landscape, 50cm of ashes they say. The grass was mostly already growing over it, but on some spots the white ashes were still showing. It was quite magic!

At the end of the trek we jumped into the refreshing lake. The first 15 meters from the shore into the lake were covered with half a meter of mud, so we walked and sank into the mud until we could actually enjoy swimming. With every step Isabel was scared to discover a snake sleeping in the mud, instead, a wild dolphin appeared... with yellow-white pants...

Refreshed we headed back to the carretera austral - the main gravel road leading to the south. Our next stop was La Junta. We had the feeling to better master the off-road; we felt less tired as well. Unfortunately we lost one hour on the way due to construction work :-(. At one point, Hadrien ended up in a wrong gravel lane and there was too much gravel to direct the bike. He slowed down in order to get in a safe position but it was slippery. He fell slowly with his motorbike. He didn't hurt himself. Tons of kind people helped him to redress his motorbike.

At La Junta, we lost another 30 mins because of the slow gas station lady. She seemed to need a calculator everytime a customer wanted to pay. Mijail was a bit furious and showed his latino-temper when after a long time of calculating she then asked him to move his ass along.

The scenery was just AMAZING!!! we cannot tell better, it was AWESOME!, just check this (pages could be written for this scenery, but we don't have time) :

Finally, at 9 p.m. we arrived at Puyuhuapi. Hadrien looked like the sandman and Miji was too tired to even share a smile. We can confirm: Hadrien is getting dirtier day by day. We ate a delicious "Merluza" at El Muelle where we also met another group of Swiss bikers that we had already met in Zürich airport. They had checked in right before us. When we walked into the restaurant they welcomed us like war-heroes with applause and greetings.

Now Mijail is sleeping soundly and snoring loudly. Too much beer!!

Day 2: Bariloche - Esquel

This morning the process was much more smooth and we managed to get out of the room fairly quickly. However we had to change money, finish the blog post from yesterday and repair a broken GoPro mount. So we left at 10:00 once again!

Before we left we met a group of bikers. They were now 15 and lost 2 guys during their trip (went back home), the remaining 15 had a hard time to keep the moral up. It was a cold reminder that our adventure is not for the faint of heart and needs a lot of concentration.

Mijail got the excellent idea to add an extra tour on today's plan and we started with Circuito Chico. It is a tour of the countryside around a mountain called Cerro Catedral. The houses were the same style of chalet that you can find in Switzerland and there was even a ski lift! We played the game on guessing which Swiss lake or mountain was the same as our view.

 
We headed back towards Bariloche to start our actual trip to El Bolson where we had a well deserved lunch -always including homemade Patagonian beer. The weather was hot: 30°C and dry (luckily!) which gave us clear sight on the far mountains but it is also quite exhausting to drive under this strong sun.We asked for a coffee to give us some energy for the drive but the coffee-machine was broken and the waitress said "no tengo, se los debo!". We should integrate this kind of answer in our European life - would make some situations quite funnier!

We slipped back into our quite too hot gear and went back on the road. After 20 km, we were happy to drive off-road. It was the first time of our trip that we were doing off-road. However after one hour we were exhausted and realized that we did only 40 km and had 60 km more off-road to overcome. It was concentration on a maximum level non-stop.

We were then gently guided to stop at a beach, like the first day, and to refresh ourselves. At the sight of the fresh deep blue lake Isabel went directly into the water but Mijail and Hadrien were tired and didn't want to get undressed so they dragged their feet one in front of the other and once in the water the world was perfect again!

The water was greatly refreshing and some thought it was warmer than the first day, others (latino doesn't want to have his name mentioned) thought it was still too cold.

We arrived at Esquel and once refreshed by beers (boys abandoned this modern showering-thingy), we decided not to go to the restaurant tonight but to order pizza instead. It was a good idea since we had some tuning to do on the motorbikes. So we had romantic dinner outside next to the bikes.

Day 1: Osorno - Bariloche

We wanted to leave just after breakfast today but ended up leaving almost at 10:00, after breakfast. We realized that we were not that ready to leave and that organizing the baggage is a work of magic! Finally, we managed to attach all the bags to the motorbikes and were ready for our 1st day of adventure.

We left Osorno and drove towards the Parque Nacional Puyehue. We were astonished by the landscape: white ashes and green trees surrounding a volcan that blew 40 years ago.

We stopped at Villa Angustura for a quick lunch and headed to the beach. The water was cold (cold for the boys, just right for Isabel!) but it was worthwhile since the day was hot.

We then left the beach after an energizing drink to motivate ourselves to get back into the hot motorcycle cloths and then  back to the asphalt. The landscape was wonderful and at times, very close to what we can see in Switzerland: mountain, lake & snow, but not quite: the lake's color changed in between a range of amazing deep blue and turquoise and was a beautiful contrast next to near arid-white mountains jumping out of the water. At some other times, it was like being in Mars.

We arrived in Bariloche: the town was a mixture of a Walt Disney village and American style houses filled with chocolate specialties. It was difficult to feel reality.

Coming back down to Earth we headed for a well deserved dinner with a lot of Argentinean meat: 1kg Argentinian cow (see below) for Miji and 600g shared in between Hadrien and Isabel!

The drive was smooth today and no accident so far. Well just two little things:
1) Hadrien managed to lost one luggage by bumping into Mijail's motorbike - this almost made Miji and Isabel fall - right in front of the boarder check. You should have seen the face on the border's agent, she was like "que le pasa???", and Miji with big eyes was like "No lo se!?". The fact is that we were supposed to give our number plates, and Hadrien wanted to go in front to let us read his, so he gave full gas! He didn't realize how large his motorbike was. Isabel gave him some Coordinol tablets and everything was fine afterwards.
2) At the gas station, tanks were full, we were getting ready to leave and  Hadrien drops his motorbike next to a nice shiny black SUV. It was a slow drop, but not slow enough to give people the time to react, in particular the truck owner, who was just next to the scenario. He was paralyzed, looking at this huuuuge BMW falling towards his pick-up. The face of the guy: priceless! Luckily though, Hadrien didn't touch the truck and we all ended up laughing (for Hadrien it seemed to be a natural thing!). Incredible for the Argentinians is they always come and help and also just laugh with you.

 

Hadrien promised to get better and better each day... We'll see.

Final Roadbook!

Hadri worked like a real secretary to format our roadbook with colors and stuff. Here it is !

Osorno, here we are!

We stopped at Santiago, and had a little scary moment: Isa's motorcycle gear was not coming out of the plane!!!

Luckily, waiting 1 hour was what was needed.

We "almost" immediately took the plane to Osorno where Sonia was waiting for us. We met our rides: love at first sight !!!!!

The flight was certainly exhausting...

... and not only for birds...

Two lovely birds

They are sleeping well! We are not yet arrived!!!

We are taking off

On the way to Chile. 25 hours of flight!