11/24-A Waterfall, Sunshine, and Mountains All Around Us

Even though the skies were clear last night (I could see Orion when I got up to pee), the fog rolled in, and the tents were soaking wet. We did the usual morning routine, but instead of packing up wet tents, we left them up to dry while we went for a walk to the smaller waterfall. The path there was quite treacherous in my bike shoes. It was wet, and there were lots of logs fashioned as steps. Some had been flattened on the top, but a lot were still rounded. There were also, basically, ladders. At least they had handrails. 
Crossing as bridge. 

It was a walk through the jungle-like rainforest. 

The waterfall was very cool, and well worth the effort. 

The last bridge of sketchiness before the falls. 

Two falls for the price of one hike. 

When we retraced our steps (I managed to get my feet only a little wet), and arrived back at the campground, our tents were in the sun, and dry. We packed them up and hit the road just after 10:00. All of our new friends still had to finish packing up (they had walked to the bigger waterfall, which was further away). 

The gravel road was in much better condition today. We had views of Lago Negra. 

Lago Negra
Just as we were starting a really steep climb, a road grader came down the road. He stopped to let us pass, but by then, we were pushing. 

We continued with beautiful views of snow-capped mountains, rivers, and pretty good gravel. 

Lago Blanco

The road along the rock wall. 

More Lago Blanco. 

Anyone know what this tree is called?

As we came down to another river crossing, I was thinking about lunch. When we got to the bridge, we saw a nice clearing next to the river. Alex said, “Lunch?” Ah…great minds think alike!

We even broke out our chairs! So nice in the sun!

Markus on a wood hunt (for spoon carving)

Post lunch, we had a couple more kms to the pavement. We had seen the Swiss couple pass by while we were eating lunch. We caught up to them a little later. No one else had passed us, that we knew of. 

The final moments of gravel for the day. 

The wind picked up once we were back on the pavement, and it was a headwind. Up the steeper climbs we would get a break from the wind. 

This one was particularly steep. My Garmin said 17%! At least it was paved!

On the other side of the climb, we got our first views of Volcán Corcovado. 

It’s a pointy one!

Soon we were rolling down the last downhill into Chaitén, our destination for the day. We stopped at the first restaurant we came to (for WiFi to figure out a place to stay). Not 5 minutes after we arrived, Lani and Steve rolled up! They told us of their adventures on Chialoa Island (that’s probably not spelled correctly), and their overnight ferry to Chaitén. They were going to look for camping. We don’t know where they ended up, but Matt is with them (he had been conversing with Lani for awhile on the Cycling South America WhatsApp group). 

We found an apartment at Cabañas Pudú. It’s pretty nice (although, the WiFi could be better).

My room…a bed for sleeping, and a bed for gear vomit. 

After showers, and talk about our next few days plan (more rain is coming), we went to a pizzeria for dinner. 

Photo by Markus. 

Sunset on another beautiful day in Patagonia!

Oh, and this is the view behind our Cabaña…not terrible.