The weather improves, but not our equipment

11th Jan, Puyuhuapi to Wild camp Old road (40.8M)

We set off today after breakfast at the hospedaje, feeling much better about things. Our kit was generally dry and much better wrapped now. Only our bags themselves and the tent remained wet. Threatening skies meant that we left the hospedaje in full waterproof cover but within 15mins and a climb out of the village we were soon loosing layers. It was a beautiful cycle today, initially along the edge of the fjord before turning inland to parque national Queulat. We stopped at the park administration and paid our entry fee so that we could walk up to a couple of the view points of Ventisquero Colgante. An impressive hanging glacier with waterfalls leaving it to fill a beautiful lake before a raging river left the lake to flow down the valley to its outlet at the fjord we´d just cycled out of.

I thought monkey impressions would help keep me warm

The sun came out after our walk and we even managed to get the tent out and dry whilst we had lunch.
Cycling onwards we followed the river for a while before we climbed out of the valley via 3km of steep hair pinned ascent over a ´mini pass´. It was marked at 500m at the top so certainly not a high pass but it was climbed from sea level and certainly an effort with loaded bikes and limited gears. Descending off the other side we were both on the lookout for camping opportunities but the valley down was steep sided and very scenic with no space for a tent. However sooner than expected we were at the bottom of the descent and rejoining a tarmaced road. Hurray! Even better because within a few km we spotted an area where the old road went a different route from the new tarmaced road around a bluff of rock. Behind which was a perfect little pitch hidden from the road. We collected water from small trickles nearby as the River Cisnes in the canyon below us certainly wasn´t accessible.

Hopefully there will be no traffic on this road tonight

Unfortunately the day ended with more equipment failure as one of our tent poles cracked as we were putting the tent up. Not entirely surprisingly as Gareth had noticed a crack in it a long time ago. We used a sleeve from the repair kit and it seems to be holding up at the moment. Also adding to the failing equipment list is our saucepan handle that seems to be in thinning and therefore threatening to drop the pans. All things are being added to a list that can be hopefully repaired or replaced in Coyhaique.