End of the Line

31^st Jan, Free Refugio to Villa O’Higgins (34.8M)

Pre-race stretching

The wind and rain definitily sounded worse on the tin roof of the hut than perhaps it really was. It certainly wasn’t a tranquil nights sleep, but I certainly wasn’t going to complain about this refuge from the elements last night. By the time we’d had breakfast and packed away our kit, the sun had come out, so we continued on our way. Beautiful and remote scenery. It did however become very apparent that our genarosity of last night (we made the small mistake of giving a stray dog a small amount of our food... he was sitting there shivering)  had gained us a new life long friend and Pedro (the name we decided on) started following us. We at first thought he would soon get fed up so we cycled on with the occassional glance over the shoulder to see if he was there. He was and we started to feel a bit guilty, but there is no place on our travels for a dog so we pedelled a bit faster and soon lost sight of him.

The scenary was stunning and the waterfalls like yesterday were amazing and numerous. We finally came to the second free refugio and stopped for some food. Opening the door to leave, who should be there but Pedro! Now we both really felt guilty and he definitely would have burnt off any benefit our small amount of pasta soup would have given him. Stern Spanish and English words were said and I think we convinced Pedro not to follow us. We continued onwards, the scenery getting ever more desolate and isolated but very beautiful. Generally we had a good tailwind and made very good time. 

There was some interesting near horizonatal cycling as we turned a corner at the head of Lake Cisnes and had to contend with huge gusts of side winds, but we were soon on our final bit of the Carretera Austral with a tailwind again. 30M of cycling and a short food stop and who should appear at our sides, Pedro! I think Gareth was more upset that he hadn´t attached a tow rope to him if he was going to run all this way. I was upset as his marathoin time was far better than mine!

Gareth and Pedro...

Four more miles and we were at our goal, Villa O’Higgins, the end of the Carretera Austral, Gareth, Pedro and myself. A tiny desolate town, it really feels like the end of the world.

Gareth and I went and found a coffee shop, Pedro looking remarkably spritely after his 34M run continued to hang out near us but introduced (probably re-introduced as I think he knows the town well) himself to the local dog population. We then found ourselves a bed in the El Mosco Hostel. Lovely place, owned and run by cyclists so very very helpful. A couple of swiss cyclists heading North were also stopping so an evening of chatting, dinner and beer completed the day and the Carretera Austral.