Adding to those boat miles

5th April. Puerto Fuy to Wild camp near Hua Hum, Argentina (13.2M)


Despite a dry first half of the night, by morning it was raining heavily again and there was no respite in which to pack the gear away. So by 11am we packed everything away as best we could and headed back to the port to wait for the ferry. We actually had an hour to spare so reminiscent of our damp arrival at Puerto Yungay and our wait for the ferry there, we joined a group of motorcyclists drying their clothes around a wood burning stove whilst ordering coffees at a small restaurant just opposite the pier. Much to our disappointment 'cafe del lago' was shut so no empanadas for us this morning. At 12.40 there seemed to be activity at the pier so we made our way back into the rain, back to the bikes and down to the pier. As usual in Chile it was quite a long drawn out process. The cars began to board first, reversing on so that they could drive off the other side, then a coach arrived with a few foot passengers and then finally the motorcyclists and ourselves were allowed to ride on. We were also joined by 4 Argentinian cyclists, who'd arrived at the pier in the back of a pick-up and didn't seem too heavily laden. Cheating really but probably very sensible given the weather at the moment.
We left the bikes on the deck in the rain and hurried inside to find some seats next to a radiator. We quickly utilised it and no one complained as we spread out our wet kit to dry. The ferry journey across Lago Pirehueica takes 1.5hours and is meant to be incredibly beautiful. We did get some views of the surrounding hills and waterfalls, but we remained inside and enjoyed it from the warm, dry interior of the ferry this time.
On the eastern side of the lake we docked at Puerto Pirehueica, which was really just a collection of a few houses and a hosteria. We were both obviously not in a hurry to go any where when it was suggested and agreed upon that we would stop at the hosteria for yet another coffee. Caffeine'd up we spent our final Chilean coins  on some biscuits and eventually set off towards  the Chilean/Argentinian border. At least now it wasn't really raining, just damp air and it didn't take us long to cycle the 7km to Chilean customs and then another 4km to the border itself. A few km further on were the Argentinian customs. We passed through without problems, but conversation with the border guard stopped very quickly when we said we were from England. Their Veterans day or Malinvas day had been on the 2nd April, 3 days previous and after replying that we were from 'Inglaterra' it was a bit uncomfortable and he found another guard to finish off our passport stamps.

We continued onwards on ripio roads into Argentina. Despite lots of coffee stops we hadn't actually eaten since breakfast and this eventually caught up with me. We stopped under a bit of shelter for some food, but by then I wasn't feeling 100% and never really got going again. So about 10km from the border with no evidence that there would be camping ahead we decided to backtrack 5km to a campsite sign we'd seen previously. It all ended up being a bit of a waste of effort, as after eventually arriving at a farm house at the end of a windy track and on top of a steep wet hill we were told we could camp, but the boiler was broken and there was no hot water. He said it very pleasantly, but he wasn't prepared to lower the price. 50peso for damp camping and no hot water, we might as well wild camp for free. So back on the bikes we headed back towards the 'main' road and found some camping on some common land near a beautiful river. Not 100% ideal as it felt a bit open, but with the rain back again, we decided it'd be extremely unlikely that anyone would venture out and park up near us in this. We had a wet tent, quite a lot of wet kit and Gareth now realised that he was going to have to cycle on his birthday tomorrow, so we weren't the happiest of campers, but surely the rain must stop soon!