Yesterday’s near-90°F high had dropped to 58°F by morning, but the day was forecast to broadly be at least as hot. By the time we got on the road it was already warming quickly, but hopefully our ascent to the spine of the Andes, even if 11,000 feet lower than the passes in Peru, would Read more…

The day started like a fall morning, with a pleasant cool bite in the air and crisp blue skies. That meant we were granted a second day with excellent views of Villarica volcano, so we took a little detour back to the waterfront on our way out of town so that Rett could get some Read more…

Way back in Valparaiso, I had roughly plotted out a 33-day ride to Puerto Montt, including a detour across the Argentina border and back. It included a reserve of five off-days, a dangerously-low amount for us, since we’ll frequently burn through five days in a single town without much thought. We’ve already used up two Read more…

With an extra six (uphill) miles to ride due to our AirBNB host’s location screw-up yesterday, we set the alarm for 5am, hoping we could beat the day’s headwinds. We must have been especially motivated, because we efficiently got ourselves out before 7am, and returned to Ruta 5. The legal way for vehicles to go Read more…

The brand new divided highway connecting Coihue and Angol (Ruta 180) very visibly communicates that bicycles are not allowed, which suggests an unfortunate trend toward USA-ism in Chilean transportation (later this day we would see that Ruta 5, the Pan-American Highway and Chile’s central artery, explicitly allows pedestrians, and thus presumably bikes as well). But Read more…