20.8 mi / 8.2 mph / 2102 ft. climbing
Home: Hostal El Mate

Once again we were up and out early, tiptoeing past Lee’s tent before 7:30am. Even though we only had 21 miles to ride, and were heading for an AirBNB (thus re-creating the problem of arriving at our tiny-town destination hours before check-in), we had a big pass to climb and felt that even with the net’s successful protection of Rett from the horseflies yesterday, grinding slowly up a hill in the day’s heat might make their attacks less-bearable today.

We were blessed with another clear day, and it’s pretty cool to see a snow-capped mountain immediately when you roll over and open your eyes. The views remained captivating as we crossed the Yelcho River, and progressed down the western shore of Lake Yelcho, only diminishing a bit once the climb steepened and valley walls closed in around us (or was that just because our focus was pulled to the riding?)

For some reason we won’t question, the giant orange-tufted horseflies never really made an appearance, though they were replaced by smaller, gray-brown cousins. But they similarly showed no interest in attempting to penetrate Rett’s net (even though they could have had better luck), and seemed to be far easier to smack to death when they landed on us or our bikes. And they never really reached swarming numbers. Still the climb was quite a beast, and we were glad that we’d gotten an early start simply because it was already getting hot as we neared the top around 10am.

Though at least the heat had the benefit of making Rett want a drink of water, so she looked down and discovered her water bottle wasn’t there! Shit! The good news is that I knew exactly where it was, only three-quarters of a mile back where we had stopped at a small waterfall to refill bottles and wet down clothing with cold water. The bad news was that it the road dropped 300 feet in that three-quarters of a mile. It was totally my fault (I had taken the bottle off Rett’s bike and forgot to put it back after refilling it), so she continued walking up the rest of the way while I removed my bags and dropped them in the bushes before heading down on the recovery mission.

Re-doing the climb was an interesting experiment, showing that I had about three gears to spare when unloaded, vs. being maxed out in my lowest gear for the initial loaded climb up the 8-10% hill. I eventually met Rett at the top, just glad that she had noticed the missing bottle before we had flown down the other side!

While she waited for me at the top, she re-enabled her mobile service and discovered that the AirBNB we’d “booked” never responded to our request, so we would need to figure out other accommodations. I’d known this since the beginning of our ride when I caught some service, but saw no point in ruining Rett’s relaxed enjoyment of the beautiful ride, since we wouldn’t be able to figure anything out until we got to town anyway.

The pass brought a vista of entirely new mountains, and at the beginning of the descent I was strongly reminded of Washington Highway 20 running down from the heights of North Cascades National Park. But then the trees vanished and a meadow with an ice-blue stream running through it surrounded us on both sides, and while nothing I could put my finger on made it seem particularly strange or unique, I was struck by how I could now come up with no comparison.

I later learned there was actually a very good reason for that feeling: it was the precise place where a mountainside had disastrously given way in 2017, sending a massive flow of rock, ice, and mud down the valley, destroying far more than the trees and the road. The terrifying river (now carrying much of that forest with it) ran out for five miles, descending all the way to Villa Santa Lucia, obliterating the northern half of the small town and killing 22 of its residents.

In 2026, there was nothing that immediately clued me in to the fact that Villa Santa Lucia’s off-highway 2×4 grid of 8 city blocks used have 6 more blocks on its northern end. Certainly I was distracted by the incredible bowl of mountains that the town sits inside of, and we were also distracted by the need for food and for figuring out where we would be spending the night. A small cafe serving amazing empanadas at the south end of town fulfilled both of those needs.

But not before we spoke at some length with a bike tourer just leaving who was such a long-term world-traveler that I never would have guessed from his Scottish/Australian-accented English that he was originally from France! He was very excited to talk to some fellow cyclists (even to rant about the insanity of politics with us), since we were the first he had seen in a while. Huh? It turned out he had just crossed over from Argentina, where the road meets the Carretera Austral right here at Villa Santa Lucia (he was happy to rant about the horseflies with us too).

But it was still a little surprising that he hadn’t seen other cyclists, since “starting” the Carretera Austral by merging into it via Argentina and Futaleufú is a fairly common choice. For months, vibes in the ether (or reading blogs or WhatsApp groups) has made it feel to me like half the universe of traveling cyclists has been gradually converging toward Patagonia. A viewer from space would have seen points of light scattered around the globe, all begin floating toward South America, and then coalescing into an ever-brightening streak at the bottom of the continent. And when you look at the end of South America, it’s shaped just like a funnel to collect us all anyway! The road from Futaleufú is essentially the last physical point of convergence, but certainly there is also the temporal funneling that brings everyone here for the brief rideable summer season. So our French friend should now have many more cyclists to communicate with, but we were glad that we caught him when we were exciting to him, rather than a week from now when we’d be the 20th couple he’d ignore that day.

Just like we ignored another cycling couple who came in to the cafe after us for empanadas, though we did certainly chat with Lee (who we camped with last night) after he rolled in as well. So yeah, for these months there might be as many cyclists passing through Villa Santa Lucia each day as there are residents!

We re-checked AirBNB, and then iOverlander and Google, and found a good sounding hotel to check out (worst-case there was a good wild camp spot and a cyclist-oriented campground just a few miles out of town). We were greeted by the friendly hostess just as we rolled up, and checked into a room by noon, faster and easier than we probably would have managed with that AirBNB anyway.

There was a shared kitchen available upstairs, but it felt a little awkward and too much like the owners’ personal kitchen, plus it was again a really hot afternoon, and on tiring walks across town we found grocery supplies pretty limited, so we got our second “completos” (Chilean hot dogs) from a permanent food truck. The first time we had them in Chile I commented how their substantial amount of toppings didn’t seem too special to this Chicagoan. The women running the truck here specifically advertise how they use Llanquihue sausages, and while I don’t know what those are, it was stated in the exact way that Chicago hot dog stands advertise that they use Vienna Beef hot dogs. It turns out the Llanquihues (specifically called “Salchicha Vienesa”!) taste remarkably similar to Vienna Beef hot dogs, so now I’m really beginning to wonder if this “completo” tradition in Chile has Chicago origins!

Eerily, historic images revealed that the mudflow that invaded the town stopped just north of our hotel, with the destruction converting it from a middle-of-town location to the new northern boundary. In images from a month after the disaster, a building that had been north of the hotel (now demolished) can be seen literally pushed into our hotel’s wall, contacting it one room away from where we would now be sleeping. So even as this place draws in cyclists from all of the world, it reminds us that it is not without its risks, including ones that most of us never even consider.