Our request for breakfast at 7am had been met with the usual surprise. “Why would anyone want to eat so early?” seems to be what the quizzical look communicated. But in this case it worked out nicely for us, because rather than cooking us a hot breakfast, our hostess just put out cold food (the normal bread, butter, jam, cheese, and deli meat) overnight, along with an electric kettle for us to make coffee with, That meant we were free to manage ourselves at whatever time we wanted, so we actually sat down 10 minutes before 7!
Yesterday’s warm evening had descended to a chilly 43°F, but more-unusually, there was heavy fog! We wouldn’t be able to see the craggy peaks surrounding the town as we departed, which was initially disappointing (“we timed this stretch so we would have three days of clear skies to take in the views; I demand a refund!”) However, we quickly realized that we’ve seen no shortage of mountains, but have never seen light and shadow play together like this. (And plus, we’d still see plenty of mountains once the day warmed up.)
“Normal” fog outside our accommodation.The still-“normal” fog expands the sun to four times its normal size.It doesn’t really come through in the photo, but as we dove down to the river crossing, we left the pleasant “yellow” fog and became enveloped in a blue-gray murk, a devilish miasma from which it seemed we might never escape.Here the divide is more visible: evil blue fog on the left, wholesome yellow fog on the right.Now deep in the “blue” fog. Are those clouds ahead? Mountains? The carbuncled tail of an enormous beast? Who can say!Phew, a window ahead, an escape from doom and back to the healthy “yellow” fog!
It took a while, but I finally figured out what was happening: when we rode into the shadow of a mountain cast by the recently-risen sun, the fog turned blue, and when the sun could light the fog directly, it turned yellow. In retrospect it was obvious, but when the fog is preventing you from even being aware that there is a mountain right in front of you, it’s much more mysterious!
And there it is, the world literally divided in half, between heaven and hell!Twice-filtered sunlight.Blue appears in the sky again, but it’s no longer shadow, it’s actual blue sky becoming visible as the fog finally thins.Tucked into lakeside cliffs, the shadow presses one last return.A furious battle rages between the trees and the mountains.Here the mix doesn’t even register as fog. It just looks like an example image an ophthalmologist would show you to demonstrate the effect of cataracts.Yep, we still get to see plenty of mountains today too.Some fog still hides below the mountains.This pointy mountain was significantly more massive than the several we saw yesterday.This is just the shoulder of Cerro Picacho, 2000 feet below the peak, but 3000 feet above us. And the road would just veer slightly left to get around it, without climbing at all!The sheer vertical east face of Cerro Picacho.Wildflowers and wild mountains.
Overall this was a relatively easy day. It helped that the entire route was paved, unlike the previous two days, which each had sections of gravel. And while the climbs added up, none of them exceeded 250 feet before descending again. Rett did need to put on her bug net for a period, but less due to a return of the fly army, and more because her sensitivity seems to have increased, to the point where a single fly will set her off. Near the end, as we approached a westward turn in the valley, we could feel the prevailing Westerlies funneling along it and into our faces, but that’s a problem for tomorrow!
Really the biggest problem was that there were too many mountains! This is one of the first days of bike touring where a new mountain has appeared, and I haven’t taken a picture of it. “Eh. I’ve already got like a dozen different mountains, I think that’s plenty.” And that’s even with them being hidden by fog for the first part of the day! The Carretera Austral is definitely giving us the scenery that it promised!
Once past Picacho’s shoulder, we enter an open valley, something we’ve barely seen along the normally-tight canyons of the Carretera Austral.We ate lunch in this bus shelter. Oh, and there’s Cerro Picacho now rising behind us, with snow on its attractive south face.New mountains reveal themselves so quickly on the Carretera Austral, it wasn’t even immediately obvious that this was the same one we’d been circling since the fog cleared.Crossing the Mañihuales River.This is the sort of valley I expect to see herds of bison roaming.The road had a small shoulder for much of today’s ride, but most of the time traffic looked like this.When we passed this lake, I turned behind for yet another photo of Cerro Picacho. An oncoming pickup truck slowed, and I thought, “yeah, pretty great framing you get for your first view of this mountain!” Only to discover that it remained visible in my rearview mirror for most of the next 10 miles. It’s like the road builders’ primary objective was “maximize views of this awesome mountain!”Cerro Picacho peers over to make sure these cows aren’t getting into any trouble.Somehow as we approached Villa Mañihuales, this lake stuck me as a suburban retention pond. I think we’ve been out of the United States if this makes me think “suburbs”.
We hit about five different stores on the main drag of Villa Mañihuales (some more than once, and including the Copec gas station’s US-style minimart, which had an ATM) in an effort to collect groceries for dinner and tomorrow’s long day. We had plenty of time, because our AirBNB host wasn’t responding to our message, so eventually I just rode over to the place and she noticed me from her window. That’s the risk of being the first guest (and why AirBNB gives a discount), but otherwise it was all good. We were in bed by 8pm for that aforementioned long day!
Villa Mañihuales had this large forest park, half the size of the whole town, and nothing like we’ve seen in South America (maybe it really *is* a US suburb after all!) It had a dozen of these (sheltered!) wooden playsets, a train, boat, bulldozer, etc. And at least four bike tourers hanging out at picnic tables (maybe waiting for their AirBNBs too?)
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