It’s been a while since I have posted. This is partially due to a crisis of confidence…having numerous challenges, I debated hanging it up and coming home, not an easy thing for me to do. I always feel like I should finish anything I start. But some traveller’s GI issues, a pulled hamstring muscle, long days, and missing Jim and home, I began wondering if I had it in me to complete this journey or actually wanted to. Sigh.

Luckily for me, phone calls with Jim, conversations with my friends Deb and Ann, along with some sleep helped me decide to continue the tour. After all, seeing Patagonia was my primary incentive for making this trip. And I decided to share my angst because there’s no sense in pretending that challenging trips don’t present mental and emotional tests as well as the ones that are physical 🙂. So we have moved into cloudy and rainy weather but I am doing so with a clearer spirit.

Chile is such a remarkable country. It stretches 2653 miles (4270 km) from north to south but averages only 110 miles (177 km) east to west. A veritable string bean of a country. As a consequence, we have passed through an amazing variety of ecosystems as we move ever southward. As I mentioned before, we crossed into Chile in the mountainous Andes, we then road through dry country with large Cordone cacti (analogous to the Saguaros of the southwest US). Next came the fertile areas of vineyards, orchards, and farms followed by the Lake District, land of huge lakes, volcanos and snow-capped peaks.

This area attracts many tourists so we traveled through and stayed in lovely tourist towns like Pucon, a town reminiscent of Jasper. It was very enjoyable relative to the big cities and grittier areas that we had traveled through. Good food, good coffee

We entered into the region of Patagonia, the legendary region of snow-capped peaks, glaciers, lakes, and unpopulated wild landscapes. Patagonia means “big- foot” from prints that early settlers saw. They were probably from a type of snowshoe bit led to rumors of a yeti-type creature.

We are traveling mainly on the Carretera Austral or Ruta 7, a road that stretches 1247 km from Puerto Montt ( a gritty, unpleasant city in my opinion) to Villa O’Higgins, a remote fishing village. It was ordered built by Pinochet, the notorious Chilean dictator in the 1970s. Little by little it is being paved but there are still long stretches of gravel. It travels through unbelievably wild territory of mountains, lakes, countless rivers, rain and temperate forests.

Time to hit the hay. Riding again tomorrow…