Cycle Touring

Photos!

Chile Photos have now been loaded into the blog's photo album..

Chile Maps

Just to show the journey here are some maps... of slightly dubious quality (and lifted from Google).

1.  This shows the journey from Calama (after the bus from Santiago) to San Pedro via the Tation Geysers

2. We then took the bus up to Arica and proceeded to travel down to Iquique via the mountains:

 

 

Back home.

We seemed to have spent the last few days of the holiday, sightseeing and eating!  The Rodeo in San Fernando was interesting (for a while at least) and very different to the North American version.  It was a very serious competition of two cowboys (Huasos) who have to guide a young bull (novillo) around the ring and then pin it against one of the padded areas.  Points are awarded for style and various other aspects. I was a bit concerned of the animal welfare involved in slamming the young bull against a section of the arena.  The event seemed went on for the whole day but we left about half way through and headed off on the bus back to Santiago.

The following day we did the proper tourist thing and got the bus (which was nice as we were unencumbered with bikes and luggage) to the coastal city of Valparaiso, A wonderful city arranged of steep coastal hills.  The residential buildings and houses arranged on the slopes in a haphazard connected by a labyrinth of streets and alleyways.  We could've spent days exploring the city!  However as we only had a day we did a whistle stop tour of the main sites - we had lunch at one of the recommended fish restaurants in the market area and a visit to Pablo Nerudo's (famous Chilean poet) house, at the top of one the city's many slopes.  We also got to go on a few of the city's 15 funicular railways with (possibly predictably) incredible panoramic views at the top.

The following day was the last day in Chile, we spent the whole morning preparing the bikes for their next ordeal - the voyage home.  So lots of tape, polystyrene and cardboard were used to pad and attempt to protect the poor bikes from the luggage handlers at various airports.  Later on we went to explore the Bellavista area and to find out why it was so called.   There's a hill (mountain?) of 860metres towering over the area which we'd never seen before (probably because we'd only seen it in the dark).  So Jo and I decided to walk up it!  (instead of the more sensible option of the funicular).  360 degree view at the top along with a huge statue of the Virgin Mary plus many cafes.  The view over the entire city was well worth the effort. 

The rest of the afternoon was spent getting to and at the airport - where Jo and I said our goodbyes - my next stop was New York while Jo was off down to Patagonia for a hiking 'holiday'.  The flight out of Santiago was blighted by a bout of food poisoning (I blame the restaurant in Bellavista, but not really sure as I'd eaten so much in the last previous 24hours that it could've been anything).  However was looked after by the LAN airline stewardesses and given lots of tea so was fit enough to face New York.  This was a great stopover getting out of JFK airport without too much difficulty (once I'd worked out which terminal to re-check all my luggage back into) getting the subway into the city was not too tricky either.  I had a brief look round Central Park before meeting Chris for lunch followed by a look at Times Square and some it's crazy billboards (for want of a better phrase) then back on the subway to meet Tara,  who took me on a tour of the Highline - the new landscaped walkway which has been re-engineered from an old raised railway track.  Thus making a great public park with some super views! 

Sadly, it was time to leave and head home for the final leg - thankfully uneventful, but Heathrow was like mayhem as snow had forced various flights to be rediverted here so there were even more people than normal.  At the Heathrow Express station (fewer people), I reassembled the bike for the snowy, slushy, and slippery ride from Paddington to home!

So it's all over!  Here is the Chilean schedule:

December
16th Arrive Santiago
17th Santiago - Bus toward Calama
18th Arrive in Calama, camping in the Atacama desert
19th Toconce (overlooking village)
20th somewhere near Linzor
21st Refugio past the Tatio geysers
22nd San Pedro
23rd San Pedro (rest day) evening ride out to Valle de la Lune
24th Atacama Salt plain (flamingoes at Laguna Chaxa)
25th Ride back to San Pedro followed by evening bus toward Arica
26th Arrive in Arica, cycle up the Azapa valley to find ourselves stuck in a gorge nr Humagatta
27th somewhere on the main road to Putre
28th Putre
29th Parinacota
30th Terms de Curigualla
31st Police station at Salar de Sirrius

January
1st A sandy gulley near Enquelga
2nd Colchane
3rd ~65km from Huara 
4th Iquique
5th rest day in Iquique
6th Iquique - bus toward Santiago
7th arrive Santiago, train to San Fernando
8th Ride out along the Colchagua Valley to Viu Manent vinyard
9th San Fernando - Rodeo.  Bus back to Santiago
10th Valparaiso day trip
11th/12th/13th Santiago - New York - home

San Fernando in the Colchagua valley

So leaving Iquique, we took the longest bus journey we've ever been on 26hours!  Bimey!  Thankfully we paid a little extra and went for 'cama' with big comfy reclining seats which were almost beds. Upon arriving in Santiago we didn't hang around and walked our bikes to the train station.  Here another mini-drama unfolded as poor Jo tried to book train tickets for us and our two bikes to San Fernando.  After much confusion, we got tickets and were told that we had to pay extra on the train.  The train itself was almost a model example of how a train should be run (well this particular one anyway) fast, clean train and very efficient service.

San Fernando is in the heart of one of the Chilean wine regions and today we cycled out to one of the vinyards which proved to be a very pleasant afternoon. Viu Manent - we even got hauled around in a horse and cart! 

Back in San Fernando, tomorrow, we're going to a Chilean Rodeo.  Which hopefully will be a lot more fun than the rather lame US rodeo I went to ages ago!

A couple of days in Iquique

So we´ve had some time to get ourselves back to normal and a chance to relax for a bit.  Iquique is a very pleasant seaside city - lots of grand Georgian wooden fronted houses, most of which are situated along the main boulevarde that runs through the centre of the town.  It´s a very popular destination for Chilean beach going tourists, as the beach here is very pleasant with potential for good surfing. Not hugely warm water but as Jo and I found out - it makes for a pleasant swim.

This afternoon we head back to Santiago by way of the 25hour bus - we´ve spent a little more to hopefully make the journey a little more pleasant. Once back there we will hopefully stay at the hotel we were in before and then make trips out to the central valley (wine growing region) and to Valparaiso.  Not sure at this stage whether our bikes will be in use for any of these excursions.

Iquique - Chile Grand Norte

We´ve finally reached somewhere ´civilised´ with connections to the outside world!

We´ve just completed our bike ride of the Nothern Altiplano (high plain).  We started in Arica at sea level headed up the lush Azapa valley (with it´s amazing aromas of olives and it´s plentiful supply of fruit trees) until we found that the road at the end had been blocked by rockfall from the narrowing gorge.  Incredibly beautiful and we had our first Condor sighting.  However there was no way out, so we had to turn back toward Arica and then up and out of the valley onto the main highway from Chile-Bolivia.  We finally started ascending uninterrupted to the Arayan town of Putre (3500m).  We stocked up on food for the coming days of not a lot else.  Heavy indian influence here - plenty of adobe buildings and traditional foods.  Then up and down and up to Parinacotta a tiny semi-deserted village with a wonderful 17c adobe chuch - towered over by snow peaked Volcano Paranicotta.   Carrying on up and up (with plenty of downs to make the going up more ´interesting´).  We made our way up to Lake Chungara and to 4700mtres - more towering volcanoes and some with plumes of smoke/team eminating from varoius craters at the top!  At this stage we were in Lauca National Park.  We made our way to the Bolivian border and sneaked around the frontier control (staying in Chile) and along a dirt road over to the neighbouring national parks of Vicuña and Volcano Isluga national parks. 

These parks contained the best scenery we encountered in Chile. Plenty of llamas, alpacas and Vicunas (a wild variety).  We came across a thermal bath in the middle of nowhere - a massive welcome from the cold night and we camped in the bath house!  The following night we got to stay in a police station at the Salar de Sirires - rather peculiar but they were very insistant we should stay there out of the cold.  We got use their kitchen and eat some their bread (which was incredibly hard to find in these parts). 

The following days took us toward the desolate border town of Colchane passing by countless abandoned villages, many with far nicer churches than the one at (touristy by comparison) Parinacotta. we´d camp wherever he had find ourselves (as long as it was sheltered). At Colchane, we were hoping to find at least a shop.  Sadly not to be all we found was an old lady selling drinks and random foodstuffs from a trolley for the coach passengers.  We found out later he ´dried fruits´ we´d bought were in fact llama meat and cold potatoes!   However the best thing in Colchane by far was the hostel which even had bread!  Colchane itself had fallen on hard times and is a dusty desolate place.

Then it was time to try and turn our backs on the mountains and head back toward the coast.  However as roads in this huge country never ´just go down´ getting off the Altiplano was no mean feat - we spent the ehole of the following day going up and down (often into a headwind) and never dropping much height.  The following evening we camped at a similar height to Colchane.  The next morning however we did drop and descent was amazing transitioning from the Andes to the desert with it´s cactus and dry gorges. 

It didn´t stop there - we were heading to the coast so once out of the Andes, we had to get over the coastal range of mountains with massive headwinds and narrow, incredibly busy roads and then finally drop like a stone, down throught the 1000m sand dunes to the coastal city of Iquique. One of the more scary and tiring afternoon rides.  However we did get to go around Humberstone - a large deserted town built for Nitrate mining and processing abandoned in the 1960´s. Now a UNESCO sight.

Now we have a chance to relax and get ourselves together before heading back to Santiago (via bus!).