Cycling Patagonia - An Autumn Adventure // A Documentary

Hey everyone and welcome to our Patagonia documentary. We are Luisa and Tobi and for the past almost two years now we have been cycling around the world with our guitar. And the last week we spent cycling from Villarica to Puerto Montt in Chile along some beautiful lakes and volcanoes. And after taking a ferry last night to Chaiten, we are now about to start the famous Carretera Austral. So come along and join us on our adventure through Patagonia. Patagonia. Encompassing an area of up to one million square kilometers, this mythical region of South America is divided between both Chile and Argentina. With hundreds of rivers, lakes, fjords and glaciers, it is often considered to be one of the most beautiful places on earth. Almost two million people of varied ancestry currently inhabit the region generally defined as Patagonia. From Spanish Criollo and Mezizo heritage to indigenous peoples and inhabitants of other European descent. Among cyclists, the over 1,000-kilometer-long Carretera Austral through southern Chile is an absolute touring highlight and the battle against the elements in Tierra del Fuego a notorious challenge. Our two-month journey through Patagonia proved to be one of our greatest experiences yet and an incredible conclusion to almost a full year of cycling through South America. So we are starting the Carretera Austral pretty late. The typical season to cycle it goes from November, December to February, March. That's kind of the summer, the high season here in Patagonia. And it's now beginning of April and we're just starting the Carretera. So by the time we get further south into Patagonia, it's going to be end of April, beginning mid of May. We plan to arrive in Ushuaia, which is our goal, around about the 20th of May. Autumn is already here and winter is well on its way. So we'll see how the weather treats us the next weeks. That is so cool. Wow, it's beautiful. What a great way to end the first day on the Carretera Austral. We found this free campground which is called Parque Los Rios and it's completely empty. We have a nice spot for our tent, here's a table for cooking and back there is a fire pit as well. So maybe we're going to have a fire later. Let's see. And also there are some very friendly dogs. This morning we are cycling up a little pass about 600 meters and we have a beautiful view on the glacier Quilat. Like after every corner we're like wow. So who you just saw racing past me was Tomas, who we already met in the north of Chile in La Serena. We stayed with him and his mom for two nights and now he's also cycling the Carretera Austral. So today we met and now we're continuing together for right now we don't know how long. Pretty cool. So we are extremely lucky. We just asked if we could camp next to some of these old buses and then the lady here was super kind and just said no, you can sleep in the cabana and we're going to start a fire for you. So I put some wood in the wood oven and it's amazing. It's really incredible and it's really cold today as well. It didn't get above 3 degrees until like noon or 1pm and now it was up to like 7-8 degrees Celsius but yeah, still very cold and we are super lucky. It's going to be such a nice warm and cozy night and it's just incredible. There's even a kitchen. Thank you, Linda. Oh, we were so lucky that we were able to spend the last night in this cabana because it was the first night with under 0 degrees. We had minus 6 degrees so very lucky that we could sleep in here. Today we have the biggest climb on the Carretera Austral ahead of us. It's going up to around 1100m but also the last days definitely haven't been flat. We've had two climbs to around 600m and then in general it's just been going up and down all the time. So it's around 1000m of positive elevation gain over 100km. So yeah, no easy rolling but it's also not too hard to cycle. But also so far with a few exceptions the road has been perfectly paved and that's going to change as well after the climb because then it will be gravel as not all the Carretera has been paved yet. Yeah, maybe 600km are paved and the rest not. So yeah, we have to see how the road will be. So beautiful how the mountains are covered in flaming red trees. Never seen anything like that. What a reward. Now the Cerro Castillo, the mountain is right there and it's just so incredible. It's so, so, so incredible. Wow. So this is now the third day that is starting with blue sky and it's really incredible and we're really lucky. But it also means it's really cold because obviously no clouds, nothing to hold in the little bit of warmth that is still here at the moment. And especially at night it gets freezing so last night we made a little fire again just to get warm at some point, get the feet warm when they're cold all day. And yeah, now at night we've been also starting to layer up. Not just a long-sleeve sleep shirt which is under here, but then also this just thin merino hoodie which we've been wearing pretty much day and night now, both of us. And then now the down jackets for camping and so on. And when we're cycling then take off the down jacket but replace it with a windbreaker or rain jacket and just putting that on and off the whole time depending on if we're going up or down. So that's it, the end of the paved road. Now the gravel begins. Construction on the 1,200 kilometer long Carretera Austral from Puerto Montt to Villa O'Higgins first began in 1976 after several unsuccessful attempts to provide access by land to the remote settlements in the region. In 1988 the southern highway, officially Chile's Route 7, then first opened to traffic with the final 100 kilometers only being completed in the year 2000. Efforts to pave the road have been ongoing since the beginning and there are even future plans to extend the entire highway south a further 1,000 kilometers to Puerto Natales. A 70 kilometer section of the Carretera follows the western shoreline of the glacial lake General Carrera. With an area of almost 1,900 square kilometers it is not only the largest lake in Chile but also forms a 20 kilometer segment of the border between Chile and Argentina as it spans both countries. Therefore the lake is known by a different name in Argentina, Lago Buenos Aires. Wave action over the past 6,000 years has created unique geological formations in the marble monoliths on the western shore of the lake. The marble caves, chapel and cathedral as they're known, describe several caverns, columns and tunnels eroded into the marble forming incredibly beautiful structures. After a great week of cycling together with Tomas we said our farewells and continued on alone again along the wilder southern stretch of the Carretera Austral. We are in Cochrane now and I just went shopping because this is basically the last town before reaching O'Higgins, the last town on the Carretera Austral and in O'Higgins it basically ends and between here and there, there are no towns so we don't know if we will be able to buy some food on the road and it's about 230 kilometers still so, yeah, still a few days. We'll see. And generally even though the Carretera Austral for the past, well, pretty much 1,000 kilometers now has gone through pretty remote areas and connected very remote towns, the infrastructure has always been, because it's so touristy, has been really good and even now in the off-season in autumn where a lot has been closed already, we've still had no problem whatsoever to get groceries or water or whatever. Yeah, so, but now it's going to change a little bit. Probably it will be no problem still but... We don't know. Better have some more food than less. Alright, let's pack this. So it's the third week already on the Carretera Austral and we are about 50 kilometers away from Villa O'Higgins, the end of the road. And the last days we've been really taking it slow, enjoying the nature and wild camping and as we said, there's not a lot here so it's really peaceful and quiet. And nothing going on either at this time of year. Really nice. And yesterday morning something kind of funny happened. A dog adopted us. She was lying on the road when we cycled past and she just started running with us and I think, yeah, the first 10 kilometers we just completely ignored her. We didn't want to encourage her and, I don't know, didn't want her to leave a home, run away from somewhere or something. But then, yeah, she just kept coming with us and I think after 20 kilometers we thought, okay, maybe we should give her some food. She looks a bit hungry and then after 30 kilometers we started petting her and yeah, she almost ended up walking 40 kilometers with us yesterday and I think climbing almost 900 meters with us. Yeah. It is so cozy in this little shelter that we decided to just spend a second night here, so a full day just sitting by the fire, chilling, making some bread. Yesterday we already made some bread but it didn't turn out so well. So today we're gonna try some flatbread, see how that turns out and, yeah, roast some marshmallows, read, make music, just enjoy the day. And then tomorrow it's only 30 kilometers left to Villa O'Higgins and then we're done with the Carretera. We did it. We cycled to the end of the Carretera Austral to Villa O'Higgins. And to be honest, we are so happy that we only did this in April, so in autumn here and the beginning of the low season, because it was really empty. We often had the road completely to ourselves and also all the camp spots and we did have luck with the weather, I guess, because it was surprisingly warm, not too rainy, not too windy. Just great. Yeah, just really enjoyed the cycling and the wild camping, especially now the last few hundred kilometers, just the wild. But now the big question is, where do we go from here? The classical route, so to say, to go to El Chalten in Argentina, which is a little bit that way across the Lago O'Higgins and Lago del Desierto isn't possible anymore because the ferries running over these lakes don't run anymore. Going over these lakes don't run anymore. It's just too late in the season. It's not worth it for them anymore. Then the only other option to get away from Villa O'Higgins here is to take the Paso Maya, which is more of a kind of a hiking trail with river crossings and so on, to Argentina. So, yeah, it would be a lot of pushing our bikes and we don't really... Not an option for us. Doesn't sound so fun, yeah. So we're only really left with one option, which is also the option we are going to take to get out of here, is cycle a hundred kilometers north again on the Carretera to Puerto Yungay, from where we are going to, in about a week? A bit less than a week. Catch a ferry, a three-night ferry from Puerto Yungay to Puerto Natales, which is going to be pretty cool through all the fjords. And, yeah, we're really looking forward to that. And this is actually also the reason why we've had so much time the last weeks and just especially since Cochran just really enjoyed spending whole rest days in a refuge in the middle of nowhere is because, yeah, we've known for several weeks now that this ferry, which only runs every two weeks, yeah, that comes at a certain date and we booked it and, yeah, we really had no drive to go any faster and especially with our doggy now, it's been really good as well. He's sleeping over there. A bit tired. Yeah, so it's just been a really great experience here on the Carretera. Having followed us all the way to Villa O'Higgins, we were finally able to get our dog some proper food after feeding her rice the past four days. From a conversation with a local, we then learned that she apparently has a home close to where we met her, 90 kilometers to the north. So after spending one night in Villa O'Higgins, we took her back up with us towards Yungay to drop her off with her owner and catch our ferry. Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we couldn't find the right person and had to leave her with other people not far from where she had started following us seven days ago. By ourselves again, we took the ferry from Puerto Yungay via Chotel and Puerto Edén to Puerto Natales, passing through the spectacular Patagonian fjords, which you can only fully appreciate from the sea. The dozens of ferries connecting the various ports and cities of Patagonia are crucial to the logistical infrastructure of the region, often being the only source of supplies for remote outposts and settlements. After two days on the ferry, we arrived in Puerto Natales in the evening and the next day began the final stretch of our ride through South America. We are now officially on the Ruta Fin del Mundo, so on the route to the end of the world. We just left Puerto Natales, where we arrived by ferry yesterday evening and then spent one night there. And in less than two weeks, we want to be in Ushuaia and there conclude our almost one-year travel through only South America. Really exciting. And we can definitely tell that we are now in the region of Patagonia, which is known for its strong winds. It's mostly a northwesterly wind, which is great for us because we are going southeast. Great tailwinds! Not only does the sun not really get high above the horizon anymore, it also only rises at 9 a.m., making it pretty hard to get up in the mornings now. Last night we slept at this bus stop, which is basically a completely covered, nice shelter where we were protected from the strong winds and also some rain we had yesterday. We had a quiet, nice night. Tierra del Fuego, Spanish for Land of the Fire, is an archipelago at the southern tip of the South American continent, separated from the mainland by the Strait of Magellan. Shared between Chile and Argentina, it has a combined area of around 70,000 square kilometers, roughly the size of Ireland. The name Tierra del Fuego stems from the sightings of indigenous-built bonfires by the first European explorers in the early 1500s. Only in the late 19th century did the mass settlement of European descendants begin in the region, resulting in the displacement of the native populations. Like in the rest of Patagonia, the economy of Tierra del Fuego mainly revolves around oil and gas extraction, sheep farming, fishing and tourism. So we just crossed to Tierra del Fuego across the Magellan Strait, taking a little ferry for about 20 minutes that connects the roads on both sides. Today the wind is exceptionally strong. It's coming also more from the north than the last days and it's very warm. It's 16 degrees right now, not in the sun. This is really, as you can see, it's overcast. It's super warm and the wind is so strong on the flat now, I'm doing 50 kmh without really pedaling right now. Now I'm slowing down to 46, I'll pedal a bit again. It's crazy. So it is now already 4 pm and we've only done just under 80 km and yeah, our goal is like 130 something for today to make it across the border to Argentina. But in about 2 km we've had really strong crosswinds and sometimes even headwinds the last 80 km because we've been going south and sometimes a bit southwest so the west wind has been in our face even a bit. In 2 or 3 km we're turning east, dead east and we should have a super strong tailwind the last 50, 55 km should be pretty fun. Alright, here we go. Here comes the tailwind as you can hear it's getting really quiet. Oh yeah, land is a lot better. Kilometers in Chile and it's getting late as you can maybe see. It's 5.30 pm and we still have about 25 km to go I think but then we're in Argentina. There's this waiting room at the Argentinian border where travelers can spend the night and it's really great. It's toasty warm in here because there's a nice heating and then there are bathrooms next door and even a small kitchen that we can use. It's really great and already last night we spent at Cerro Sombrero and we camped next to the Municipalidad building but there were public bathrooms next door and we could have a shower, a really hot, really nice shower and the bathrooms were clean and open every day until 9 pm. Really great and in general down here in the far south the infrastructure for travelers is really good. There are lots of small refuges where you can get out of the wind, spend the night if you want or just take a small break and then continue. So yeah, it's really good. Really important also because there's nothing it's just flat and really windy so yeah. Wow, we are getting really close to Ushuaia now. The last two days we covered a lot of distance. One day we cycled 135 km and yesterday 185 km but the last two days we are going to take it a bit easier now to then arrive tomorrow early so we can properly celebrate our arrival. And now today we have one last pass. We have to climb up to 500 m and even though that's not that high as we are so far south now we could reach the snow line. We'll see. So, we are almost at the top of our last pass in South America. We are now at 450 m so only like 50 m to go and we are just below the snow line but I don't think we are going to see any snow unfortunately next to us at least on the road. And it's so nice that the landscape has gotten a bit more interesting here again now with some mountains and forests and not just grasslands so nice reward. On the morning of our last day riding in South America we were surprised by a little bit of snow. It briefly seemed like the weather had finally caught up with us just as we pedaled our last kilometers into Ushuaia, the end of the world. Oh my gosh! The past 11 months and almost 13,000 km cycling on this vast continent had, at times, been truly difficult. From camping at minus 14 degrees Celsius in Peru to reaching 5,800 m above sea level by bicycle in Bolivia cycling South America was the greatest challenge we had yet faced on our journey around the world. It was no wonder then that reaching the end of the road was an overwhelming and emotional moment for the both of us.