Hi all!
We are 2 and a half months into our South America tour and half way through the famous Carretera Austral in Chile. We’re in Villa Cerro Castillo where today we hiked up to the Laguna. Stunning place but the winds here are the real deal, and they’re only going to get stronger.
If you’re interested, we’re documenting our trip on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/gentle.spin?igsh=NHo4d3N1Zm0xdDY1
And YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@GentleSpin
For anyone planning on doing the CA by bike we would highly recommend it! The landscape is absolutely stunning and now we completely understand why it’s one of the world’s most popular bike routes. A few things we’ve realised / observed from the CA so far:
1. The riding is very tough, but maybe not as tough as we expected (yet). Some folk painted the picture of it having the hardest hills and terrain on earth to ride on but that’s certainly not been the case. It’s hard, but a lot of riding in Scotland (where I’m from and we both live) is the same. The difference here are the gravel sections which make life more difficult but they are gradually paving the route. From Cochamó to Villa Cerro Castillo the vast majority has been paved.
2. It’s expensive down here. The further south we go the more the prices rise 😅. Fruit and veg etc are double what they were up towards Santiago.
3. Don’t believe any road signs 😂 the distances are all wrong. The same goes for Argentina.
4. There aren’t actually as many cyclists as we anticipated. There are lots compared to the rest of Chile, but we’ve still gone a day or two in the CA completely alone. Probably down to the vastness if the place!
5. Cars are insanely courteous and respectful to cyclists. It makes riding a joy.
6. People down here (and Chile in general) are super friendly to foreigners. Occasionally prices have been ‘over-quoted’ but it’s only happened a couple of times.
We’re going to head towards O’Higgins leaving here on Monday. We’ve heard it’s completely gravel from here so perhaps the next time I post it’ll be a slightly different opinion on the difficulty 😆
Any questions about anything please let me know! 🙂
by StephenC31