Pucon to Puerto Varas Chile

What we thought would be a day or two in Pucon stretched out into a “week-ish”.  Estaban’s posse (friends who Matt had met up with in Quito, Trujillo, Lima and now here) helped us kill the first few days.  Then we hiked Volcano Villaricca, which was an absolute blast. 

 At the top there was a small glacier beside the smoking cauldron, not at all what we were expecting.  For the trip down, our guides had given us a spare nylon butt protector and a cheap hotseat sled.  Means of descent  turned out to be a ONE KILOMETER slide on your butt– my entire childhood of buttsledding practice  finally coming to fruition! 

Read more

Pampas and Volcans to Pucon Chile

Riding south of Mendoza things were pretty flat and fast.  Because  we were bike touring random “things” always seemed to pop up around the corner.  One day south we saw a lot of cars parked along  a desolate section of Route 40….so we stopped.  Turned out Sunday is greyhound racing day, talk about quick acceleration those things have mad pick up. 

 That night we camped with a family who had a pair of plum trees.  In the morning we each put 10 or so in our jerseys.  Of course, by the afternoon we had forgotten the last 3, sat down some place and had jam running down our backsides.

Read more

Santiago Chile to Mendoza Argentina

After waiting over 2 weeks in Santiago Chile Matt was finally able to free his bike from Peruvian customs and meet up with me.  My $1200 Rohloff hub has been malfunctioning from day one (allegedly they never break) and he had the spare parts to fix it.  Except that once we swapped them out it was still not working….  So I bought a $400 Cannondale from Pedro spent another $300 on upgrading wheels and tires and we were off riding at last.
Read more