Distance: 84.35 km
Ride time: 5:14:25
Average: 16.13 km/h
Total: 22793 km
I would rate my camp site 8.5/10; a beautiful setting by the green Rio Mañihuales, soft sand to sleep on and very quiet in the night. A good sleep indeed.
In the morning I only had 25 km to cycle before reaching Mañihuales, a tiny town that basically consists of two streets. Luckily there was a small supermarket, a bakery, and a café to sit down and write a few blog posts while enjoying a cup of coffee. All you really need.
Progress is never fast in Patagonia. The road and wind usually limits the daily average to below 15 km/h. Add to that the fact that the road is never straight but always up, down, turning left or right, and you sometimes wonder if all this cycling takes you anywhere. It is not easy to see the progress on a map. I passed a sign saying 1600 km to Santiago. On Carretera Austral that will take a while.
There are many reasons to like Chile; one of them is the bus stops that today provided a much needed shelter from the wind and rain.
In Vila Amenguai a big group of 25 cyclists was arriving just as I rolled into town. I tried to say hello but they all seemed very tired. I don’t think they were very experienced cyclists, but they had done 90 km over to passes on dirt road in a day. No an easy task. The group occupied the only camp site in town – not a big deal since I preferred to wild camp anyway. I continued over a climb and found an abandoned government building where I could put up my tent. It was raining as I went to bed.
