FroggyRidesAgain: The Carretera Austral

Finally the morning has come to start cycling. Everything needed, hopefully, is on the bicycle and I´m raring to go, maybe.

This area is not exactly Los Angeles!

At my first stop, a hostel, I made friends with this cat. Wanted to take him/her home with me - so much fun. Picked him up and gave him a stroke and he started purring immediately. He´d then run off, then jump back up again. If I walked back to my room he´d run ahead and then, claws scrabbling desperately, skid to a halt on the smooth wooden floor.

On the Carretera you have to take ferries across the bits that are water.

The Chileans put a lot of flowers in their cemetries.

On the road, it here is tarmac. Not for long though.

Dense vegetation and trees with pretty flowers.

Now the road is "ripio", loose gravel and rocks, and it gets worse. Due to it being dry you gan get a bit of dust when a truck goes by!

Quick tyre change at my next stop, which came just in time as it was late and I was tired and it had started to rain. Took a little while, but then I am not McLaren and I don´t have air tools, except for the pump.

Very rustic round here.

Nice wood burning stove, many places seem to have them.

Quite pretty views here - on the fuschia you see small green hummingbirds feeding from the flowers. I think there is one in this picture, but not sure. As I said they are small and green, and well...

Another ferry, this one three hours. Some more cyclists from Belgium.

Scenery simply gorgeous.

The next ferry is 10km and timed with the last one, so you have 45 minutes. They ask you to get a lift, so this is the view from the pickup. The two guys were a lot of fun and very friendly.

They laughed a lot at me, now covered in dust. Glad to arrive in one piece as the road was very bumpy.

First night camping - home, sweet home.

Quite tired when I got to this bridge. Not paying much attention I vaguely wondered why the sign only three people were allowed in the campground. Seemed strange. It was only for hikers and cyclists etc, no cars. So maybe something to do with this.

Stepping boldly on I suddenly realised that the sign meant something different. Now you have to understand that this bicycle is very heavy and also top heavy, so quite difficult to keep upright.

Within seconds the bridge was swaying from side to side and also tilting. This was to say the least quite alarming, if not terrifying. The drop was quite a lot, the rails low and the possibilty of falling high. Please forgive me as I did not actauly get a photo of his moment. Harrison Ford has stuntmen who do things like this. I work in IT.