Day 129/164: San Nicolas to Salto de Jaja – 98km

430 climbing, 400 down.

Thankfully a shorter riding day today without much climbing.

The first ten kilometres we had two reasonable climbs and I was hoping the climbing amount we had been told was right and that we really did only have to climb 430 meters today.

Thankfully after the first ten kilometres it was just a gradual up gradient on a road like a motorway, which was pretty easy riding ( so long as you did not mind the huge trucks, buses, and cars whizzing past at speed).

A long section on the PanAm, trying to ignore the constant stream of fast moving trucks, & cars (Photo credit: Jo’s Facebook page)

It was not a race day so the racers were relaxed and most riders stopped at 40 kilometres for coffee. The service was shocking and one rider left without anything. The staff would completely serve one person – bring out their food etc, and totally ignore the people at the counter who just wanted to put an order in. There was no point stressing about it, as it is not going to change.

As it was a shorter day we were at the rest day hotel by 2pm. It is a bit of a one horse town, a couple of hotels and restaurants, and tourist shops, and that’s about it. No bank or ATM – a few of the new riders got caught out and had to borrow money. Thankfully, unlike Argentina, the restaurants are happy to take credit, which is good as like in Argentina you can only take a certain amount of cash from the ATM each day, although at least in Chile it is enough usually.

The reason for the hotels, restaurants and tourist shops is the fantastic waterfall. It has two sides. I have a view of the water fall from the hotel room. The hotel is surrounded by trees and has a number of peacocks and peahens.

Waterfall view from Jo’s balcony (Photo credit: Jo’s Facebook page)

One of the resident peacocks outside the window (Photo credit: Jo’s Facebook page)

A group of us went across the road to the restaurant and had cocktails and wine, and told stories and jokes. Nellie said in the Netherlands it would be called a Gezellig, the closet translation we could get was a gathering.

The waterfall

The waterfall

Day 128/164: Chanco to San Nicolas – 143km

The notes said 1,775 climbing, but it was actually 1,961 meters climbed, and down 1,886.

As predicted I was tired from reading so late and having to get up at 6:40 am. It was colder this morning than the past few days.

As well as doing 143 kilometres we also had climbing and gravel to deal with. So I was not in my happiest frame of mind when we set out. A few of the new riders are starting to get tired, and are developing pressure areas and sore hands etc.

We went along the coast until about 65 kilometres when we turned inland again. It was very windy riding along the coast, and some steep hills.

Following the coastline south (Photo credit: Jo’s Facebook page)

At 65 kilometres I stopped at a petrol station for a drink before a long 7 kilometre climb to lunch at 72 kilometres. According to the notes 2/3 of climbing should have been done, but the hills went on all afternoon – thankfully they had quite a lot of descent as well.

There was a bit of wind but thankfully the last 30 kilometres was slightly downhill, and not a head wind.

It had been planned that we would be staying at a community center, which I was not looking forward to. It usually means tent city! All the tents squashed together and you can hear every snore, burp, and turn over. At least outside you can get some distance between tents.

Thankfully Cristisno found another place and we stayed one kilometre out of town at a farm, with a great view from the balcony of the surrounding farm land and the mountains in the distance. The farm owner stacked his fridge with beer, water and Coke.

Sue, Jo, Nellie and I decided that tomorrow night, as we would be on a rest day the next day, we would get together and have cocktails.

A few riders struggled with today, and the lunch truck did not get to camp with the last few riders until about 6:30pm. Thankfully it is now light until about 8:30 so people were not having to put their tents up in the dark.

I was really pleased to hear that Cristiano is most likely going to be the tour leader for the NZ section next year 😀

I keep looking out for Shirley and Dan on the daily rides as usually I would see them a couple of times on the ride each day ,and then I remember they have gone home. Hopefully they will do the NZ trip next year.

Distant volcanoes seem to float on the horizon. View from our farm campsite, at San Nicholas (Photo credit: Jo’s Facebook page)