Adventures on Two Wheels Chile 2018

Greetings once again from Santiago.  The last two days have been interesting.  Yesterday was the less interesting of the two.  In the morning, I took the bicycle and rode up a ¨ciclovia¨(Bike path) along the side of the Costanera Norte, a major thoroughfare in Santiago.  I rode until there was nowhere further to ride, then returned.  Somewhat boring, really.  Once I had the bike put away, I went walking, specifically to a rent-a-car place a mile or so from my condo.  There, I reserved a small car for one day, specifically today, to be picked up at 8 in the morning when they opened.  That done, I walked back towards home through park built into the Cerro de Santa Lucia (Santa Lucia Hill), which was quite a pleasant place.  At one point I walked straight up 170 steps (It is that steep) to get further up towards the top.  From the top, there was a beautiful view of all of Santiago.  Once I came down, I walked past my condo to the Plaza de Armas, which is the center square of Santiago, s

Greetings from Chile´s capital city, where I arrived today via bus from Viña del Mar.  My time in Viña was peaceful and economic.  I returned several times to the store that sold me the prepared lasagna, and bought, among other things, more lasagna, raviolis, cooked beef and rice (which I just had to microwave) and cookies.  I doubt I spent more than ten Dollars a day on food, and I ate well.  Yesterday morning, I rode the bike a dozen miles or so up the coast, past Concon, and along some very beautiful shoreline.  Passing Concon, the road crossed a bridge and continued, but it was all under construction, so I did not go any farther.  Frequently, the coastal range of mountains (They are beyond hills.) comes right down the the sea, so I saw a lot of condos built terraced into the hills.  It makes one wonder what would happen in a really heavy rainstorm.  Following my return, I took all my (very) dirty clothes to a laundromat where for 5,000 Pesos they were washed up and ready this morhi

I remain in Viña del Mar today, and will be here until Tuesday.  I have completely changed and cut short my trip, I am now going home on Saturday night next week.  Why? I did not do my homework properly. I assumed conditions similar to Uruguay or Brazil, but..... In Uruguay and Southern Brazil, the (excellent) main highways are two lane affairs with wide shoulders and not much traffic.  Chile is both more prosperous, and geographically different.  The country is only 80 miles wide in places. As a result, there is only one (1) main north-south highway, Chile Route 5.  Route 5 is built to US Interstate highway standards, and cars move along it at extremely high rates of speed.  It is physically impossible to move any distance north or south without using Route 5.  Even were it legal, it is unsafe to ride a bike on it.  I was left with the choice of either taking a bus a thousand miles north to Iquique or south to Puerto Montt, but once there (and off the freeway portion of Route 5) it is

Greetings from Valparaiso's richer twin, Viña del Mar.   Yesterday evening I decided I would stay here a couple of days to get to know both cities a bit better.  So I booked a "studio condo" through Airbnb, and then rode 6 miles from Valparaiso to here this morning.  The owner had left the key in a lockbox and when I entered I realized why it was a "studio", upon opening the door, I immediately encountered TWO more doors.  She built a wall right down the middle of what must have once been a one bedroom unit the size of my mom's in DC, and turned it into two units, both of which are rented out.  Were my mother still alive and president of her condo association again,  and someone tried this, she would have lost her mind. At the end of the day, the place is big enough for me, and it is on the 15th floor, so I have a very good view, so I'm not complaining.  Curiously,  unlike most US apartment buildings,  there is a 13th floor; it doesn't skip from 12th

Happy Thanksgiving from Valparaiso, Chile's principal port.  I had hoped to be at a bar watching the Redskins' game right now, but could not find one showing the game anywhere, so, being VERY tired anyway, came back to my hotel to write this. I got on the road a little late this morning, having to wait for the laundromat to open and retrieve my clothes.  Once everything was packed into my saddlebags, I set off from Catemu on a rather in poor repair bunch of back roads.  I set off on Route F-301, which more or less paralleled Autopista 5 and headed towards Hijuelas, a small and insignificant place.  Passing through, I crossed Route 5 and took F-300 in a very small place called Villa Prat.  Ten miles later, I entered La Calera, yesterday's destination.   From La Calera, it was about ten miles to the next town, La Quillota, and it was all urbanized, with a great deal of traffic. I was now exactly midpoint between Catemu and Valparaiso, so I got on Expedia and reserved a

Greetings from the little town of Catemu, about 30 miles west of Los Andes, en route to Viña del Mar.  Today's ride was...interesting,  and frankly a little frustrating. The phone company workers were long gone when I poked my head out the door at 7am, so that put paid to my hopes to get back to Paso de los Libertadores.  So, I went for Plan B, which was to start heading for Viña del Mar and points south.  Per my map, Ruta 60 went all the way to the town of La Calera, about 40 miles west.  I thought that there, or the town of Llay-Llay, 9 miles before would be a nice short ride, so I set out. I rode back through the city of Los Andes, past my hotel of two nights ago, stopped at a Shell station for a Coke and a couple bottles of water (You have to be careful buying water because the sparkling and gas-free kinds come in nearly identical bottles.) and headed west.  It was a straight shot, both per my physical map and the Google Maps app, 25 miles into Llay-Llay.   On the way, I pa

Greetings from three and a half miles east of where I started this morning.  Sometimes, the best made plans don't work out and that happened today. Los Andes is approximately 41 miles from the Paso de Los Libertadores tunnel through the Andes mountains and into Argentina. (The actual border is somewhere in the tunnel.)  Bikes, naturally, are not allowed into the tunnel.  From the Chilean customs post before the tunnel there is an old, unpaved road up to a huge statue of Jesus Christ known as the Cristo Redentor de los Andes.  This was the old route to Argentina prior to construction of the tunnel in 1970.  Jesus sits on the border at an elevation of 13,700 feet and is 46 miles from Los Andes.  46 miles doesn't sound too far, but with this kind of elevation gain, it is.  My goal was to ride up to the actual border, take a picture or three, and then whiz back down the mountain at warp speed.  A Google search showed a hotel en Rio Blanco 22 miles up the road from Los Andes, or j

Greetings from Los Andes, Chile, where I have started another one of my bicycle trips. Los Andes is a small town in the foothills of the Andes Mountains located about 50 miles east of Santiago. Why Chile?  Why not. After 6 previous trips over the last 14 years,  there is nowhere new really left for me to ride in Uruguay, Paraguay or Rio Grande do Sul, and I can do without Argentina.  It came down to Chile or New Zealand, and Chile is cheaper. Chile has a population of about 16 million, of whom 6 million live in and around Santiago.  Santiago is an incredibly beautiful and clean city with streets in excellent repair and not much of a crime problem. The Chilean national police are called Carabineros and all the guide books I bought warn that they are unbribable which is very…..different…..from the morons I have dealt with in Argentina. Chile has been democratic since 1989 when Pinochet lost a referendum and surprisingly accepted the results and left power.  November is late s