it was a great day of drying everything up and it finally stopped raining!
there were all sorts of animals out and about
Having already stocked up on food in Melipeuco, i just rode through Cunco, stopping out of town to have a little lunch. Stopping in town for lunch in chile is normally not worth it. After all the snow i went for the easier route and while it felt like cheating, i wasn’t ready to walk knee deep in snow again, at least not for few more days. This was the trans-lagos route - into Chile’s Lake District
these three dogs came running after a car and when they saw me they stopped. then started running (or walking) after me.
they were pretty insistent and didnt go home even after i yelled at them. One left but the other two kept following me and stuck around camp.
the weather was nice but cold, i rode on through farms and logging parcels further up.
kind of wondering what my sidekicks made of this? or maybe i was their sidekick and these dogs have always wanted to explore the lakes district but did not want to go alone. They were pretty insistent in following and nothing discouraged them. Shadow and Flaco (skinny)
a man on a horse told me there was lots of snow further up and i cant continue. I said i’ll go and see anyway.
i pushed on past the last dry spot to camp and into some snow, looking for decent cover but it was hard to find something drier and i ended up setting up under a tree. If you thought keeping your tent dry was hard, having a wet dog lean against it does not help!
I had thought about my rather rash decision to give away my MEC camper 2 tent, its really not great but in this weather a bigger and sturdier tent is much better. Although i love my REI quaterdome at this point it is hardly waterproof and not the best for snow and rain.
and the forecast called for a wet dog morning
eventually i ran out of car tracks and it was just snow, not very fresh and the bike kind of went over top. It was this gnarly cold-weather and wet-snow mix that gets you wet no matter what. About the only creatures crazy enough were some wet cows wandering about the pass. I really wondered why these dogs were following me, i only gave them a little food this morning because they didnt eat anything while following me. They picked the wrong guy to follow!
It was coming around on 2pm and i was thinking i will need to stop and dry very soon and set up camp.
i spotted a house and surprisingly with smoke going out. who would be crazy enough to spent a whole winter snowed in here?
Hugo and his dog Choco look after 20 cows here all winter and sometimes get snowed in for weeks at a time. He was surprised to see me and when he saw my hat and the two dogs he thought i was Havali hunter (wild boar hunter).
He had food both for me and the dogs. We ate horse soup
He agreed to adopt the big black dog (i call him shadow because he is just too dark to even take photos of and maybe in honour of the ausangate hero dog). He said with the little one it would be too much dog for him. So we said our goodbyes…
Shadow wasn’t having any of it though and pulled Hugo back, then broke off and ran to me. Hugo then decided to take the Flaco and i was happy because the skinny dog will have a lot of food there and will fatten up very soon.
i dont think Shadow is the smartest dog and i dont know why he’d rather follow me…
after few hours the snow went down and riding the bike felt so awesome!
and i kind of wondered if it was all worth it. I really havent been able to see any of these nice mountains and volcanoes around
with the added dog, passing through towns was quite the carnival, barking and following everywhere and i do think that a dog alone can’t travel these places because all the other dogs would come out to bark and stop you. Shadow was quite nice though, and never barked or attacked but when one dog tried to bite his back leg he turned around and fought back, sending the pooch yelping back to his house.
it pretty much rained all day and the sun came out once or twice
pooch was tired after some 40+km and so was I (mostly from the pushing in the morning though). It was wet everywhere but i found some decent spot along an unused parcel. Even got to see some blue sky today!
sleep in until 9am and the sun comes out and big pasta breakfast, thats the way to go. No snow in the way and likely a town stop today
life was easy on the sunny side. Some instant coffee stop before town and the clouds were almost clearing up
i watched dog make new friends while having a snack, both people and dogs loved him. This woman did not want to touch him so she petted him with her empty grocery bag. Dog was ok with that… :)
then we met the coolest white dog! I made a gps point if i want to go back to pet her sometime in the future…
dog was wrapping up a 60km day and i got to see finally the volcanoes and shadow got to sit in some nice puddles while i took time taking photos
I made it to Ricardo’s home who invited me some time ago. Over wine, cracker-garlic-cheese-honey snacks and warm fire, I got to revise the plan for the winter, continuing south…
premium colombian instant coffee in chile?
and more importantly… my plan B???
