Carretera Austral

I don’t want to be here.

I mean, of course, in the internet café missing out on even one minute of the glorious weather and scenery of this place. So this will be brief. We are slightly stuck for a day (because we need food for the next, and final, part of the Carretera and it’s Sunday – everything is closed).

Highlights:

• Glaciers. Huge, amazing slabs of ice. All over the place.
• Mountains. But I’m getting used to those. What will I do back in (flat) Australia?
• Lakes, like you wouldn’t believe. Really, I never knew water in a lake could have so many colours.
• Rivers, with amazing blue/green water. It’s not blue, it’s not green; and it’s cold.
• Camping every night. Lots of stars, almost the same as back home – but I can tell we’re far south, the southern cross is pretty high in the sky.
• Washing in freezing cold streams. The Dutch I’m with seem to be crazy, they swim in water I can hardly stand in – it’s too cold!
• No rain for almost 2 weeks! We are counting our blessings! Sun, blue skys and a little sunburn.
• Cyclists. We were a group of 9 for a few minutes and have been a group of 6 for a few days now, and there are lots of others just in front of us. All relatively long distance cyclists.
• The road. Ok, its a bad, corrugated, poorly laid dirt road, but it keeps the hordes of tourists away. And it’s not so bad if you slow down (to 10-15km/h).
• Not being at work. Yep, I still realise I’m lucky to be away from ‘normal’ life. But I’m feeling more and more like not going back as the end of the continent grows close (5-6 weeks to go…). Where too next?

The main bad thing is there is only 230km to go until Villa O’Higgins – and the end of the road :(!