Failing Puerto Sanchez

In the photograph above I was driving down this hairpin but it was the drive up, five minutes earlier, that undid us. The sand was soft and the turn was tight and steep, steeper than it looks. The front wheels started to scrabble and we slid sideways. This never happens with our huge KO2 all terrain tires but it did on the road to Puerto Sanchez and our hearts were in our mouths. 

Obviously we didn’t slide back and tumble a thousand feet straight down the mountain into the village of Bahia Murta in the River Murta delta far below us. The tires scrambled desperately as we glanced at each other. I straightened the wheel as soon as I could and we crawled up the road, the tires barely gripping, our hearts in our mouths. Had we stopped or lost ground and slid back I have no idea how much damage we would have done or how we would have turned out of this spot. We knew we were getting into some gnarly stuff going over that granite mountain but that hairpin stopped us. 

That’s Bahia Murta far below us, a collection of homes on a short stretch of paved road in the valley. Up above them we got through the first set of hairpins and were on our way to explore some marble caves in Puerto Sanchez 14 miles away. 

“The next eight miles has dangerous curves in a narrow road.” No lie we were to find out and we never got close to the 25 mph speed limit. 

The road surface wasn’t bad because you can’t speed too much here but there was some irritating washboard, a series of ridges in the dirt created by wheels spinning too fast for conditions. You create washboard by speeding. 

Layne has got a lot better about driving up cliffs after all the mountain roads we drove in Ecuador and Peru at altitudes up to 16,000 feet. The view was great of course even down here at less than 1500 feet.  

Nice huh? We were on our way hairpins be damned. 

There was a lot of brand new guardrail which on one level was reassuring but on the other was a little disturbing. You can see the road on the cliff face opposite and there is a lot of shiny new guardrail all along it. 

Not too bad. 

This would have been profoundly awkward had we met some local speeding downhill towards us. I tootled my horn on many blind corners. When I didn’t, Layne had no  hesitation telling me what to do with my horn.  

Oh and the snow sticks poking up. Can  you imagine driving up here in a snowstorm? I can’t. 

I figure we were lucky they had recently cleaned up this track. After we had our slipping sliding adventure we came across our next hairpin which miraculously had a slight turn out. I could make a very slow careful u-turn. So I did. Much relief as we headed back down the mountain, that feeling of having got away with something was still with us. 

Down to the lake shore, screw the caves. 

Lots of hairpins ahead. 

It was good to have a couple of miles of pavement back to the main highway but this is very much a rural area. 

Back to the Carretera Austral (“southern highway”) which is also known as Highway 7. We had about 45 miles to get to pavement for the rest of our drive north. No caves, no Puerto Sanchez, but no death rolls. That was a good outcome despite the disappointment. 

The thing was it started well on Tuesday when we left our wild camp by the Rio Chico. 

My village in Italy was one of the last places in the country to get paved roads and I hated riding my bicycle on the white dusty gravel that connected our villages in the back of beyond. 

Thus when I see unpaved road some prehistoric part of my cortex recoils in horror. I firmly believe people deserve modern paved roads wherever they live. A paved road is the difference between 19th century and modern life. Yes, I know I’m odd but I’m a product of my life and times.

So this was a drive I struggled to enjoy. 

It reminds me of when I traveled by sailboat and some days sucked such as days of headwinds. Gravel roads are like headwinds and for me spoil a nice day driving.

Despite the grit we got in our teeth and throughout our home the road ran through some lovely countryside.

There’s a reason the Carretera Austral enjoys a similar reputation to Route 66 in the US as a huge tourist attraction. 

We did cross quite a few locals driving like maniacs and you can tell they’re speed by the size of their…dust clouds. Pick up trucks and small sedans can change the weather just like the US government. 

We drive twentyoin the few good bits and much less in washboard and potholed sections. Consequently I pull over a lot to let the people chasing deadlines pass. 

Puerto Tranquilo. There are boat cave tours from here though we were encouraged to take the ride from mythical Puerto Sanchez across the lake where the tours are said to be vastly superior. I regret it now as the afternoon was slightly sunny and perfect but we only stopped to buy gas before moving on. 

Puerto Sanchez lies under the black cliff somewhere on the right of the lake. 

We stopped for lunch and Rusty took his chance to enjoy the great outdoors. 

When it’s not covered in a dust cloud the road looks like this: 

And then this: 

And after they’ve gone by the cloud hangs there like a fog. The odd thing about this highway is how many campers you’ll see driving here. 

You can see rental truck campers, Chilean  Argentine and Brazilian campers in travel trailers and RVs, and Europeans in  RVs and expedition trucks. And us, the sole North Americans mixed among the local summer vacationers.

Love that washboard. 

There are tons of peddlers on the tourist route.  If you want to stand out you’d have to ride a penny farthing or a monocycle because touring bikes with luggage are around every corner. And boy judging by their blank  glances at us as we pass (even slower to keep the dust down) their life is one long act of penance for some unspeakable act in their past lives. Not one cheery wave. 

And then at last we find an iOverlander listed wild camp for the night. The best ones we’ve found are open spaces, no fences, on river beds near bridges.  This was where we stopped after the Puerto Sanchez fiasco. 

iOverlander lists it so we were hardly alone and can you imagine, locals cane down after work and enjoyed the river bed and didn’t bother us one bit. Except with smiles and waves. Fear of the Latin American by would be travelers is greatly exaggerated. 

It looks to me like spots I’ve seen in photos of Alaska. 

We two nights here cleaning out some of the dust. 

We’ll get some more in the way to Villa Cerro Castillo but that will be a dust cloud for tomorrow.