The trail started in front of us, we were on the carretera austral! Mythical route for cyclists, it was completed only in 1999 when Villa O'Higgins was connected to the rest of Chile. The carretera austral was an ambitious idea of the military regime of General Pinochet who, since 1976, wanted to connect all the cities and villages of Chile by a road network. Nice idea, but when we saw the hills where the soldiers had to build the road, we were sincerely amazed! What a huge task! Moreover, they were quite proficient: the slopes were not only very strong but very long. How could blame them when you see these deep gorges carved by rivers and these innaccessible forests?
We thus began this track we heard so much about for its beauty. Approximately 200 km separated us from the next town: Cochrane. We took a small ferry to cross the fjord Michell to Puerto Yungay before struggling in a very steep uphill slope, attacked by hungry horseflies. The uphill road was long and difficult but the view was breathtaking. At the top of the mountains, glaciers and waterfalls fed streams that cut deep gorges into the rock. On the slopes of the mountains, virgin forest was full of ferns, fuchsias and other unknown plants and offered us a nature free of human activity. The descent was as steep as the climb. The road went down on the side of cliffs at the bottom of a narrow gorge that suddently opened to a wide valley where the Rio Baker exhibited large meanders. The vegetation was still very dense, and we discovered bamboos from which emerged sometimes a herd of cows. On this part of the Carretera, the passage of vehicles followed the rythm of the arrival of the small ferry and we benefited from long hours of solitude without a single engine noise ...
Shortly before Cochrane, the landscape became drier and the track became increasingly bad and loose with sand, blocks and wash board undulations. In contrast with Villa O'Higgins, the mountains were higher here and consisted of a climatic barrier. Moreover, here there are two huge ice fields (Campo de Hielo Sur and Norte) that form the Patagonian icecap, the third icecap in the world after Antarctica and Greenland.
After a little rest and a cure of fruits picked up in the garden of the camping in Cochrane, we enjoyed a heavy rain shower - which was as good as those of Normandy – and we were splashed with the mud of the puddles when we crossed buses, trucks and other vehicles ...
Again we followed the Rio Baker, but this time in a narrow gorge, until the Lake General Carrera, the second largest lake in Latin America after Lake Titicaca. All around the mountains were empty of forest but their flanks were covered with dead trunks. We met an old man who was cutting fruit trees and we asked him the reasons of all those dead trunks. "There was a fire 36 years ago," he said with an accent difficult to understand. Then he talked about the time when the Cerretera did not exist: "It was quieter before! We went to Coyhaique on horseback, it took more than a month to go there." We were about 200km away from Coyhaique and we will have 4 days to get there by bike ... 
Around Cerro Castillo, the track became very bad. The wheels slipped in the loose gravels, the bicycles were violently shaken on wash board and the wind was powerfully blowing in the valley and pushed us on the side of the road. We rode at an average velocity of 5km/h even in the downhill slopes and I even stoped and pushed my bike. Disgusted, we were finally happy when we saw the paved road that marked the entrance into Villa Cerro Castillo and the end of 400 km of heavy dirt road. Along the 4-lane road, we stopped at a bus converted into snak and delightfully devoured a sandwich meat-tomato-avocado!
When we took the road again, we saw some machines working behind us: they were flatening the road we struggled with the whole morning! Now the road was flat and good! But ahead, the day was not over and we had to climb the "Cuesta del diablo" (devil's pass), the highest pass of the Carretera Austral (1120 m). We started as the evening lights shined around us. After the Chileans, this pass is particularly difficult. The road was really curved and after a few kilometers, we rode on a semi-flat road until the pass, without further difficulties. Our tough training against he wind during the first month seemed to work! The mountains that surrounded us hypnotised us by their imposing mass and their pastel pink, yellow and green colors, characteristic of volcanic rocks. The road wass empty, we went full speed and were looking for a camp.
"There is a Huemul on the road" Olivier whispered from outside the tent. I went out carefully and noiseless to get a chance to observe the symbol of the country, which looks like a deer. We were face to face ... that was the little surprise of the morning. After almost a month in the remote Patagonian nature, we quickly rode the road to Coyhaique, the capital of the Aysen region, where we have an appointment with a geologist.
