Cycling finished, a broken rim ends the ride 200km early

As we rode the last few metres into Victoria, Isabelle complained that her brakes were rubbing. We checked it out and discovered that the rim was completely destroyed in several places and on both sides. Before we started we had wondered if the wheel would last because the surface was getting a little concave, but we assumed that with Isabelle's lighter weight it would last the trip. We were nearly right. The wheel has done about 20,000km so it's lasted well. Now she has to decide does she get a Rohloff hub on the next one?

We had to get a bus up to Chillan and then the train back to Santiago a day earlier than expected, but in the grand scheme of things we have been very lucky. My bike broke just after the Carretera had finished and Isa's the first day we arrived in a major town in Chile. If the weather hadn't been so shit in Argentina it would have broken on a dirt road or a high pass further North and we would have had a lot more trouble getting back for our plane home.

Motorbike museum

Just before Freire we saw a sign for a cabaña and went down a little track. It led to the house of Elizabeth and Irving, whose cabanas were full but who happily invited us to camp in their garden. Amazingly Irving had a small museum of mainly British motorbikes in various stages of restoration, and was the only Chilean member of various British motorbike clubs. He had Enfield, Triumph, Ariel and Panther bikes and was really pleased to see our Brook's saddles as one of his oldest bikes had one too.

La Difunta Correa

As we have been cycling along through Argentina we kept seeing small red shrines with a statue of a woman (who we wrongly assumed was the virgin Mary) surrounded by water bottles and red flags. We met an Australian cyclist who told us the fascinating history of the shrines which are semi-pagan in origin. Wikipedia has good article about it: http//en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Difunta_Correa

Deolinda Correa was an Argentinian woman with a small child who got lost while travelling in the pampas in 1840. When her body was eventually found her young child was amazingly still alive, supposedly drinking from her ever flowing breasts. From this story people started to visit her home town of Vallecito, and gradually travelling people started making roadside shrines with a female figurine, where they left water bottles to 'calm her eternal thirst'.

We've seen many of these shrines in Argentina and also a couple on the southern Carretera in Chile. Cattle drovers used to use them for a backup source of water when the weather was particularly dry.

Finally some pictures of us cycling

Down near Puerto Rio Tranquillo along the Carretera Austral we met a couple on a campsite. Carolina, had some British roots and had worked as a photographer in the past in Santiago. As they drove past us the following day she took some photos of us struggling on the ripio and sent them on to us yesterday.

A full house back at JuanJose and Carla's

Carla and Juan Jose, having had only one other Warm Showers guest since we left on our journey South in mid January, received four of us all at once. Firstly, Oriol from Barcelona who was heading South to spend the winter working in Bariloche after a really challenging 6000km ride from Peru, and the following day Micky from Berlin, with his inventive and fantastic self-made kitchen on the front of his bike, who had cycled North from Ushuaia.

Leo and Olivia were now able to interact a little more sociably and we had two great days there before we set of North to Santiago on the last leg of our journey, a really boring 300km up the Ruta Cinqo. The garden was full of apple trees weighed down with an incredible crop which the kids spent their time nibbling at, Leo having a bite of one before discovering a more interesting one nearby and leaving a trail of bitten apples around the garden.

He's still learning

Instead of just chasing the pigeons we decided to feed them some bread to attract a few more.

Unfortunately Leo decided to copy them and try and eat the bread we were throwing, much to our horror.

Back into Chile again

Crossing the border from Argentina back to Chile between Junin de los Andes and Pucon involves the most gentle climb up to a pass dominated by a forest of Monkey Puzzle Trees. What follows is a complete change of vegetation from the dry pampas which dominaties Argentina into lush green fruit trees covering the steep valleys of Chile

Dropping down 1000m we finally reached Pucon with its impressive snow covered volcano which turns the town into one of the busiest tourist destinations in the summer months.

From Pucon we headed North as fast as we could back towards Santiago, camping in the garden of a lovely Chilean-German-American couple and then stopping for a couple of days in Pillanlebun with some Warm Showers hosts Juan Jose and Carla who we stayed with on our journey South.

The boy is back

As soon as it's terrible it's good.

Leo went to bed moaning, with a bloody mouth, slept ALL night, woke up smiling, ate loads of  soft bread dipped in jam and then picked up his shoes and went to the door of the cabaña.  After we dressed him he went outside and played independently with some kittens, hitting them with a straw and trying to kick them :) We were so proud. No crying, just big smiles and free roaming while we stayed in the cabaña and packed. It was his first breakfast in 6 days.

The boy is back!
(until the next teeth come through)

Travelling with a teething baby

Leo is teething at the moment and it is just a nightmare for us and for him. He can't eat properly and has consequently become lethargic, moany, clingy and worst of all very little fun. Oh, he doesn't sleep very well either! Not something easy to deal with while camping or staying in hosteria. Sitting up for a couple of hours in the night playing 'Baby Einstein - Animal Expedition' is not my idea of a fun activity at 3am

It's so sad to have lost such a fun little man and to have found a horrible, whinging child who goes limp and lies on the ground crying if anything doesn't quite go his way. He used to laugh, stand up and clap when he fell over, now we have to pick him up and comfort him. It's quite disgusting.

Mealtimes are where we sit and hope he eats something to give him some energy and make our life easier, and every morning is full of hope that his swollen gums are a little better. He seems to have teeth erupting everywhere, molars, premolars, canines......probably even wisdom teeth at the rate he seems to be growing them. His mouth is sometimes bloody which doesn't exactly help with his tired, moany look!

We know it will pass, but with all this rain and snow and cold weather we have been having recently, sunny Chile just a few km away looks very enticing. 

Come on Leo, come back to us soon please!