Feliz Navidad from Coyhaique!!

Merry Christmas everyone from Coyhaique, Chile!! We are preparing for a big day of eating and drinking tomorrow while all you Kiwis will be enjoying Christmas day in the sun.

Since we last wrote we have ridden from Cochrane to the biggest town in the this region- Coyhaique. We managed to sort out most of our mechanical issues in Cochrane, thanks to Shane and the supermercado. Not surprisingly we soon struck our next problemo! Early on our first morning riding Sophie`s pannier carrier snapped at the base. Once again Shane (now dressed as Santa, complete with hat, beard and decorated Bob trailer) pulled through with some ingenious road side repairs. Once we set off again the riding was stunning- the emerald coloured Rio Baker blew us away, providing a great lunchtime swim and eating spot. Soph and Anna spent the evening doing repair work on their decaying tent which has been dubbed the "Hilton"- complete with Anna´s brand-new, hot pink lip gloss! Pegging the tent is a delicate matter as too much strian in one direction results in yet another tear!
The next day we rode through the rain. Cold, tired and dirty we decided to splash out and stay at a cute little cabana. Once we sorted out the temperamental gas shower and the toxic fumes coming off the recently painted chimney we had a relaxing night drying out. The following day we had a fabulous day riding over a 1100m pass on a mixture of smooth fast rolling roads and terrible thick gravel. We spent a stormy night camping in a small town called Cerro Castello. We spent the next morning visiting an archeological site just out of town. The caves are lined with hand prints from 10,000 years ago. The afternoon was spent riding over an impressive pass with welcome sealed road.The descent was cold and wet- but good to be covering lots of km´s fast. We were quite late arriving into the small settlement of El Blanco. Keen to get out of the wind and get dinner we set up camp in what we thought was a deserted school ground. It soon turned out to be a boarding school! We were surround by Chilean school children curious to get close to the strange pack of foreigners setting up camp in the play-ground. Our dinner (eaten over old school desks) was soon interrupted by some grumpy Chilean matrons- keen to see us off their school grounds. We piled all our gear over the fence and hopped into our tents for an early night. Our breakfast was again interrupted by curious-turned-nasty Chilean children throwing rocks at us!! We cruised the last 33km into Coyhaique pleased to eventually find a cool log-cabin hostel. We have spent the last few days relaxing, shopping, eating (a lot as usual) and preparing for our Christmas feast! PS. Christmas Day now. We ended up having a really fun Christmas Eve. The hostel owner, Santi, cooked an amazing meal with lots of cervezas, vinos and tequilla (which I discovered does not mix well with five bowls of ice-cream!!) We had fabulous night with a group of motor-cycle tourists and a hardy Scottish female cycle tourist- who showed up after a long 140km ride. We´ve had a great Christmas day so far-the sun is shining, we were all stoked with our secret santa presents. Kate will be warmer with her full length rainbow pants, Matilda safer with her full body armour, Sophie more styley with her scarf and hand-bag, Shane entertained with a travel board game and Anna will be happy drinking mate (traditional South American hot drink) from her new gourd. We will continue north tomorrow aiming to be in Bariloche for a New Years fiesta!!