On paper, it looked simple: Ride through the national park around the Volcano Llaima, a total of 72 km from Melipeuco to the next town of Curacautín. We knew there was a substantial pass in the middle, but we had done bigger passes before. We knew it wasn’t pavement, but we had ridden hundreds of kilometers on gravel already. Even so, we planned to cover the 72 km in three short days of 20km, 28km, and 24km. We thought there’d be plenty of time each day to stop and enjoy the sights. Gosh were we wrong!
I’m going to do this entry a wee bit different: I’ll summarize the highlights (and low lights) up front, then leave the girls journal entries for the day-to-day. I save the pics for after the girls’ entries so if you’re only here to see those, skip ahead now!
It turns out that the unpaved road through the park was less gravel and more… SAND. If you’ve ever ridden on sand on a bicycle, well you weren’t riding a fully loaded tandem. I know, because it’s actually impossible, especially with a kid on the back. The wheels sink, then slide, and if you try to power through they slip too. There were bits of the first two days that were ridable, but slowly. There were more bits that seemed rideable until the wheels slid out from under us. We ended up walking long stretches.
Of course, the scenery was spectacular. We rode through lava fields, and through araucaria forests with golden fall-foliage undergrowth. We rode past sparkling lakes and rainbow lakes. We rode in the shadow of the incredible volcano. We slept inside the national park and saw the milky way. We saw a waterfall. There was a second volcano. It was all beautiful. It was also the most challenging terrain we’ve had on this trip.
The girls were incredible – they understood the task. We just had to keep making forward progress. On our first day, that meant riding when we could (walking when the road was too soft), and also despite the heat. That’s right, we were baked on the road in the middle of the lava field. Despite it being mid-fall in this area, an unusual heat wave was coming through. Sure it wasn’t actually *hot* at 72 F, but for us it was!
On our second day in the park we battled sand for kilometers, and then when the road entered the deep forest and became dirt and the girls found out what a ‘dream-smasher’ is. Jason and I have coined the term ‘dream-smasher’ for a particular type of construction vehicle that smooths a thick layer of loose dirt evenly across a road. It renders the newly treated road surface unrideable. The vehicle that sometimes follows and squishes it all down is what we call a ‘dream-maker’. Unfortunately on this day the dream-smasher had come through and there was no dream-maker in sight.
Once we finally past the dream-smasher for the last time we were also over the pass. We looked forward to the long downhill! But that turned out tragically as well, as the dirt road turned to gravel road turned to… huge loose rocks. It was, as you may have guessed already, also unrideable. I believe we walked at least 5 miles that day to get past the awful road surfaces. For a single bicycle much of it would have been fine, but it just wasn’t for our setup. The girls were so amazing at each obstacle. They just got off the bikes and walked.
We also had our only two mechanical issues that day. A small rock lodged itself in Jason’s belt drive, popping it off entirely. We had to flip the tandem upside down, remove a wheel, and fix it. Of course it was in the middle of a lava field! Then, a screw on my front rack somehow came loose and disappeared. The arm of the rack that holds up the bag just swung free! Luckily this happened as we were taking pictures at the exit of the park, so it was an easy fix with a spare.
Our third day out of Melipeuco was almost entirely on pavement and was blissfully uneventful. We flew through the mellow farmlands and took our 2,500 km photo before town. We arrived in town and went straight to order pizza!
Day 97: Melipeuco to Camping Ngen-Trayenko (20 km / 12 mi)
A: For breakfast we had pancakes and fried eggs. We eventually got out of the house and started riding to the national park. At the entrance station to the national park we had lunch. Lunch was ham, barbeque, and bread sandwich. I got a couple good pictures of green lizards. We rode on pretty bad gravel the rest of the way to the campground. It was also really hot, but only slightly uphill. We finally made it to the shady campground. I already felt hot. We took a walk to a little waterfall that was quite tall. I touched the cold water that was supposedly melted ice. (I didn’t think it was cold enough!) We walked back, set up the tent, and played some video games. Mama unlocked the Ginger Islands in Stardew Valley! Dinner was avocado tuna pasta with broth. It was good. Yay! Bye! Now that’s all for today! See you later! <picture of horse with bridle and saddle>
H: I finished a hard Spanish lesson. It was supposed to be all uphill but there was downhill. I had a ham sandwich. The gravel was so bad it took forever. I played Zelda in my camping chair.
Day 98: Camping to Llaima Camp Cabin (28 km / 17 mi)
A: Today a LOT of bad luck things happened. I’ll list them:
- First our chain popped off. We had to take the wheel out.
- Some of the gravel was really sandy and our tires sank down.
- Very steep uphill. It was like the road sunk into the hill.
- There was a dreamsmasher and the road got quite soft.
- Terribly steep downhill.
- At the almost bottom of the hill the gravel got really loose and rocky as we went through another lava field.
- It was gravel until our cabaña, even out of the national park.
- The whole day was on gravel. Wow!
- Mama’s front rack came apart.
But there were some cute friendly dogs that I got to pet at the place we were staying in. That’s about it. Oh, my feet are really tired. Now bye! See you later! <picture of horse with fancy bridle and saddle>
H: Bad thing number 1 chain popped off. Bad thing #2 sand. Bad thing #3 crazy uphill. Bad thing #4 dreamsmasher. Bad thing #5 steep downhill. Bad thing #6 bad gravel. Bad thing #7 gate closed. Bad thing #8 all gravel no pavement. Bad thing #9 rack came apart.
Day 99: Cabin to Curacautin (23 km / 14 mi)
Today was basically a rest day. For most of our morning in the cabaña we played Zelda and Stardew Valley till we started riding around 10:30 AM. The two young cute doggies led us for a bit. The old one stayed I the campground. The riding to town only had one stop and was mostly downhill. We took our 2500 kilo photo and the camera ran out of battery so we didn’t get to see the photo till later. We rolled into town (which had a surprisingly nice pike path on the main street!) and stopped for lunch at a nice pizzaria. We ordered barbeque chicken pizza, shrip pizza, and a giant, delicious plate of fries. It was good. Really good. Next we found our cabaña and then played our video games till dinner. For dinner we had eggs, avocado and quesadillas. It was also delicious. (Almost as good as lunch.) And H is getting Zelda and downloading my saved profile on her Nintendo. And, finally that’s all for today! Bye! See you later! <picture of Volcano Llaima and cyclists saying “gravel!”>
H: In the morning I had extra video games. We took the 2500 photo and it was downhill. We had pizza and played a lot of Zelda.
