¨Now we´ve come... to the end of the road...¨

So, after a full day´s riding from Pucon, burning down some highway with the only real break being the 15min ferry ride from Pargua to Chacao (on which we saw penguins and sea lions!), we finally arrived in Castro on the Chilean island of Chiloé.

First impressions were that Chiloé is one of the nicest places we´ve visited... not the most spectacular, not the most exciting, but definitely the nicest. An island of rolling hills, fields full of yellow, white or purple wildflowers, beautiful blue lakes, fat & happy cows and sheep lying around in fields of daisies and small towns on the waters edge. We had read that on the island, if it wasn´t raining, it was drisling or spitting and we were looking forward to a few days in a misty seaside town in the cold after the heat and riding we´d been doing, but... no such luck... where we go, so does the sunshine, the dryness and the heat. Blue skies abounded with the only clouds being the clouds of smoke rising from the several bushfires on the island.

We stayed in a hostel with a deck and view of the water in Castro, the capital of Chiloé for the first 3 nights while we explored the island a little. It was the first chance we´d had to ditch the gear off the bikes and take them for a spin just for fun rather than out of the need to arrive somewhere.

Our first day we headed to the end of the longest highway in the world, the panamericana (Ruta 5) which runs from Alaska to the South of Chile and ends in a town called Quellón on Chiloé. Quellón was not much to look at, so after the obligatory photos of the plaque and monument and the more recognisable ¨Fin de Pavimento¨sign, plus a brief rendition of Boys II Men´s ¨End of the Road¨ on my behalf, we grabbed an ever reliable completo (hot dog with tomato, avocado and mayo) for lunch and headed back.

The following day we went for a spin to the National Reserve which lies on the Western side of Chiloé near Cucao. We wandered through the swampy and beachy scrub, which reminded me a little of home, all the while on high alert for the ever dangerous cow-snake or chicken-snake. (There are some mythological creatures which some people in Chiloé supposedly still believe in and there were some pictures of them at our hostel... I was well amused by the picture of the cow-snake with the head and front legs of a cow and the tail of a snake and the chicken-snake with the body of a snake and the head of a chicken.... ¨oooo don´t peck me mister chicken-snake.... lol!¨) Unfortunately all we saw on our walk was some cow-cows (half cow and, you guessed it, half cow) and some horse-horses. We did, however, enjoy some lunch on possibly the nicest beach we´d seen yet and then wander around lost for a while before making our way back home.

After resting up, we then packed up and headed North, with a brief stopover in the lovely town of Quemchi for some super tasty empanadas then on to Ancud in the North of the island where we set up camp in the most beautiful spot yet, on a bluff on the edge of the sea. That night also aforded us the most amazing view when the full (or near full) moon rose up in BRIGHT red just over the water with the reflection creating a red path on the water seemingly to the moon itslef. As it rose above the dust and smoke the colour faded from red to orange to yellow and eventually white, but still absolutely spectacular.

On our final morning we woke to the most amazing layer of mist (YAY!) over the entire area and after a slow morning we jumped on the bikes back to Puerto Montt where I sit now. In a couple of hours time we´ll be boarding the Navimag (a cargo ship come ferry) to Puerto Natales in Southern Patagonia. Our bikes are loaded, our bags are checked in, I have some seasickness tablets and we´re ready to go!!

catch you all on the other side.

Nick

PS - when I get on a better internet connection I´ll chuck up more photos, otherwise I´ve put links from this page (on the right) to our facebook albums.