Biking Circuito Chicos

I was at breakfast in my pyjamas at 9am. Marissa came down and joined – it was really delicious; vegan cinnamon porridge with coconut milk, bread, homemade peanut butter, a variety of jams I didn’t touch and coffee. At 10am I was still eating, Marissa waited while I had a quick shower and got dressed. Then we went to the supermarket and bought some rolls, ham and cheese for the day, and to a dairy for the Sube public transport card. I already had one from Buenos Aires.

Finally, we were off, we caught the line 20 bus along the lake until the 17km mark – not that it was
marked. Thank goodness for maps.me. Then it was a short walk to the bike rental place. I got a
reasonably good mountain bike (with gears and brakes!) and large helmet for 400 pesos. We had to set off the right side of the road around a huge roundabout. A good practice for biking on the open road! Being British, Marissa found it just as confusing as me.

The first part was 3km of downhill. This was lovely, whooshing past all the big conifer trees. That ended on a bridge over the lake. But then it was 1.5km uphill of the difficult road. It took us so long because we stopped 3 times, thinking it was the mirador because we could see this amazing view of the Llao Llao hotel and park surrounded by different lakes. I had a very scenic toilet stop at one more secluded place.

We laughed when we reached the actual mirador, cars parked on the road and big signposts. There
were a few tourist stalls here, one guy standing at one pointed up – a condor flew right over our heads. By the time I got my camera out it was much higher up.
Then it was more steep downhill to the Patagonia Brewery. Two dogs ran out of a house and chasing us barking in a threatening way. Remembering Rapa Nui I yelled at one as it tried to get my legs. All the dogs in Baroiloche are big German Shepard-esque ones.

We reached the brewery – it was so nice. Set back off the road, it had several interlinked beer gardens
but we went straight inside to the warm, malt-smelling room. They served burgers and you could watch the brewer make the beer in big copper tanks. We shared a porter, mainly because the service was terrible and misheard us. Then we snuck down to an empty beer garden and ate our sandwich picnic in front of the amazing view. My bread was dry so I sprinkled it for the birds.

After the brewery was a big patch of biking through the more remote part of the national park. Huge
black and white mountains towered over us, snow clinging to their steep sides. Hardly any cars passed us as we whizzing under the huge trees, shading the road so much the contrast made it hard to see with or without glasses. Marissa was struggling with the uphill parts, so I was often 100 metres out in front biking slowly. It gave me time to peek amongst the silent trees. I can’t explain how but one part gave me a really spooky feeling. I’d heard a big crash of something falling in the forest, and then just dead silence like the trees sound-proofed the area. I was thinking about bears and other forest dwelling creatures, biking in the middle of the road without realising when a car drove past beeping at me.

Finally, we emerged at the Llao Llao hotel, golf and spa. We went in looking so scruffy in our bike helmets and smelly clothes. But they didn’t mind and treated us well anyway. The entire hotel was cladded with expensive wood, like an enormous chalet house – deer skin chairs and huge open fires. Apparently, Barak Obama has stayed here. I ordered a tea for 120 pesos, Marissa had hot chocolate. It came with complimentary sparkling water and mini cakes – amazing! We took so many photos the waiter offered to take one of us together.

At 4pm we set out on the last 8km, the busiest part of the road. It wasn’t too bad, some ups and downs but the traffic went really close to you and lots of people beeped despite there being nowhere else to ride. We got back at 4.45pm for our 5pm bike return and caught the bus back into town. We were both so ridiculously knackered that we literally lay on the couch until 8pm for our vegan Milanese eggplant dinner. Marissa left for ski gloves, beanie and nicely picked up some beer and sandwich food for skiing tomorrow but said she could barely move. At dinner, I wolfed mine down so fast Nico the chef offered me another full plate despite the fact we were paying for it. A really annoying American guy had arrived while we were drinking our beer.