Flirting with Perfection

Rengo – Centro Silvestre el Sauce

No. I don’t mean with my wife. Though there are elements of perfection there. Her pig tails. Her near-constant smile. Her apple pie. Her key lime pie. Some other things that I can’t/won’t mention . . .

Well, you get the idea . . .

No. I’m talking about the weather, the biking, and the camping today. 

We woke up to that cool, crisp air that is a sure sign of Fall. Not cold. Just a hint of cool. With no humidity whatsoever. So nice.

And then the biking. Not dead flat – but pretty close. I mean, the road we’re biking on – highway 5 – is not the most pleasant biking in the world. Pretty busy. Lots of trucks. Entrances and exits that are not exactly relaxing. And a few bridges where the road narrows and the shoulder temporarily disappears. But, whatever. It’s fast. 

We logged 80 miles today and we’re not even that crushed. Turns out that biking without huge vertical can be kind of fun. I mean, the views aren’t as nice, but we have mountains on either side so it’s not like we’re suffering visually . . .

And the camping. So nice. First off, we actually set our tent up in a real, honest-to-god, grass field. I love grass. Didn’t realize how much I love grass before this trip. I know it’s one of those things that we’re not supposed to like. It’s bad because of all the mowing I guess. But it’s just so darn pleasant. It’s like living carpeting. It’s not dusty or dirty. It’s nice to walk around on. Easy to put tent stakes in the ground. Much better for getting in and out of the tent – which is pretty important when you pee during the night as much as I do. 

All around good. 

And then the owner of the campground – Mario – is a super nice guy. He wheelbarrowed over a nice grill for us. He has a big wood pile nearby for fuel. And he has some rudimentary tables and stuff around. Perfect campground. Not like modern State Park campgrounds – where they are so worried about their 80-20 rules (that is, 80% nature – 20% developed, or something like that) that you end up sleeping closer to your neighbors than you do in the city . . . No. Mario has it set up so everyone has plenty of their own space . . .

Dinner. Maybe my favorite meal in a long time. Start with having some foraged food. Nothing fancy. Another onion and a few tomatoes that we salvaged from the side of the road. It’s amazing how much food falls off of trucks down here . . . Then add in a delicious bottle of wine from Victor last night. And a few ingredients we managed to find at the little tienda before we arrived: four thin-sliced frozen pork chops (they thawed themselves out on the bike rack as we made our way from the tienda to the campground), five papas (potatoes – but isn’t “papas” a great word?), some butter – you have to have butter (and it’s great – here in Chile there’s plenty of butter around and they sell it in a nice size for camping – and some frozen veggies. We even bought some ice for the wine.

Delicious – as only a camping meal at the end of a long physical day can be . . .

Finally, to top it all off, there’s a river running through the property and I was able to bathe in the stream. There are definitely some big fish in there – because I saw them rising. But I think we are safe from alligators at this point . . . 

What a great day. 

So why am I worried? Well, it’s like this . . .

You see, we are nearing perfect weather. Maybe not quite there yet – but getting close. I figure another two or three days south and it will be just about ideal. Crisp. Cool. Maybe the leaves starting to change. That time in the Fall when it’s not raining much. Perfect blue skies . . .

That seems good . . . Right?

Except that with each day we travel after that we’ll be biking away from perfection. Because we’re not traveling east-west – the best directionality for maintaining the weather that you have. No. We’re heading north-south – meaning we’ll be biking toward cooler weather – at least this time of year. I keep thinking of it this way – March is South American September. Nice – but getting cooler.

Worse, with each new day the abominable snowman – the one that lives at the South Pole – is working his way north. I’m just hoping that we can get ourselves to Ushuaia before he arrives on his ice-boat from Antártica. 

So even though we have just had a great day – there’s a lingering fear in our minds. Another reason we’re happy to be ticking off some quick miles right about now . . .

One other story to tell . . . 

Toward the end of the day we came upon another biker. A guy who was biking from Santiago. Seemed like a nice fellow, but it was getting late in the day, we were heading for the grocery store and then we had to find the campground, set up the tent, and cook dinner. Diana, sensibly, gets a little anxious in times like this. So she kept us moving so I didn’t get into one of my longer conversations . . . (The kind that used to drive my kids crazy when I would bring them to Loppet functions when they were young. But what can I say? I like to hear people’s stories . . .)

Anyway, we pushed on, found the little tienda, bought groceries, and then hit the highway again to get to the campground. But after riding for a minute on the highway, we saw the biker from Santiago again – up ahead – walking along . . .

A minute or two of biking and we catch up to him. His rear tire is super flat. He’s half-heartedly trying to pump it up. We introduce ourselves. His name is Pablo. Turns out that Pablo doesn’t have a patch kit or a spare tube and, while he has a pump, it’s missing a part so it doesn’t work. So there’s a reason for the half-hearted pumping . . .

I’ve been there before. Definitely remember a trip or two as a teenager when things went bad that way. One time in particular I remember trying to pump up my tire in the middle of nowhere (somewhere in Pine County, Minnesota I think) when the whole tire exploded. To this day I don’t really know what happened. But we didn’t have a spare tube, let alone a spare tire (because mine was now useless). I think we flagged down a pickup and they gave us a ride to town . . .

Point is that I’m always happy to help in these situations. Paying other people back for helping me out – and just seems like good karma . . .

We patched him up in no time. In fact, it took less time to patch Pablo’s tire than it took us to patch my tire this morning. I had a huge nail through the tire.So huge that it actually punctured the tube twice – once on each side. Of course, we didn’t figure that out right away – so, twice the time . . .

Afterwards I kind of gently suggested that Pablo might want to pare down his load a little. Didn’t take a complete survey of his stuff – but he had a big suitcase, and at least one other big bag strapped to his rear rack. He had a few pots and pans – not light ones either – hanging from his bags – like the kitchen in some fancy restaurant. Various other things as well – including his helmet, a vest, a sleeping bag and a tent. His bike looked kind of like the Grapes of Wrath of bicycle touring. 

Now, don’t get me wrong. It’s super cool to be the guy who just figures it out. Don’t make it complicated. Just throw some stuff on the bike and go. But my sense is that he’s in for a lot more flat tires unless he loses some weight on that bike . . .

He might also cover a little more ground – but that’s another issue altogether. 

In the end, though, it’s good for me to see folks traveling like this. I tend to get over-worried about weight. Gives me some perspective to see folks like Pablo who are making it happen with a LOT more stuff . . .

It’s not clear that we’ll find another campsite tomorrow – but it feels good to know we’re maybe getting back into the rhythm of it. (Though we still don’t have our real camping gear. (Thank you DHL! NOT!)).

Postscript …

For all the perfect evening, the night was a little rough. The Zipy Zapys both leaked – meaning we were sleeping on the ground. And it was cold! Those Tiendita sleeping bags didn’t cut it so we closed the tent up completely. But with no ventilation it was eventually dripping wet in the tent. A good temporary solution, but we need our real camping gear… On the positive we just found out that Chilean Customs finally released the package. Will be a few days but hopefully we’ll be back in business again soon…