After having doubted for a while longer, we decided to leave the warm hostal in Puerto Natales and get back on our bikes again to go to the National Park Torres del Paine. After a few miles we met 4 other cyclists with whom we exchanged some information about the route. After a while we left the tarmac and came on a gravel road to the National Park. It was a pretty good road and we had lunch at the only restaurant along the whole road. In the distance we could already see the snowy mountains of the park.
The closer we got to the park, the steeper and worse the road got and the harder the wind started blowing. We had information about a campground right before the park entrance, so after every (steep) hill we hoped to see it. But every time it was another disappointment. The road got steeper and steeper (about14%) and it started storming. Because of that, some of those hills were too hard to cycle and we had to walk and push the bikes. But the bikes are very heavy, so then our arms and shoulders started to hurt. At the only flat and sheltered spot we saw, we stopped and pitched our tent. We were exhausted by then so after having eaten something we went right to sleep.

The next day we got on our bikes again pretty early. The campground was only about 2 miles from where we camped, but in the condition we were in it would have taken us about an hour to get there. So it was a good thing that we hadn’t continued in that storm. The entrance fee of the park is high, but you get back a beautiful world. After having eaten something again, we got back on our bikes for another couple of hours of steep hills. The road wasn’t very good because of all the busses and the hills didn’t get less steep… After about 12 miles (with our average speed of 6 mph it took us about 2 hours) we arrived at a beautiful campground. We didn’t have to think long before we decided to stay there for the night. We had a great spot with a beautiful view of the mountains and even had a shelter with a pick-nick table. We took a nice and hot shower and didn’t do anything the rest of the day except enjoying the beautiful world over there.

We had another 25 miles to go to get to the campground we wanted to go to. This also doesn’t sound too far, but again our average speed was about 6 mph so it took us a couple of hours to get there. When we arrived at a look-out, there also was this bus with dayvisitors who stopped. Of course there were Dutch people in there (they’re everywhere) and we talked to them for a while. One of them is a colleague of one of the cyclists we met earlier. Concidence…

The road was, again, steep so it was another day of hard work even though we didn’t have to do that many miles. We were so glad when we arrived at the campground. Because we were so tired, we stayed for 2 days and didn’t do anything, just sit in the nice and hot sun. We loved it! We spent New Year’s over there, but went to bed early because there was nothing to do anyway. And we woke up and it was 2013…