05/12/2013 Stage 72 Hotel Rubens-Teleheuches

2013-12-05 From the middle of the earth to the end of the earth

Untitled by malcandmarjetpatterson at Garmin Connect - Details

05/12/2013 Stage 72 Hotel Rio Rubens to Villa Telehueches

bus stops make amazing shelters.good enough to sleep in

The wind remained strong and WSW , why do we bother looking at the forecast!. The first 45 kms to Morro Chico were with the wind assisting us and the kms clocked fairly quickly, the rain clouds were always perilously close but we managed to avoid a good soaking. I suspect our luck won't last for long though. Just befor Morro Chico we met Gavin an Irish man who had only recently started out from Ushuaiai and was unimpressed with the wind and scenery and had grazes down his thigh from a fall after being blown from his bike. He remained determined however and we did our best to point out that it just gets better and better.

The landscape remains very flat and is often featureless but in the distance snow capped mountains can still be seen. Although it is very cold and we cycle with gloves, coats and overshoes it is still surprising to see lots of parrots and some flamingoes which we normally associate with warmer climes.
Having passed Morro Chico the route headed South then SSW and the wind picked up. Now we were struggling with a cross on wind and at times we were,as before,blown across the road and had the bikes at nearly 45 degrees at times.
The final 20 kms were a struggle and Villa Telehueches was smaller than we thought but managed to find the one and only place to stay and had a lovely cabin with log burning stove. After an hour or so we looked out the window to find a skunk eating the cats food. We took some pictures and were surprised at how unperturbed he was by our presence. We were even more surprised 30 minutes later when he tried to push open the cabin door with his snout!
The village gets its food from Punto Arenas , 100 kms away, and this is done once a week which meant that because of our arriving on the wrong day there were no meat or vegetable supplies so we had to have yet another meal of eggs but fried this time. I' m sure the skunk got into the cabin at night , he sure left his tell tale calling card.

Looks can be deceiving!

This is a road side shrine not a tip. The bottles are an offering.