January 2019 - Chile
In January of this year, I spent a week bicycling on Trek Travel's Chile - Lakes and Volcanoes trip. The trip started in Pucón and ended in Puerto Montt. We did not bicycle the entire way, but had periodic shuttles so that our bicycling consistently had good roads and wonderful scenery. The intensity of this trip was much less than my USA trip will be, averaging about 50 miles and 3750' of climbing each day.
Our trip started with a moderate ride up to a spa in the mountains where we relaxed before being brought back to our hotel on the Loga Villarrica seen above.
The second day, we biked into Villarrica National Park. Here is a photo of Villarrica volcano with a bit of steam coming from the top.
The food on the trip was every bit as good as the scenery!
One night, our hotel was actually located in the rain forest. Here is the walkway to get to our cabins.
Besides lakes and volcanoes, we also saw numerous waterfalls.
This view is not atypical of riding conditions many days. We were fortunate to get great weather. The roads tended to have very little traffic.
One day, we biked up to the base of the ski lift on Osorno Volcano, 7 miles of climbing at an average grade of 8.5%. Here is a photo of one of the many switchbacks going up the volcano.
Here I am with our two other riders and our two guides (2nd and 3rd on the left) after finishing our climb.
One final lake and volcano photo from our last full day of riding. Overall, a wonderful trip, and a great way to kick start the bicycling year!