The Carretera Austral: The Beginning of a Cyclists Paradise

“Cycling can be lonely, but in a good way.”

image

The Carretera Austral (or route seven if you are looking at a map) which passes through rural Chilean Patagonia has been described by all as a cyclists paradise, and after just four days of cycling on it, I can definitely see why. Though the road is unpaved it is in pretty good condition, and with only a dozen or so cars passing by a day, it’s the perfect sort of road for those who like to be alone with nature. Between the beautiful waterfalls which literally cascade down right beside the road, the hills and mountains covered with glaciers everywhere you look, the incredibly beautiful lush green forest which you ride through every day, and the stunning blue rivers and lakes you camp by and fish in every night, there isn’t a single thing not to love about this exquisite rural Patagonian road.

A typical scene on the Carretera Austral.

A typical scene on the Carretera Austral.

The beautiful forested road.

The beautiful forested road.

Our favorite kind of camping!

Our favorite kind of camping!

image

image

image

image

image

image

image

image

The four of us Oregonians really felt at home here in the wet and green forested Carretera, a pleasant change especially after the months of desert like terrain in Turkey, and the dry arid sections of Argentina we have been on these last few weeks. Kevin and Mike especially liked this section as they were able to fish along the way, and since Kevin has now been carrying his fly fishing rod attached to his front rack for the last year, he was incredibly excited to finally put it to good use.

image

image

image

image

image

For a photo of the day and other updates follow me on facebook here, and for some awkwardly cropped photos from our journey, follow us on Instagram @awanderingphoto!

6 thoughts on “The Carretera Austral: The Beginning of a Cyclists Paradise

  1. One of my all time favorite rides. The sweet people and the amazing landscape, but what is going on with this sunshine thing??? I had rain, followed by just stopped raining and going to rain any second now and from your photographs you have sunshine, lots of sunshine… what part of Oregon are you from?? Bend where the sun always shines…. there are hot springs up ahead..

  2. Pingback: Patagonia Through the Lens | The Wandering Nomads

  3. Pingback: Favorite Cycling Routes: The Carretera Austral (Chilean Patagonia) | The Wandering Nomads

  4. Thumbs for this quote “Cycling can be lonely, but in a good way.” No need to write a long description of your journey to describe how you’ve enjoyed the cycling paradise, if you’ve captured images like these to share. Every image has been saying a lot of thing and I really enjoyed watching the places and fun you’ve had on that place.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s