I was sure my bike got stolen at Santiago airport. An unreasonably helpful person gave me some assistance with the bike, but there were some weird things going on, and after getting to security I had an unpleasant realization that he was sus.

He appeared when I was checking in, acted like he worked there - in hindsight, he almost certainly didn't have the official lanyard on. He helped put the bike on the scales to be weighed when I checked in, stayed with me while I retaped some parts of the bikebox, walked me over to the outsize baggage dropoff, asked me for a luggage barcode, helped get it onto the conveyor. I took a photo of the box, got a thumbs-up from the people behind the desk, and headed off. I didn't see the bike go along the conveyor, into the handling area and out of reach, like I normally do.

Luggage barcode? I've been unhealthily paranoid about the bike all trip and this should have set me off, but it didn't until too late. Normal people don't ask for luggage barcodes. Airport staff might. People pretending to be airport staff shouldn't.

So I spent the flight to Madrid fairly sure that the bike was gone.

Last ride today. Time for last things: last time to wind up the charge cords, bag up the electronics, squeeze it all into the pannier. Refill the water bottles, clean out the empties from the rack backpack and pack it. Check the broken pannier is still OK and clipped up. Hook on the good one, slide it as far back as it can go for foot clearance, connect up the strap. The backpack loops over the seat, the arm straps go through clips on the panniers. Thread the handlebar camera over the handlebar, check it's properly seated in the mount. Water bottle in the holder bag.

Get the bike outside, last checks that the tyres are the right pressure, the drivetrain is good, brakes working, nothing looks out of place. Turn on Garmin and activate the GPS tracking. Turn on the handlebar camera, connect to its Wifi network and start recording. Switch to Komoot and start navigation. Phone into the handlebar mount. Time to ride.

It's been five solid cycling days and I wasn't feeling excited about doing stuff today, so it was an actual rest day. So there's not much to report. The hotel had a breakfast buffet, but since there's only one more day I didn't overdo it. I went out for a walk around at lunchtime, got some empanadas from a bakery. For dinner I went out to a Japanese restaurant - and that got interesting.

I didn't want to repeat yesterday's lunch problems so I headed to a pasteleria straight away. It wasn't actually a pasteleria, and didn't have anything I could take for lunch so I went to another. Closed. And the next just had sweets. Another didn't seem to exist any more. Yet another just had plain breadrolls. I think I visited about five places, all were a miss for one reason or another. So I made the effort, but I have to get on the road, so we're back to yesterday's plan: "I'm sure I'll pass a nice pasteleria".

But all this excitement did mean I didn't retrace my path through Curicó.

Third to last cycling day today. Once again the start and finish are on the Ruta 5 so to mix things up I took a route out west, along the river. This adds a bit of time but it means I'll follow a river which should be worthwhile, right?

Today's lunch plan is "I'm sure I'll pass a nice pasteleria". I also need another isotonic drink. The route out of Talca was a bike lane on the main road; I passed three schools or Universities and zero pastelerias. No problem, I pass San Rafael soon, I'll pick something up there.

Over the bridge, turn right, up a hill and it's only five minutes but I'm in the wilderness, no sign of the city I just left. The hill felt like a serious climb but checking the elevation profile shows nothing to get excited about. So I guess I’m still warming up.

The hills are brown with small scattered trees, and no shade - it reminds me of cycling in Spain.

Today the start and finish are on the Ruta 5, and Komoot avoids that highway so hard it's taken me east into the mountains. Which I don't have any objections to.

Like yesterday, the route was built on two things: crossing the river without swimming, and not being on the Ruta 5.

One of the Chilean engineers had specifically warned me about false river crossings in the OpenStreetMap data. He'd been riding out here and had been routed into a river. So a few weeks back we'd scrawled on a map screenshot so I'd remember the problem. Last week when setting up the route I'd checked it, found the problem, and fixed it like he suggested.

And today, I had no memory of this and charged right down the line without a care in the world. It avoided one problem, but there was a second one that I nearly ran into.

Two problems this morning. The first was the accommodation in Parral. I'd originally planned to ride to Parral today, and last night I'd WhatsApp'd the one OK place in Parral to ask about a room. This morning they texted back to say they had no availability.

So that's a problem. Stay somewhere else in Parral? Or ride somewhere else? The only other Parral option is a homestay on booking.com that's 37,000 CLP per night which probably means it was 25,000 originally. I don't want to be a part of that shakedown, and can't find another way to contact the homestay, so that's out.

Cauquenes is north, it makes the route slightly longer, but it doesn't look like a nice place to go. Linares is another few hours up the road, has lots of options, let's go there! Komoot happily sets up a route for the extra distance. I idly check the second river crossing and find there's no bridge, and no ferry: it's trying to take me through a river.

Potentially trip-ending drama today. I was leaving the tollbooths at Penablanca, rolled off the pavement onto the road, and the crank arm broke off. The crank arm is that very solid piece of metal connecting the pedal to the bottom bracket. It routinely takes my full weight when I'm standing on the pedals, so I'd expect it to be generously overengineered. So I was quite shocked when it cracked off.

I did have the presence of mind to get a photo. (But if I start taking reaction face selfies please strangle me.) I had a good look at the cracked edge, felt a bit let down by Bombtrack, and stuck it into the pannier for later.

There a few things I’m keen to see in Concepción, but the top one is Plaza Jurásica: it's life size dinosaur statues! It’s a long walk to get there but I don’t have much else to do today.

One nice thing about Chile is that there is a lot of street art. And it’s usually good. The pictures I'm posting are not a balanced sample because I don't stop to take photos of the bad ones. But I do for the good ones ... and today's trip was extra slow because there was a lot of good stuff on the route today.

Plaza Jurásica (Jurassic Plaza) has four full-size dinosaurs: a Diplodocus (22m long), a Tyrannosaurus rex, a hanging Pterosaur (with 7m wingspan) and some small hatching dinosaurs that were so badly graffitied I didn't take any pictures.

Which means laundry. And again, it's going to be tricky. Google Maps shows a bunch of laundromats around, most are closed in the weekend. There's a few that are open today, but they're closed on Sunday. They also tend to close at 1600, which means it not only needs to be done today, but quickly. Spending just the weekend in a city makes things complicated! Originally I was planning to arrive on Thursday night so I had Friday for these things. But the rest day after the crash in Temuco delayed things by a day.

Anyway, one of the very few laundromats that's open today is just around the corner. I take over my laundry bag and ask if they can get it done today? Sadly no. (The answer was a lot longer but my Spanish isn't good enough.) I'm so desperate I go back and check if skipping ironing and folding will help: still no.

My experience with hotel laundry is that it's wildly expensive but I'm now desperate enough to ask. The guy at front desk says they'll do it and have it back tomorrow! How much? He needs to find out... and then he comes back with the news that they don't actually do laundry on the weekend.

I'm out of options.

I’m taking a fairly direct path from Los Angeles to Concepción, and the main roads don’t go that way. So today’s route goes through some deeply rural back roads.

One thing I didn’t grasp before starting is that while there’s 1000m of climbs, which is average, it’s almost all in the second half. So the first few hours were a straightforward run on asphalt. And then the backroads are only climbs, all gravel, low gear the whole time. The elevation profile shows four big climbs: they’re 100-150m each, which won’t be too bad if the gravel isn’t too deep.

Today had more roadworks than road. I think there was about 40km of road construction going on, including grading earth, wetting gravel, laying asphalt, rolling it, forming concrete barriers, building pedestrian overbridges. I can't be sure but it looks like a two-lane road is getting upgraded to a 4-lane highway, two lanes each way.

The roadworks had some advantages and disadvantages. One big advantage is that there were quite a few sections of good, flat road which was blocked off to prevent regular traffic using it - but there were no workmen or equipment on it so I discreetly squeezed between the barriers and cruised along for a kilometer or two. Sticking to the side in case of construction traffic, because it's still a work site.

Bikes are also fairly inoffensive, and these construction sites aren't exactly high-security. So even when there were people working, if it looked low-key I'd sail on through. A crane was lifting railings up onto a pedestrian overbridge, it had cones around it but there was plenty of space to get by ... so I did. Even got a wave from the crane driver.

Some sections aren't such a clear benefit. I rode through unattended construction roads which were gravel, rough earth - and one that was just sand. I had to get off and push for most of that one.

The pannier hook finally broke this morning, while I was carrying everything to the bike. There's two hooks that attach the pannier to the rack, the one that broke split completely in half so there's no way it'll bear any weight. If I was trying to squeeze all the drama out I'd mention how the consequences of having an unattachable pannier are pretty severe ... but without trying too hard I can see three different ways to strap it on so let's just move on to getting it fixed.

First of all: can it still be hooked on? I put it on and the one working hook plus strap keep it on, but it's a brittle setup: one good bump and it'll probably swing around in some horrible way putting strange unexpected forces on that one last hook. I don't trust it to survive the trip today...

Maybe I can get a replacement part: where's the nearest shop that sells Ortlieb panniers? The Ortlieb website has a store finder, and the nearest is 615km away. Guess not.

My hand isn't 100% so I took the day off today. The hour of riding after the accident was OK, and I'm sure I could ride today if I really had to: but I've got a spare day in the schedule and letting it heal seems like the best idea. If my hand doesn't work, I can't ride and the trip is over...

So I’m in Temuco for the day. It’s is the capital city of the Temuco province: and it's been under a state of emergency since 2022, due to conflict with the Mapuche, who are demanding the return of their ancestral lands. The Chilean engineers that I met were from Temuco and recommended staying in the city because the rural areas are where the conflicts happen.

Nevertheless, this information will appear when you go looking for travel advice for Chile. And it must mean tourists avoid the province. The prices are substantially cheaper here, which has got to be a consequence. The hostel I'm staying at is 24000 CLP which is the cheapest place I've stayed, by far: I expect to pay 40k-50k per night. It is cheap but it's well-run. The furniture and bedclothes are in good condition, no damage, everything works. (Except the hot water, sadly. The only time the shower has been hot was when I arrived.) I wouldn't be surprised to pay over 40k if it were in another city. Even with the water problems.

My hand hurts. Nothing major: I dropped the bike and it must have been knocked on something. It's my left hand, and I went down on the right, and have a matching set of scrapes on that side: knee, hand, shoulder. All of those are fine, my left hand is the only one that still has complaints. Nothing seems broken, presumably it's muscular. I don't know what could have damaged it, but I suppose there was a lot going on...

What happened is that I slipped on some fine gravel on the roadside. This all happened after ten kilometers of respectable gravel road which I navigated with not even a nervous moment. I was back on asphalt, but there was a bad patch on the other side of the road ahead: some cars were crossing over to my lane to avoid it. There were cars behind me as well so I thought I should get off the road completely for safety. The surface looked good at first glance - but it was actually fine gravel the exact same color as the asphalt, treacherous and camouflaged. So I innocently put the bike onto it, realized it was bad, and then the front wheel went sideways and I'm sliding along the gravel. Ooof.

I unhook the cellphone from the bike, untangle my legs, and pick myself up. A lady who saw it winds down her car window to ask if I'm OK: nothing seems broken so I think I'm good. I've got the presence of mind to get a photo this time.

It’s a proper day off, which means it’s laundry day. I'd actually had a look for laundry places yesterday, since I was back early. There's quite a few in town, but all of the ones that are open on Saturday were closed on Sunday. No good. But one was closed on Saturday and open on Sunday, which sounds great; except that when there’s only one outfit being different it looks a bit dubious. But it's well reviewed and it's the best option there is so I went over to take a look.

They looked pretty good and were confident it'd be done by 4 so I asked to borrow their bathroom to get changed, and added my casual outfit. Slightly weird but I don't think it's the first time that's happened! I'm going to spend the day in a shirt and cycling outer shorts. I'm still decent, but may be refused entry to restaurants. Especially classy ones.

There's a volcano quite close to Pucón, and there's guided tours to the top! Who could say no? Probably me, but I didn't try very hard.

Pickup at 0600, which is a necessary evil: the whole excursion will be about ten hours. At 0700 we're at the mountain where the road ends, which is about 1000m above sea level at a ski resort. It's closed for summer: the ski lifts have even had their chairs taken off, there's just the cable.

There's three of us on the walk plus the guide. Hiking boots are provided, plus we get backpacks which have helmets inside, trousers and jacket, extra gloves, and a plastic thing the shape of a dinner plate. For my lunch I brought empanadas: we can pretend that I'm ironing out my trust issues with them, but also there wasn't anything else available when I went looking yesterday afternoon.

We're already close to the snowline and the environment is near-frozen. The ground underfoot sometimes breaks like it's brittle. There's a bit of unappetizing grey snow hiding in shadowed spots. We're on the ski resort now, passing the stationary skilifts, and from the shape of the ground you can guess where the ski runs are.

The sun is up but very low, and casts very long shadows from us as we walk up the ridgeline which is pretty cool. We're not the only people here; I can see two other people on another ridge. They're a long way away but seem to be carrying ... skis?

Back on the road. Montaña Mágica was quite nice, not exceptional. A lot of indulgent decisions which make it unique. For instance, every edge in the room being picked out with wooden branches is pretty neat, but it must not have been cheap, and sensible hotels don't do things like that. Hence: unique. Also useful - I found coathangers and could use the twigs to hang up my cycling clothes to dry.

The hotel description also said water flows down the outside of the conical building, but I couldn't see it. I asked about it: apparently the water then flows through a glass-covered trench in the floor which runs past the front desk to the other building, Hotel Nothofagus, where it runs down an inclined glass plate which looks a bit like a waterfall. Which is pretty cool, and unique, but didn't really answer the question about why I couldn't see water running down the building.

Anyway, today I'm riding to Pucón. It's a slightly longer ride; 120km with an 8 hour estimate. That's slow, probably because there's a lot of climbing. The most important thing about the ride is of course breakfast, and Montaña Mágica provides a buffet that ticks all the boxes I need and some others too. Eggs, bacon, pancake/pikelets; fruit, yoghurt, cereal, bread and jams. There's some pastry options, but they seem to be part of a dessert section. I'm not kidding: it has cheesecake, chocolate brownie, small chocolate mouthfuls, small muffins and so on. Getting a croissant from there does bring some mixed feelings: firstly this is a relatively healthy options, but secondly what am I doing? I didn't get guilt get in the way of a solid five-plate breakfast spanning all the food groups, with three coffees along the way.

I signed up for some rafting today. Apparently the rivers are high this time of year: it's been a wet spring, and maybe the melting snow contributes. So the rafting will be unusually exciting today.

I'm supposed to bring swimming gear: my only options are casual or cycling clothes so it's going to be my cycling outfit. It could probably do with a deeper wash anyway.

There's four safety kayakers with us today, but I rather think they came along more for the river than for us. They're all in short kayaks with waterproof skirts, you could drop a dumptruck of water on them and they wouldn't even slow down. Which is the right choice today because the river is looking wild.

A short day's ride today to Hotel Montaña Mágica ("Magic Mountain"). Hotels don't usually get me interested, but this one did because it can only be accessed by rope bridge. It's got a slick webpage in English and Spanish and prices to match. But for a night, it looks like a great idea! Did I say one night? I meant two.

It's deep in the mountains so there's a bit of climbing needed to get there. But the way the trip from Valdivia broke down means yesterday was heavier and today is lighter: quite light in fact, 4.5h for 60km. That's quite a generous amount of hours for the distance, probably more than a bit of climbing will be needed to get there.

But first, we've processed yesterday's regret and today we're getting an empanada. Today's empanada comes from a pasteleria, and was one of the few savoury things available. I was a little tempted to get something else as well - but have visions of it getting crumbed or flattened along the way, which would be a waste. If the empanada survives I'll try it.