November 18, Day 34: Pucón to Temuco
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.
I pick the bike up, and set up the panniers and rack bag again. Everything seems OK, but later I find that one of the pannier hooks has broken. It seems to still be doing its job but it looks a bit untrustworthy. (There's a second hook and a strap there too so if it goes, it's not a showstopper.) There's only nine more days of cycling, it can make it!
All this happened quite close to the finish, just on the outskirts of Temuco, with probably less than 20km to go. So it's best to just get to the end: which I do, but with a lot of extra care! There's a few bikepaths in Temuco but they aren't going the ways I want. The route follows some busy roads, but I prefer the sidewalk. So with a few small exceptions, I'm a pedestrian.
From left to right: leaving Pucon. Start of the gravel. The route took me over this dubious thin bridge, but it worked fine. The path got a bit freeform through this field. The spot it all happend, note long skidmark leading up to the bike.
The rest of the day was quite mundane in comparison. Most of it was on a B-road which had a generous and consistent shoulder for me. The traffic got busy sometimes, then I would ride on the far right so there would be a safe gap between me and the cars and trucks.
There was also that gravel section in the middle. That was to avoid Ruta 5, which I fully support: Ruta 5 is the main north-south highway, it has two lanes going each way and it's no place for a bicycle. Simply getting across Ruta 5 involved running a cloverleaf junction and overbridge; there was so little traffic I almost had the place to myself, but I spent the whole time checking in every direction for incoming cars.
From left to right: arrived in Temuco. Some of the street art. And this is actually a takeaway place.
And the departure from Pucón was much easier than the arrival. I took a backroad; it was a bit longer than the usual route, which probably means satnavs won't send normally cars that way. And it was pretty quiet. The only excitement was that when crossing one of the wooden bridges, there was a crack between the planks so big that my wheel got stuck in it. No photos sadly, there was regular traffic so I needed to stop blocking the road.
So except for the fall, a very good day's cycling! Hopefully I'm back to 100% for tomorrow.
