October 27, Day 21: Villa Mañihuales to Villa Amengual
This is the offseason and lots of places are closed. Last night when coming into Villa Mañihuales I passed quite a few hospedajes, but they were all closed. (Happily the place I had picked out was open.) Likewise, Google Maps shows quite a few restaurants in town but all the nearby ones were closed and I needed to walk to the other side of the river, where three out of four were shut. Had an average burger, but picked up dessert from a bakery and it was so good I wondered whether I should stay longer.
And this is a very real option. What's going on is that I've got tickets booked for a ferry to Hornopirén in about a week. I've planned out the route there and it includes one rest day. I was thinking of spending it in Puyuhuapi, which apparently has good desserts and also a hanging glacier. But from what I've seen Puyuhuapi looks overpriced and without much to do... on TripAdvisor's top five things to do the hanging glacier is listed twice and items 3-5 are hiking trails without descriptions. So I'm starting to wonder if this is best place to take a day off.
From left to right: The road won’t stay flat for long. The distances are counting down - 510km to the end in Puerto Montt. More Andes views.
Anyway, today is just a short ride, following the road up to the next village. It's the usual story of a bit of headwind, a lot of climbs, and spectacular views. Unfortunately I've become jaded by all three. The headwind isn't that strong; if it gusts it makes a difference but after Patagonia my standards are higher, and if you're not 50 gusting 70 you aren't getting my attention. The climbs aren't anything special; I just checked and the profile shows there was a 10% gradient in there, but I didn’t notice.
The views are still amazing, but it's been nearly a week in the Andes and the amazement isn't quite the same. A hundred-meter sheer cliff going straight up beside the road? A valley with rows of snow-capped mountains on either side? Well ... I suppose I'm not completely jaded yet. I've been taking a lot of photos, but since these are epic vistas they can't capture the experience.
From left to right: More hills. More selfies. Lake towards the end. This is how chill Villa Amengual is: dogs and cats lying down together. Someone started painting this crosswalk before the weekend and left it unfinished.
The only drama for the day is that my eSim expired. The best option for my trip was an eSim with a 30-day duration, I'd activated it just before leaving Amsterdam, and it's been 30 days. (It's easily replaced, so this is low-level drama.) Oddly none of the SIM card options for South America include voice calls, they're data only: seems like people have WhatsApp and use video calls or send audio messages.
The offseason curse did strike in Villa Amengual: the place I wanted to stay was very closed, and since the town is so small there are not many options ... maybe I'd need to go on to Puyuhuapi today and create a second rest day? I did have some other places lined up on Google Maps: but everything I'd passed so far had been closed so maybe they would be too. Things were slightly complicated by the eSim's death but some public Wifi was available. Two places I'd picked out that are next to each other were around the corner, so that's a good place to start. I pulled up and was trying to figure out which one to ask first when a lady stuck her head out to ask if I was looking for a room.
And that's how I found the place to stay today. I went for a walk around the village later and couldn't find anything else open. So perhaps I was lucky today ... but I'm seeing cyclists daily, so it can't be offseason for much longer.
