Ride To Lagunillas

Originally posted to El Cantar de la Lluvia on Wednesday, November 08, 2006


When I was in school, probably sometime around 9th or 10th grade, we were taken on a class trip to Lagunillas, in the Cajón del Maipo. We stayed at a mountain lodge, run by an organization called SEAL. It was mid-winter, and I still hadn't managed to adapt to (or defend myself against) my classmates' nasty way of treating each other (and me). I wasn't a popular kid; I didn't see the point in endless, extremely mean teasing. Anyway.

I looked out the dirty bus window as we bumped along the winding road leading up to the lodge, and saw nothing but grey, grey skies, and snow, nothing but snow, and I knew these weren't to be happy days.

And they weren't. I hate grey days, the cold. I particularly hate them when I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere, on a cold, grey day because of something I can't change. During our time at the lodge we carried out several activities, whose objective –I can only guess– was to encourage personal growth, create bonds among classmates, and learn a few survival techniques. I think that could have all been exciting and interesting, if I hadn't had to deal constantly with some of my classmate's ingrained idiocy (most of which, to my great disappointment, did not change one bit after leaving school. See, for example, the introduction to this post.)

Anyway. Fast forward to the present, and there I am, riding up the same winding road, this time in spring, under a giant blue sky, hot sun on my helmet and jacket, flowers all over the place, and the smell of happiness and lenthening days. On my rides to the Cajón del Maipo I had always spotted the turnoff to Lagunillas, and I had always carried on, passing it by, partly because of the memories it brought back, partly because it didn't look too interesting on the map. In fact, it is quite a lot shorter than the roads to Termas Del Plomo and Baños de Colina.

A dusty road led me up past a few houses, and then to a height where I had a bit of a view of the rest of the valley. Up and up I went, switchbacking here and there. Every now and then I'd come across a car parked on a flat spot by one of the curves, its owners sitting nearby, enjoying a picnic or an asado, or just soaking up the sun and the sights.

I passed the SEAL lodge, and carried on up to the Refugio Andino. I was quite surprised to find a couple of ski lifts. It was hard to tell if they are used in winter. There was no one around to ask about carrying on up the hill, so I did.



Up and up I went, and came across a fence at the top of the hill. I turned left, and after having gone no more than 500 m, I had to turn back: too much mud, slope too steep.



So I started following the fence in the other direction. The view was incredible.





Wind, nothing but wind and the occasional silence. This patch of snow was too deep to ride through, so I searched for a place in the fence to pass through. After heaving and pushing, I was on the other side.



On I went, until I came to another fence. It looked like a rudimentary gate, but there was so much wire holding it shut, that I decided not to try to pass.





A cóndor!



I spent quite a while up there, enjoying the silence, being alone. This was something that one could enjoy: this was mine, I made this happen. The sun burned and the wind cooled. I thought about how I was stuck in the middle of nowhere. The isolation was evident, emncompassing... until I glanced at my cellphone, to check the time, and saw that I had full signal strength. So much for isolation.



I hung around a while longer, took a self-pic, and rode down again.

Laguna Verde 2

Originally posted to El Cantar de la Lluvia on Sunday, November 05, 2006

A few months ago I returned to Laguna Verde, to ride those trails with Francisco again.

Bright sun, cool breeze. I arrived rather early, because I had things to do that afternoon.

After riding between pine trees and their perfumed shade, we reached a clearing, and off to one side, straight up the side of the hill, a fire trail. "So Francisco, think you can manage that?" I said, not serious. He looked at it for a few seconds, nodded, and shot up it.

Time to see if I could. I had several kilos on the rack. It was hard to keep a straight line: every little rut made my front wheel go all over the place.



The first time I tried, I lost my balance, and fell over to my left. Sweating and with Francisco's help, we turned the bike around and I tried again.

The second attempt, I veered off to my left, and was thrown off the bike by a fallen pine branch. It hit my chest end-on, like a medieval joust, Laguna Verde vs Santiago. Laguna Verde won.



My leather jacket did its job, and the thick cowskin even spared me a bruise.



It goes without saying that I let the pine branch keep its steep path. See if I care.



On we went, next stop: the park ranger's tower.

Large, tall, it swayed a bit in the breeze. Some of the rickety staircase's steps were broken, others would surely break in a few years.





We came down again, and rode over to the Morro de Quintay, same as last time. That dot on the right is Francisco. I took the photo from a small group of pine trees, all of them clinging to the morro for dear life in the howling sea wind.

Wind, wind. 50 metres from the trees, and I could still hear the moan and whistle of the wind through the branches.





Wind, warm sun, cool air.



And on we went. During the rainy season the roads had deteriorated, as is normal here, and suffered a great deal of erosion. And those ruts and gulleys would attract my front wheel like magnets. In this case, it was the back wheel, up to the rear sprocket. Nice.



Francisco always managed to avoid trouble, and I would inevitably fall into a ditch. He'd have to turn around and come back, and help me get the bike out. And so on.

At one point we came across a pine tree that had fallen across the road. It took us 15 minutes of sweaty heaving, but we managed to move it.

Coming back on the road that joins the town of Laguna Verde, on the beachfront, with the Ruta 68, something unexpected happened. It was a winding, narrow dirt road that cugged the steep hillside as it climbed. Francisco was ahead, and coming around a left turn, with the hill on our left, he met a car head on, coming out of the shade. The car braked, and even had time to sound its horn, but Francisco hit it head on. His AX-1's front suspension compressed, and while the front wheel went backwards from the recoil off the car's bumper, the back wheel rose into the air. Francisco was thrown up and to the side, and landed beside the bike. The driver got out, Francisco seemed to be ok. We knelt around him. No one said anything. The driver took his hand, and held it for a while, in silence.

The brake pedal had been bent, a passenger foot peg was broken and he had a cut between his index finger and thumb that no one could figure out how it had happened.

We reached the Ruta 68, and said goodbye. I carried on to Viña: there were things I had yet to do, and the rest of the day was quite pleasant.





There was a halo around the moon, and a plane's contrail was blown slowly across it, from one side to the other, so quickly that in the 15 seconds that it took to expose the photo, the contrail's movement resulted in it being blurry.

And after that, I headed back home.

The Ride To Anywhere But Aculeo

Originally posted to El Cantar de la Lluvia on Wednesday, November 01, 2006


This is a ride that I did with Ben almost two months ago, something like that. We had intended to follow the same long and mysterious route we did last year, but this time during the day.

To be honest, I don't really remember the exact route we took.



We had lunch at a nice empanada stop, where Ben's bike fell over (the ground under the kickstand gave way).



Sun, tranquility.



This was the place:



We carried on, blossoms perfuming the air.



If there had been a breeze, this would have been a true Japanese scene.







We were quite interested in seeing the same route during the daytime, so we started up the winding dirt road that was so spooky at night.

Things that you miss at night: a small mine. 5 metres straight in, and then 10 metres right, and it ended abruptly. Oh well.



We came around a curve, and... a river. I think it's the same one as in this picture:

At this time of year it, it was way too deep to cross, at least given our inexperience. Damn.





Back we went, and we took another route. Ben sent me the GPS track, but we'll leave it up to the imagination, enshrouded in mystery, just to see if we can get that Halloween thing going.







Riding around, following random roads here and there, we came across a strange looking building. It was old, falling to pieces. Some sort of factory or refinery. Across the road from it, the ground shone and glistened in the sun as if it were wet. In fact, it was due to these rocks, probably slag from the refinery.





This stuff was all over the place. Were these pits intended as temporary holding for the glassy waste?



The place seems to be a sort of Sunday destination for families: ideal for wandering, exploring and so on. Kids could play freely.

Indeed, kids could play all over the place, even a rather large over-30-ish kid that goes by the nickname of Ben Kenobi, who decided that skidding the back wheel on wet grass over and over with a 200 kg motorbike was a good idea.

The result: next week he bought crash bars for the Transalp.





It started getting cold, and it was time to go back. The Laguna de Aculeo circuit would have to be done another time.