Puerto Varas

I'm now in Puerto Varas, which is just north of the starting point of the Carreterra Austral, an am feeling quite nervous.  I reckon I've got 10 days cycling left, and it's about 1200 km of incredibly remote (and incredibly beautiful hopefully) road through essentially uninhabited countryside.  There are two towns worth the name on the route and they're about 500 km apart, so will be carrying lots of food, it also rains about 4 metres a year, so probably going to get quite wet, and quite a lot of the road is unpaved.  So it should be a good challenge.  On the plus side I do go through about 10 national parks, and some of the most amazing scenery in the world: glaciers, lakes, rainforests and fjords.  Will be setting off in the morning, and the forecast is actually for sunshine, which would be nice...  Should be getting to Coyhaique in 5 days so there'll probably be an update there.

From Valparaiso down, the countryside changed fairly gradually from a fairly mediterranean feel with rolling hills and plenty of vineyards to something more reminiscent of northern Germany, especially given as plenty of the towns here were originally settled by Germans (lots of kuchen) and lately there's been plenty of spectacularly blue lakes and rivers and incredibly verdant forests, with a backdrop of textbook, symmetric volcanoes.  That is when they're not shrouded in cloud, have had a few rainy days recently, but this afternoon the sun came out and I finally got to see Volcan Osorno, the base of which has been on the horizon for the last few days.  Lots of good photos, which will probably go up in Coyhaique.