Day 25 – Monday March 21: Coyhaique shopping and a long descent
Early the next day we rose to breakfast and packing up our gear; the plan was to taxi into Coyhaique and after lunch return to the Salamander and set off on our relatively short ride to El Blanco, just shy of Balmaceda. All went according to plan: we visited a bike shop in Coyhaique and then wandered into the main part of town, stunned by the abundance of goods and number of shops. Coffee, not Nescafe, at a café with pastries and cakes. A North Face store. Craft stalls selling everything from alpaca wool things to silver jewelry.
Laura had arrived, and we all got to greet her, now own our best behavior. We all met for a splendid lunch at a small restaurant and then taxied back out to our Salamander b&b to get into our riding gear and start riding towards El Blanco, our next stop. The route climbed uphill for a very long time, following the course of the Rio Simpson; then, after a number of false summits, plunged downwards for miles to the little community of El Blanco, our destination. The descent can only be described as epic; some of us reached over 70km/hr on our mountain bikes with knobby tires. Happy days…
The El Blanco Hotel turned out to be a real find. For many years a fishing lodge, it had fallen on hard times and virtually closed, only to be rescued by a Santiago businessman who refurbished it. It had just opened in January and there were still some tags on the furniture. The main floor consisted of a brand new, vast kitchen, a large dining room and a big communal living room with a glowing fire. The bedrooms all had private baths, and it was near good fishing. We relaxed into it, preparing ourselves for the last of six consecutive days of riding. We hardly knew what awaited us.
