The Cochamó Crisis
Día 18: A soggy disaster of an afternoon that Jake will never forget (43km)
Chapter 3 Fjordlands (4/6)
Theme: Podcasts Komoot GPX (43km)
Día 18
The dolphins, who jovially flipped us on our way, could not have foreseen Jake’s toil. Fast forward ten hours and it’s dark. Its cold. It’s been raining all day. And I’ve not seen him since lunchtime.
This is six out of ten on a scale of concerning. On such a scale, one represents lying in a hammock on a Carribean white sand beach. Ten represents the assumption that he must have perished.
Me on the other hand, I’m fine, thanks for asking.
I’m sitting as close as possible to a blazing wood burner in a cosy restaurant. I’m hoping the fire will siphon off water from my squelch wet shoes by the time it comes t- anyway, back to Jake.
8am
As I’m hurriedly rolling my soaking tent into a stuffsack, something catches my eye in the water below. A sleek grey body leaps above the surface. Then another. Three more in neat formation.
Jake Jake Jake, dolphins!
We stash our things under cover and make our way down the shore of the bay to watch the show. There’s no-one else here to see it. And it’s not for our benefit. It’s merely the exceptional natural beauty of nature’s daily routine.
This glorious aquatic treat didn’t hint at the troubles that were to come.
Although it had been raining from the start.
Often the optimist, Jake had cheerfully proffered,
“It always sounds worse from inside the tent, mate”,
as a means of getting us going this morning. Although, he also said, as we pushed off from the refuse strewn beach,
“I’ve got a bad feeling about today.”
The words of a man who deeply trusts his hunches.
It was the kind of rain that looks harmless enough from beneath a broad pine tree. But once you’re forced onto the open road, your relationship to said rain becomes all the more strained.
We managed an hour before caving in to the shelter of an independent market at Río Puelo with a blue neon sign flashing Desayuno | Almuerzo | Jugos Naturales (Breakfast | Lunch | Natural Juices). The beauty of the rain was easier to appreciate from this relatively warm vantage point.
It was a subdued corner of the world. Without the hope of a steady stream of punters, the sellers took turns to approach would-be customers.
Marco, with a rainbow stapled to his kitchen door, was the man to renew our energy levels with a coffee (or two). I won’t deny the presence of four to six sweet breads. Each. Or the plate of rice, fried potato and veggies.
To be fair to us, the gas cannister had failed to light the night before so we were pedalling off of cold olive sandwiches for dinner and that is simply no way to live.
I’d have been happy to sit and read all day but Jake is fidgety and wants to get moving. We crossed ourselves, prayed to the Mapuche sun gods (who were clearly striking) and accepted the unavoidable redrenching.
The road was one of the worst so far. Uneven, sludgy gravel with more holes than something with a shitload of holes in it. We broke apart.
Sometimes we cycle for long periods alone. An hour can go by without catching sight of the other rider. Hoods pulled firmly over brows and clasped in place by helmets, we forgive each other for going a bit every-man-for-himself in weather like this.
So when Jake disappeared from view and didn’t reappear for some time, I thought nothing of it. When I finally stopped, hauled the bike off the road and ducked into a mud-hut bus shelter, I found typically hysterical messages such as
“Disaster”
“My flysheet has fallen off”
and,
“Back looking for it”
I thought about going back. Then, perhaps to the detriment of my brotherly character, decided to carry on to Cochamó in search of the region’s remaining iota of warmth.
As previously mentioned, Jake and I are limiting the amount of news we ingest from back home during this trip. Jake has spent the last few years getting increasingly frustrated with the political state of our country, and can barely stand the idea of living within its borders in the near future. Space is needed.
I try to follow his lead but struggle to achieve a total news blackout. My established habits as a Politics teacher are hard to relinquish.
On rainy days like these, when we are faced with real road adversity, it can descend into a psychological battle with a natural desire to stop.
It helps to find something else to think about. Podcasts are a dream in these circumstances. In fact, how on earth did travellers prior to the mid-2000s survive?
Familiar voices fill my ears and contextualise the rain and cold for what it is; a slight disappointment, nothing more. First Rory & Alastair discussing Dominic Raab’s resignation and then Andrew and James wallowing in Arsenal’s 3-3 draw with Southampton (still not won a game since I left the country, at this point, the identity of the team’s lucky charm is not in doubt).
To top it off, Dave rapping about the Windrush Generation puts me back in the London headspace. He both comforts me and pushes me on to tackle the winding road.
My government may have done some terrible things, but here I share no link with them.
I’m just another anonymous human with a path to carve through a curtain of rain.
Jake sped the 15+km back to our campsite on the decent roads. At which point his break pads melted and needed to be changed.
“Such a nightmare”
It became clear that the fly sheet was gone forever. His tent would be about as useful as a Kwasi Kwarteng fiscal policy; on a dry night, not without its uses, but the moment bad weather arrives, a total travesty.
Back on the awful gravel, he hitchhiked but was kicked out way before Cochamó. With non-existent visibility and awful terrain he had no choice but to inch along in the dark, wet, and cold.
Surprisingly, my decision to send him pictures of goalscorer Tyrone Mings after Villa’s 1-0 win did little to cheer him up. I thought his inner Villain would be galvanised by such news.
I’d had a couple of beers by that point.
He finally made it in. Bedraggled, soaked through and ruminating hard about losing an essential item. He had to pay for a hostel room that night whilst I camped outside.
We did get to leave our shoes by the fire though. Every cloud…
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