Day 124: Coyhaique to Rio Tranquilo – The Marmol Caves

Getting up in the morning was not too difficult… the sun was shining at a bright blue sky. No clouds! No rain! It was just the perfect start for a perfect day to come ☀☀☀

The first couple of kilometers were beautiful asphalt with a few minor potholes and lead us along a picturesque green landscape with snowcapped mountains.

Even though I chose to ride through the worst one and I feared to have had damaged my tire but luckily nothing really happened besides an ugly noise.

When arriving in Villa Cerro Castillo we made a break and enjoyed some delicious chicken burgers with some hot coffee. The view on the snow capped “castle mountain” was simply beautiful.

The majority of the road we had to drive was gravel and just really started where we made the break. The “ripio” ranged from just fine and fun to drive to really bad.

At one time I did not pay attention and drove into deep gravel while my bike started to wildly turn quickly to the right and then to the left again. I learned from my accident in Bolivia where exactly the same happened and accelerated my bike to a point where the BMW got stable again.

These might have been only moments but it felt to me like forever.

I was relieved and happy that I mastered the challenge. Furthermore, I was also lucky that the two other guys were trained in riding offroad and had previous workshops behind.

Before taking on the challenge of the gravelroad I deflated my tires to consequently increase the surface. It just made a whole difference and I highly enjoyed the offroad ride.

Another person was not so lucky and crashed his car a couple of minutes before we passed his wreck. We only saw the ambulance and a couple of other cars rushing to the next town.

The fabulous sceneries reminded me of a mixture of Switzerland and New Zealand and were changing super often. I would have loved to stop simply everywhere but we had to make it to Rio Tranquilo early enough to still see the Marmor caves.

When we arrived we were lucky and the last tour was leaving the port at 5 o’clock. 20 minutes to get ourselves ready was just enough and we hit the stormy lake which waves were rather high and our boat almost flipped to the side.

Joao was putting his finger nails into the boat and all of us had to laugh (besides Joao, lol). Arriving at the marmor caves we discovered super beautiful rock structures which were embedded in the turqouise water of the lake. What a view! We were simply amazed and highly enjoyed our trip.

Back on land we already organized our next adventure: the glacier exploradores.

Buenas noche!

Coyhaique to Rio Tranquilo