We had a late start as it had rained over night and we prefer to pack our camping gear dry if at all possible. Our cycling American and Canadian friends Jake with his 60kg heavy bicycle, his sister Eva, and Justin headed off just before us and the stray dog that had followed them all the way the previous day was still heading out with them.

It was still light rain falling on and off and we were in our full wet weather gear leaving Villa Cerro Castillo. The road was supposed to be all sealed from now on and it wound up high into the clouds. We passed Jake, Justin, Eva and the dog (cheering them on) before we got into complete white out over the mountain in fog, drizzling rain and into the clouds. Once we descended on the other side of the mountain it cleared up and we rode in a wide lush valley following the rio Simpson through some small towns – including one with a waterfall (no video – the GoPro was still playing up) and arrived in Coyhaique at our accommodation in the mid afternoon – we had a self contained unit with kitchen and breakfast included and the bikes were parked in the courtyard carpark. We went for a walk through town and I went to a pharmacy to ask the pharmacist for something to treat my finger – she gave me an antiseptic cream with lidocaine for the pain but said I would need to see a doctor to get antibiotics. At least I got some more bandaids. We found another coffee shop with a German name “Holzer” but neither my lemon merengue nor my hot chocolate were to the standards an Austrian would expect 😂 Actually the hot chocolate was nearly undrinkable – it was so thick and tasted like it had jelly in it and more like a hot pudding mix that had not set yet. We then went for dinner and ordered a grilled meat platter to share and while it was nicely presented and looked impressive, the meat was either still raw (including the chicken) or so over cooked that you could not eat it as it was tougher than leather – not a good day food wise but the shower back in the hotel had hot water and good pressure.

We stayed for two nights and had organised two front tyres for our bikes via what’s app that were held for us at Motos Coyhaique. It was the only two available for our bikes and they were Mitas tyres which is all we were told but our tyres were so worn we really needed new ones and could not be picky about models or even manufacturer. We also knew that the place only sold accessories but had no workshop to fit them but they had written they would tell us where we could them fitted. According to our research there was another motorcycle accessory store that comments indicated might have Dunlop tyres but they had no what’s app number – only a phone number which we can’t call from our phones nor is our Spanish up to having a conversation about motorcycle tyres 😂😉. On Monday we first tried our luck at the second motorcycle shop but they also only had Mitas tyres and only 1 of the size we needed – so we only got a can of chain lube from them. I also looked at buying a new rain jacket as my Denise one is starting to deteriorate at the seams. They had a good jacket but it had a hood? – why would you have a hood on a motorcycle jacket? It also came only in a set with pants which I did not need – so I did not end up buying it.

We continued around the block to Motos Coyhaique where a very friendly lady who remembered our what’s app communication fetched the tyres for us. We also asked her about rear break pads for Andrew’s bike but she did not have any that fitted. Then she showed us on the map where we could get the new tyres fitted which was just around the corner on the next side street. We decided to walk down with the tyres and ask when they could fit them on the bike. There were a lot of other bikes around and it seemed this was the place to get repairs and things fixed on motorbikes. Next to the mechanic place was a tyre place that fixed and changed tyres for cars and apparently bikes as well. The guy asked whether we wanted to change the tyres ourselves or wanted him to do it – we asked him to do it and we left the tyres there and went to bring the bikes around. They would take the front wheel off at the mechanic place and then the tyre guy would put the new ones on – he was very confident that it would all be done in 30 minutes – both bikes. We did mention that the tyres had rim locks and he just said “yeah, no problem” but I was not convinced he even knew what they were. We left the bikes and our keys there and walked off to find a grocery store to buy supplies for our next upcoming camping stay at Queulat National Park.

We got a few things for camping and decided to walk back to see how they were getting on with our tyre change. As we got there both front wheels were off our bikes and the tyre guy was just about to take Andrew’s old tyre off – he asked us to come in and watch him do it – he had a hydraulic bead breaker and then needed the hammer to get the stiff Dunlop tyre off the rim – he dropped Andrew’s tyre with the break disc landing on the ground – I was not impressed 😳. Then he tried to work out the way to put the tyre on so that it would be rotating in the right direction (they are uni- directional tyres unlike our Dunlops) and got it wrong – so I had to intervene – luckily he was listening to me 😉👍 and realised that I was correct. Then he had all sorts of trouble putting the new tyre on and he could not get the rim lock through – then he went and asked the guy from the motorcycle shop to help him who wanted to cut a hole in the rim tape – I stopped him from doing that as the previous tyre was on without a hole and showed him how the rim lock sits under the rim tape. Eventually I was helping to hold tyre levers and get the new tyre on – the guy was sweating and saying how difficult it was with the rim locks – I guess he now understood why we did not change it ourselves although I had my hands full supervising, catching tyres falling off and making sure our inner tubes which were just tossed on the ground in the dirt, were clean before he put them back in. Then we repeated the entire procedure for my tyre – the tyre guy and myself now working well together while the mechanic place next door fitted the front wheel on Andrew’s bike under Andrew’s supervision making sure the spacer was put in and the pinch bolts were tightened.

Eventually after almost 2 hours and a lot of help from both of us, both bikes had new tyres fitted – I was not convinced at all that it would hold pressure as the valve stems were not as far out of the rim as they should be and they were at an angle but we just had to wait and see. The two tyres costed $518 AUD and the installation was $108 AUD without balancing the tyres. Our front tyres had lasted for -7500 km. The tyre guy also collects foreign coins and had asked us to give him some Australian coins and I told him we needed to get back to the hotel but would bring them later.

We rode back to the hotel and I found only one 20c Australian coin but had a few European coins as well. We went into town in the afternoon and bought another gas cartridge for camping and more fruit and eggs which I then hard boiled in our apartment. There was a big thunderstorm in the late afternoon and I did some sewing (a button on Andrew’s shirt and the seam on the Austrian flag) and we decided to drive past the mechanic shop on our way out of town the next day to drop off the coins for the tyre guy, if the tyres held air until then 😉

We went for a late dinner to a Thai place just a block away from our hotel – first time we had Thai food on our trip – we had pad Thai with seafood and rice with chicken – it was interesting and different to what we get at Thai restaurants in Australia but much better than the grilled meat the day before 👍

We booked the National park entry for the next day and sent an email to the campground and also booked the next stay after the National park in a cabana in La Junta for 3 nights as the weather forecast was for a lot of rain. I stayed up all night to catch up on our blog posts as the internet was very good and there was a lot to catch up on 😉