We had planned to leave early as we needed to get to the Queulat National Park entry by no later than 2:30pm as that is the latest entry into the park. The total distance was 225 km but google suggested it would take 3 hours 48 minutes. We usually are at least an hour slower than what google suggests 😂 and we needed one petrol stop so we aimed to leave by 9:00am but we chatted with other riders at breakfast, checked the tyre pressure and had to pump my front tyre up as it had lost 2psi over night 😳. We then rode past the mechanic to drop the coins off we had promised him but both the mechanic place and the tyre shop were “cerado” (=closed) – nobody was there at all so we continued to the petrol station fuelled up and by the time we left Coyhaique it was 10:30am. We had 4 hours but thought that there is no more dirt roads north of Coyhaique and that the slow travel time might be due to windy roads through mountains and hoped we would be ok to go faster than the suggested speed limit to make up some time or at least make it in the 3 hours 48 minutes as google suggested.

We were only a few km out of Coyhaique when the Ruta 7 turned off to the right and we found ourselves on a very bad gravel road over hills and with sections of deep gravel and large sharp rocks – what an unexpected but great way to scrub in the new front tyres 😂 and find out how they would handle on that surface as it was less of an off road tyre than we are used to ride with. We thought maybe it was just a short stretch but the gravel road continued for more than 60 kms before we were back on a sealed road – there were stray cows and dogs to be avoided as well – it had taken us 90 minutes to do 63 km and Andrew had given up any hope that we could still make it to the National Park on time, but I wanted to keep trying and push it on the sealed sections of the road. Wherever possible and safe, I tried to ride at 80-90 km/hr in the 60-70km/hr speed limited areas. We made good progress and stopped very briefly to fill up in Villa Mañihuales and continued to ride pushing the speed as much as safely possible. Then there was another unexpected section lasting for several kilometres where the right side of the road we travelled on was gravel while there were new slabs of concrete on the left side for traffic going the other direction – luckily there was little traffic and we did not have time to slow down again, so I chose to travel on the wrong side of the road on the concrete slabs – almost made it the entire way without oncoming traffic but towards the end of the section, a small commuter bus came the opposite way – luckily he kindly pulled over and let me pass as I would have not easily been able to move to the correct side of the road as there was a huge drop off from the concrete slab down to the deep gravel section. Andrew stayed in tge gravel the entire section. We eventually were back on a good sealed road which started climbing a steep hill with some tighter corners. We had a semi-trailer truck behind us who drove remarkably fast and he kept up with us uphill and around tighter corners which he all cut to keep the speed up as most drivers do here. Our time started to look good and if we could maintain this speed the last 20 km, we would make it in time to enter the National Park – some glimpse of hope that we might make it was starting to take hold. As we reached the top of the mountain the road suddenly and without warning turned to gravel and then very smooth slightly wet clay and dirt and started to descend in tight switchbacks very steep downhill and we wondered whether we had taken a wrong turn? Surely this could not be the main highway North? And where was the semi-trailer? Surely he could not possibly come down these tight bends? Well, we had not taken a wrong turn, this was the main road and the only way to transport goods North and South and yep, the semi-trailer was still behind us coming down that mountain!! We took it very easy and made sure we made every corner without being taken out by traffic coming up the hill including other trucks that used most, if not all of the road around the bends. We finally finished the descent but the dirt road continued but got a little better and I tried to go as fast as possible thinking that if I made it on time then they might let Andrew in even if he was a few minutes behind, but I had the map and directions on my phone and in the end I waited for Andrew so we would take the correct turn off Ruta 7 into the National Park. We rode in on the dirt road and a ranger met us half way up the road and told us to park the bikes and head straight to the registration area to get all the info. The female park ranger pointed at her watch – we made it with only a minute to spare but we were here and she scanned our tickets and told us where to go for the camping – we hoped that we could get a camp site as we never heard back about our enquiry before we left Coyhaique. The guy at the campground, Pablo, was super friendly and chilled – he told us that there was room and we should ride up the road, choose a site and then come back down to pay. We headed up the road and sites 4-6 were empty and we chose site 5 which had a long access road to the site so that the actual tent and bikes were not visible from the road. I started to set up the tent while Andrew went to pay. Once we had everything set up, we changed out of our motorcycle gear and put our hiking shoes on and walked all the trails except the longest one which closes by 1:30 pm every day. We went to several look out points to see the hanging glacier in the sunshine, then crossed the suspension bridge over the roaring river and walked to the lake which was very tranquil, turquoise and calm. We sat there listening to the frogs and enjoyed the serenity and the view of the glacier and it sunk in that we actually made it and how amazing and lucky we were – and remember that I had not slept all night 😉 but I was on such a high that I managed to stay awake and really enjoyed the sunny afternoon.

We cooked dinner when we got back to our tent site and fitted our second tarp over the tent as there was rain forecast over night and for most of the next day. What an incredible day and so happy we made it on time and saw the amazing hanging glacier in the afternoon sunshine.