A week has Passed...

So, it has been a little while sine the last blog but so much much has hapened that needs to be reported. After we left the comfort of Peter Logan´s house in Coyhaique we headed out going south back on the road. After hanging out for a week with Pete and company it felt reallt great to be back on the bikes again, but his hospitality was amazing. The funny part about leaving Coyhaique was that we had about a full week to go only about 70 miles. We road through the mountains to the second largest lake in South America. This lake was insane. Not only was it huge and beautiful, but it was the windiest place any of has ever seen. We have all spent days on top of mt. Washington with less wind than this god forsaken place. It was a great place but the non stop wind drove us a into the loony bin. We did get to see some insane rapids which were totally worth the trip into the head wind. The wind was so heavy it took us almost an hour to ride 2.5 miles on a flat road. Enough said about the wind, I think everyone gets it...

After a few days in the windy town we needed to head back north to the Patagonian cultural festival. This was about 40 miles up hill into that aforementioned wind, so we jumped in the back of some guys truck and took the wind on like a few champions; eatin cookies and avacodo sandwiches. Times were good let me tell you. After we got to the town where this festival was to happen, which was so beautiful, (pics in a few days should sum it up) we set up camp and made a classic man camp type supper. It felt good to be out the wind and to have the sun shining again.

So this festival was amazing. It seems like the entire Patagonian region floods this tiny town for three days. I think we agree that this festival was worth the week of hanging in the wind. Maybe the best part were the horse races. These crazy chilean people would race their horses straight down this dirt road hauling ballz full steam ahead. We were right there in the action getting dust and rocks kicked up on us. Ray was temporarily injured by a rock that flew up from the track. It was pretty exctiting to say the least. This event was followed by a parade through town that might even put the Plainfield 4th of July parade to shame. Lots of people showcasing their stuff right on the main street. After the parade we cooked up a pile of feed, and then headed out with our dancing shoes for a night of tearing up the town and dance floor with the locals. We all were a bit slow the next day for sure. The following day was mostly cowboy style rodeo type events. We saw bulls being castrated, roped, branded and sent back to where started. A little bizarre at first, but that is what they do down here. They even castrate animals with their teeth. A very interesting technique. Oh ya during all of this craziness they also feed the whole town with what they call an asado. This is a big fire with goats and sheep on stakes that cook for almost 6 hours. It was delicious but as they handed out the food to the public it was somewhat reminiscent of a rewandan food reief program. People were pretty agressive pushing and shoveing their way to the free food. The festival finished out with a buckin´bronco match where they let the locals and mostly anyone including the intoxicated people jump on whatever wound up horse they wanted. This was pretty wild and entertaining to watch these inexpereinced people jump onto a few angry horses. We saw the old meat wagon haul off a few unfortunate injured souls from this event. Ater this, it was time to leave the festival. We are now headed up to stay at a spot that is claimed to be the most beautiful spot in the world. We will let you all know if that is true very soon. Headin south...

The boys in Chile