Chaiten Volcano

http://scienceblogs.com/eruptions/2009/10/the_speedy_magma_of_chaiten_an.php

Week 1

Strange, after nearly 40 years of getting up early in the morning to be somewhere, to wake up with the complete freedom to choose exactly how we spent our time. So why did we feel so anxious?

Two weeks ago we had returned from a holiday in Slovenia to hear the unexpected news that our request for a 6 month career break had been accepted.

We planned to spend 3 months exploring Chile and Argentina by bike.


Had our first Ebay experience and sucessfully bid for a 21" 1996 Trek CroMoly steel bike around which we hoped to build up a decent touring bike. Retreived an older 1991 Trek 950 from the loft which had been stripped and re-sprayed 12 years previously. Thankfully, we had resisted tempations to sell it as it was the perfect frame for some rough touring.

Pitched our new Tera Nova Voyager XL tent (our latest addition to the growing collection of tents for every occasion!) in the garden and admired it's wide entrance, extended porch and featherweight pegs! The neighbours smiled and nodded having seen it all before!

In between we managed a few gentle rides into the Dales and local walks to coffee shops with guide books and notepad. No serious training this week! We bought some very large scale maps (1:1,130,000!) and started plotting a potential route over the Andes and along the Carretera Austral Highway. The mood of the Chaiten volcano however, would ultimately decide how far we would get along this leg!

Week 2

Decided to give the Chaiten Volcano a little more attention as our intended route would pass within 6 miles of it's peak! Spent rather longer than we intended researching the current status of the volcano and worrying about the consequences of travelling within 50 miles of one of it's new growing peaks!

In the mean time various bike parts started to arrive and form small piles in the lounge  ....between the drying Quinoa harvested from the Allotment and boxes of files we couldn't bear to recycle when we left work. Need to reclaim lounge as a living space before week 3!

 Bolton Abbey

Had a quick local ride to try out the new second hand bike and check the frame geometry was comfortable. Considering the age of the bike the frame was immaculate,  it looked as though it had hardly been ridden. Near the end of the ride I decided to pull over to take a quick photo of some beautiful crepuscular rays, but actually ended up stopping rather abruptly nearer the middle of the road. John had no time to stear clear and had his first ever road crash.......which was heavy and involved a lot of scraping steel, skin and material!

Luckily there was no traffic at that moment.  Managed to disentangle frame and limbs and shuffle to the kerb side where we assessed the damage.......blood, grazes and badly bruised shoulder, elbow, knee and shin. The imaculate frame seemed to have survived abeit twisted handlebars, scratches and ripped seat.

Picture (above) of John re-attaching arm.


Had our Tetanus, Polio, Diptheria, Hep A and 1st Hep B injections and arranged a separate visit for Rabies, Typhoid and Yellow Fever jabs.
Ordered some new 'robust' wheels from Merlin Cycles...went for some Schwalbe Marathon XR tyres just to be sure!
Now we just have to wait for the final bike bits to arrive, build both bikes up, sort out route options, learn Spanish, harvest the remaining veg/tidy the allotment and arrange a few local multi-day trips to test fully loaded bikes.