Day 1: Puerto Varas to Futrono
Tori and I took the arranged taxi to pick up the motorcycle in the morning. Daniel, who runs the rental agency, is from Georgia and met his Chilean wife, Paula, in the States before they moved to Chile and started Moto Patagonia in 2016. Luca, their sheep dog, just showed up one day and helps them keep an eye on the rental fleet while occasionally helping around the farm. Daniel gave us some travel tips (and juicy moto industry gossip) and went over the bike before sending us on our way.
It was a bit of a drizzly morning as we shuttled from the shop back to the AirBNB to get loaded up. The skies stayed overcast as we headed north then east towards Petrohue national park and Volcan Osorno. The low-hanging clouds gave the valley a dramatic, moody feel but unfortunately blocked our view of the volcano itself. Chilean traffic took a bit of getting used to, especially the passing culture and casual relationship with the speed limit.
As we headed back to the route and turned North, the skies started to clear and the day warmed up. Our ride took as around several lakes on twisty, mountain roads with stunning view points as we made our way towards our cabin in Futrono. We got settled into the cabin before heading out for dinner — the steep, unpaved driveway gave us a good appetizer for some of the upcoming dirt & gravel roads. We couldn’t figure out the door to the cabin and had to be rescued by the hosts’ mother, feeling only mildly stupid once we saw how the lock worked. Futrono was a busy tourist town but we lucked out with a quiet lakeside dinner before heading back to the cabin to rest.
Day 2: Futrono to Huilo Huilo
We got on the road around 9am so we could get some basic snacks and instant coffee in town before heading out. We haven’t quiet figured out the local rhythms and all the cafes were closed, so unfortunately we hit the road with no coffee or breakfast. The roads out of town were fairly flat and straight as we crossed the low-lying farmland between the lakes, but once we’d gotten gas and turned East they got more interesting.
We knew there would be some unpaved stretches today, but surprisingly it ended up being about half of the day. Tori handled the rough, washboard dirt roads admirably as we headed towards the mountains; views of a double-peaked volcano completed with glaciers helping to keep morale high. We descended and then climbed up some tight dirt switchbacks at the end of the valley and road 10 km up some narrow dirt tracks to reach a viewpoint that brought us as close as possible to the peaks.
After getting some great shots, we descended again and turned back north towards Huilo Huilo. We hit road construction almost immediately and had our first ever fall when we hit a deep patch of loose, fine gravel and lost the front end. It was low speed and the only concerning part was the reaction time of Tacoma following us. We dusted ourselves off and carried on, but after over 100km of two-up dirt riding we were both eager to get to the hotel and get showered.
Check-in at Huilo Huilo ended up being a bit more complicated than we thought, but we managed to get everything sorted, get showered, take a short walk around the grounds, and have a great dinner before we both immediately passed out back in the room.
