Yesterday, we left Puerto Montt and started down Highway 7. It was a cloudy, cool, windy and rainy day as we caught the first ferry. Yesterday, we met a fellow cyclist from Japan who started in Lima and a walker who began just south of Santiago. Both are heading to Ushaila.

We are back on the road, and now only me, Gloria, and Johana. It was easy cycling out of Puerto Montt as I found a bike path to Highway Seven, the Austral Highway. I had a strong tailwind the whole day, but it was a cool, 6-degree day and heavily overcast. After a few kilometers, the traffic disappeared, and I almost had the entire highway to myself. Number seven followed the coast before turning inland into the tall forest-covered mountains. I must have crossed 50 creeks and a few rivers during the day. The forest undergrowth was that of ferns; maybe it was classified as a rainforest.

Passing all the houses and cabins with smoke rising from their fireplace chimmies made me want to stop and invite myself into their warm and cozy living rooms. At the halfway point, we bordered a ferry for a 30-minute crossing and, once on the other side, encountered rain for the first time yesterday. The sky opened up, and it bucked down. I sat it out in the car while having a hot bowl of soup. The rain let up, and I started again, only to encounter even more rain with 12k to go. It got a little dangerous on the downhills as I could not see very well as the rain pelleted my face and my glasses fogged up. Finally, I reached our warm cabin and got to sit by the fire to warm up as the girls went to purchase a ticket for the next ferry. That crossing would take over four hours. They returned a while later to tell me that we had to wait four days for the next available spot on a ferry. We could not cross until Friday as there was only one sailing per day. As I was cursing, Gloria got a WhatsApp message saying tomorrow there was a cancelation. So they quickly jumped in the car and drove back to the terminal and got a ticket for today at 1 PM. They had begged the lady with my story of the Guinness record, and she felt sorry for me and gave us the next cancellation. Lucky us, what a great team I have.

Yesterday, we met another two road warriors, one from Japan who started riding in Lima and a fellow walking from just south of Santiago. Both are heading to Ushuaia.