South from last nights camp we crossed the Cerro Castillo range of mountains heading towards the town of Cerro Castillo and the end of the paved road. However before arriving at Cerro Castillo we took a detour, still on paved road, to the port town of Puerto Ingeniero Ibanez. This town is the ferry port for the ferry across Lago General Carrera (called Lago Buenos Aires in Argentina) to Chile Chico. Along the Ibanez road we got some fine views of Cerro Castillo, plus some of the strongest winds we have experienced on this trip, sustained 40 mph I would guess. It was difficult to open doors and walk into the wind.

Back on highway 7 we stopped briefly in the town of Cerro Castillo, it has 1/2 of a short main street. Meaning that the street is short and has buildings only on one side.

From Cerro Castillo we travelled 120 km on generally good gravel road to the days destination of Puerto Rio Tranquillo. We passed maybe a dozen or more cyclists along the road, some day tripping, but most traveling with packs and camping gear. I don't envy them the ride on that road.

We had high cloud and sun breaks so got some fine views of mountains and huge wide rivers, before finally arriving at the top of Lago General Carrera with its stunning turquoise water. This is the second largest lake in South America after Lake Titicaca. We were pleased to see that unlike Titicaca the shores of this lake were not decorated with loads of trash/garbage and dog corpses. In fact the shores of this lake are almost deserted. We also got another flat tire - yes in one of our brand new tires. A piece of rock about the size (and roughly the shape) of a stone arrow head went right through the tread. Luckily we had it repaired in Rio Tranquillo.