First full week in Paloma

I have just got in from my first full week of building mountain bike tracks in the mountains of Chile. The week started off very good we were off to finish the track we had started in the few days we were here before the weekend and got in to it and got it done by Wednesday afternoon, pretty cool benched trail. Thursday we changed location we went from about 600 meters to around 800 meters to make a more tech rugged trail, and the weather turned to shit we have just worked 2 days of 9 hours each, in the pissing rain and today there was a howling wind with rain coming straight into our faces, watching the mountain about 500 more meters above us turn white with snow showers throughout the day, it was hard going we just had to keep working to stay warm, the shit thing is I picked up a cold on Tuesday and have been struggling ever since and that weather properly doesn’t help.

We have about a 45min climb up to where we work and we do that every day with some super technical up hills and then a few really hard downs coming home, just riding to and from work is about an hour and half so its mint training no matter what, and now I am smoked my arms back and legs hurt so much I don’t know what to do with myself.

We have 2 maids that do every think for us it is pretty cool we get every think cooked and made and cleaned for us all we do is work come home and sit here smashed from a hard day’s work. We have limited power and internet usage because we are on a generators and it’s only turned on in the morning and late afternoon. As for now we are all sitting in the living room having a few beers and just chilling, we get given 2 beers a day haha so we save them up and have a few good nights.

Tomorrow we may do a few hours over time work in the morning but if the weathers bad I ante going out there. But at 2pm we are off to town, it takes a little while to get there because we have to boat across our lake to the dock get a taxi that takes about 45mins on a gravel road then we are there. We are going to do some shopping for a few extra thing we need and some of the boys are going stay the night in town and party it up with the locals (Coyhaique 55,000) as for me I’m going to come back home have an early night and try shake the cold and hit up town another time. I think!?

Carl

Day 1 at Paloma

Finally got here at lunch time today to our final location, we are now out of the smoggy city of Santiago it was so smoggy this morning that u could only see a few hundred meters and it stinks and really tastes bad. As we flu south past all the mountains the snow slowly got thicker. We arrived in Belmaceda and there was nothing there but like 5 slums... honestly if you have watched slum dog millionaire Santiago was like that in some places pretty freaky, but any way now we are at our lake and accommodation in Paloma it is pretty amazing just in the mountains with a lake.

I went a had a quick ride up the hill earlier took like 15mins to get a little way up the hill the tracks are so so cool and I only did like 2 tracks. I also did the pump track some of the other boys built and after 6 laps I stacked it on a soft corner but just about every 1 crashes on this corner and I wasn’t the only 1 at the time. They have a mean dual slalom track also over by the pump track which is only like 100meters from the house it’s wicked.

Have our first day of work tomorrow its ment to be fine but the boys said every morning it is clear the ground is frozen and it snowed a bit last week so looks like we are in for a cold wet time I’m not gana post every day haha just thought I would let you No some more.

We are on the net from 5ish till 10ish that’s like lunch time there, but we are all on the net at once so it cuts out lots.

Talk soon

Carl

Track Building - Chile

Hi Guys
It’s been a long time coming but I’m finally in Chile at the moment I’m sitting in The Holiday Inn which is about 100 meters away from Santiago International Airport, we are staying the night here and flight out to Belmaceda at 830am in the morning. Sounds like the place we are going to is very cool, we have to ride a hour every day up over a hill to work and we get paid for that, has lots of track so my big training rides I won’t have to do the same track twice and there is lots of fish in the lake, trout and salmon so ill be slaying them in my spear time. Looking forward to it a lot just one more 4 hour mission in airports.

Keep ya posted when I get bored until then I think it’s time I hit the sac only got 45min sleep on the plane and I have force out the day. Also I will be on Skype most days around 11-2 or 3 NZ time that is 7ish-till late here.

Thanks to every one for the mint party the other night,
Carl