GUIDE TO CHILE
My Exciting Adventure Cycling Down the Devil’s Throat
A cycling trip that almost went wrong.
Right out of a romance novel
I met my husband at a horse ranch in British Columbia. It was the stuff of romance novels: he was the sexy, confident horse whisperer and I, the lost, nomadic volunteer who fell for his charm.
“How do you develop a good relationship with a horse?” I asked him one day at the ranch while he was tacking horses for his next trail ride.
“Horses are like women,” he said, staring intently at me with his dark brown eyes. “You need to treat them with patience and kindness.”
I was at the ranch to try to figure out what I was going to do with my life after recently quitting my job.
I was not looking for romance.
But I hadn’t counted on meeting him.
It didn’t take long for Hugo and me to become friends over our shared love of horses and traveling.
After he left the ranch, we had many long phone conversations.
Then before he left for Chile, I whispered in his ear under a full moon in my terrible Spanish accent, “Tu quieres ser mi novio?”
(Which I googled.)
Landing in the desert
Less than three months later, I landed at the Calama airport in the north to visit my new boyfriend as he was a tour guide in San Pedro de Atacama.
As I settled in for the next two months, I learned that San Pedro is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Chile.
During their summer months, San Pedro swells with tourists and A-frame boards advertising tours for Moon Valley, El Tatio Geyser, Atacama Salt Flats, Altiplanic Lagoons and Los Flamencos National Reserve line the narrow dusty streets.
At night, La Plaza de Armas fills with young travelling gypsy-like nomads dressed in colourful clothes who play music and party until early in the morning.
Next to these fiestas sits the restored historical monument of Iglesia San Pedro, a symbol of the Spanish colonization that has both wounded and shaped this northern Indigenous community.
My first ride down the devil’s throat
As the days passed, I struggled with living in such a remote, brown place. I started to resent the desert for its dryness, never-changing landscape and for always feeling dirty.
“Would you like to go for a bike ride to La Garganta del Diablo?” Hugo asked me one day. “You haven’t been there before. It would be nice.”
“That sounds fun,” I replied, looking forward to a new adventure and distraction.
The skies were clear when we started out in the morning on Hugo’s two mountain bikes.
He carried the blue backpack that we’d filled with a picnic lunch. We cycled about four kilometres north through the chalky, unpaved streets and skirted rows of nut-brown houses to a quiet road that led us to the Devil’s Throat.
As we left the town in our dusty wake, I felt the weight of my uncertain future fall off of me. I began to breathe easier.
Next, we splashed through the low Río San Pedro, which snaked its way along the western border of the community. Excitement leapt in my chest at this new, unknown adventure.
If only I could feel like this all of the time, I thought.
A red labyrinth
As we entered the Devil’s Throat, I felt like I was passing into a new world in this red-rocked labyrinth.
Hugo attached the Go-Pro on top of my head and then we set off with him in the lead. I pumped my legs furiously to keep up with his rapid pace and each twist and turn took us farther down the winding trail.
At times, we needed to slow down or dismount from our bikes when our tires waffled in loose sand, or when we came across a low-hanging outcropping that covered the path, or when a short drop was too narrow to navigate while riding.
But I revelled in the freedom as we sweated and cycled under the hot sun as it rose high in the bright blue sky.
We followed the trail as it left the Devil’s Throat and led us to an ancient, small country church.
After snapping some fun photos together and eating our picnic, we rested lazily on warm rocks.
The perfect day
Too soon, it was time to start heading back and we reluctantly gathered our things.
“Would you like to do a loop all the way around or would you like to go back through the Devil’s Throat?” Hugo asked me as we mounted our bikes.
“The Devil’s Throat!” I said enthusiastically. “It’s such a fun bike ride and it’s not that difficult.”
So we turned around to head back the way we came.
As the sun passed its zenith in the sky, a cool breeze began to flow through the red-walled passageways, causing goosebumps to rise on my arms. The sky clouded over and I put my black coat on top of my thin t-shirt to stay warm.
What a perfect day, I thought.
An unexpected impasse
However, when we exited the Devil’s Throat and came to El Río San Pedro we stopped in shock.
What had been a small, gentle clear stream in the morning was now a writhing, muddy wall.
Hugo said, “We can’t cross here.”
“What happened?” I asked, eyeing the dark swirling water.
“The sun melts the snow on the Andes during the day and it runs down to feed the river. So it grows later in the day,” he said as he pushed his bike along the bank of the river.
We walked carefully along the edge, brushing against the long grassy fox tails that lined the water. After walking for a few hundred metres, Hugo stopped.
“This looks better.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“We’ll find out,” he said. “You stay here. I’m going to take the bikes across first and then I’ll come for you last.”
He handed me his red windbreaker and stripped down to his underwear and shoes.
I smiled as I stuffed his clothes into the backpack before shouldering it again.
Gingerly, he stepped into the river and pulled the first bike against the force of the fast-moving water.
I held my breath.
The river was so muddy that we couldn’t see anything below the surface. What if he got hit by debris or lost his footing?
Getting to the other side
“There’s lots of rocks here!” He yelled against the roar of the water.
As he reached the middle of the river, the water rose to his waist. But he kept moving steadily against the current and then he was through, walking up the other side of the bank.
Dark red mud stained the lower half of his body.
He repeated the trip a second time and took my bike across with no mishaps.
Finally, he came back for me.
“You’re going to go here,” he said, pointing to the top of his strong shoulders.
“What?!?” I squealed. “Oh no, no!”
“Yes! It’ll be fine. Wrap your legs around my chest and hold on tight and you’ll be fine.”
“But what if you drop me?” I said.
“I won’t drop you!” He said with confidence.
With a lot of protesting, I climbed onto Hugo’s shoulders and he started across for the final time. I held on tight to his head and tried not to move, afraid that I might throw him off balance and send us both tumbling into the dark messy water.
Partway across, he suddenly stumbled and my body jerked forward.
I shrieked and gripped his head tighter.
He laughed, “I’m just teasing. I got you. Just keep holding on.”
Traveling home a little lighter
When we reached the other side safely, Hugo carefully lowered me to the ground and I sighed with relief.
“I can’t wear my clothes,” Hugo said, looking down at his lower limbs dripping with mud. “There’s no clean water to wash myself off here.”
I eyed his muddy form and agreed, “You’ll get your clothes too dirty.”
“I’ll just bike back in my underwear,” he said.
I laughed as I realized that he was serious. At that moment, I knew that this trip, this day, was one that I would never forget.
And that I wanted more adventures like this, with this man who took whatever life threw at him with a sense of humour and determination.
So we mounted our bikes for our trek home, retracing our path from the morning; just wearing fewer clothes.
Thanks for reading! Want to read more about traveling in Chile? Check out these articles I’ve written:
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Hannah Visser Pavez is a writer, blogger, and digital marketer. She splits her time between Canada and Chile with her Chilean husband. She’s also working on a children’s fantasy series that she hopes to finish before her nieces and nephews grow up.
