Day 649 – South America – Chile [Los Riecillos to Portillo]

30/01/22

32.6km

  From Los Riciellos (Chile) to Portillo (Chile)

South America

Up the switchbacks on a mountain road surrounded by high peaks, last full run in Chile

I had been dreaming about running these switchbacks for a long time!

Today is the most ascent I’ve run in a single day, as well as the highest I’ve run to. Portillo stands at 2,873m and todays’ run comprised 1,600m positive ascent. It went well! I was quite curious to see how it would go. As predicted it went slow (7.3kph has to be my slowest run of the journey I reckon) – but it was not as steep as I had imagined. And oh was I pleased to be running without my 30kg fully loaded stroller!

Quite happy with how the crossing is going!

I also have never run that many switchbacks! They were numbered but I lost count. In all there must have been about 32 of them – over the last 10km of the run. Though I was sharing the road with vehicles, I found it quite safe. It was a Sunday and lorries and cars alike were very few and driving very slow too. There were about 7 tunnels on the road, but luckily all had a pedestrian track on the side. Though I was wearing my reflective bands, it was not for much use today.

Laguna del Inca, Portillo (2,873m)

As I reached Portillo, I was quite disheartened that I had not managed to spot a condor. I ran surrounded by 4000m+ and 5000m+ summits, including one called the “Condor Nest”. But James had been riding his bike up and down the road all morning. And by luck came across a group of condor spotters who were taking pictures of 3 condors flying around. Well, if I don’t get to see a Condor with my own eyes on the Argentine Andes, at least I have some great shots of them!

Now on to two so-called “rest-days” where I will work on making sure we can cross the border without a problem…

Enjoy the video of today’s run: https://www.relive.cc/view/vE6JpeJR3gv

Check my daily run GPS data on or

Here is the map of today’s run: