Leaving Los Andes
Left the Hotel Plaza at 9.00 and cycled down a beautiful valley past fields of vines, maize, orchards and ditches full of Canna, Lilies and Fennel. The only traffic was cars with the whole family inside and half the contents their house on the roof! We saw mattresses, fridges and even a wardrobe! They were all heading to the coast! The wind was light and the gradient flat or slightly downhill so we managed 70km in the first 3 hours. Decided that we would try and make the coast in one day instead of two, and so after Christmas Dinner (peanuts and a sandwich) under a palm tree in a village square, we pushed on. The weather was sunny again and we stopped whenever we saw roadside shops to buy an ice cream. Amazingly all the shops were open everywhere. As we approached the final road to the coast, the vehicles changed to open backed pickup trucks with families sat in the back waving and shouting 'Hello' as they passed. John had his first puncture which unfortunately happened next to a garden with 2 guard dogs, one on a chain which managed to squeeze through a gap under the fence and stretch his way to within 5m of our bikes. He barked, pawed the ground vigorously and tugged at his chain for the whole 20 minutes it took to fix. Stopped at a roadside Café which was owned by a family in the process of slow cooking their Christmas meat in the, now familiar, outdoor ovens. Neighbours came and went with presents and collected various portions of meat from the father who was fastidiously tending to the ovens. We enjoyed 2 giant Empanadas which were filled with a delicious combination of minced beef, onions, chopped egg and olives. Sounds disgusting but they tasted really good! At 88km we had a long uphill into another strong headwind but the view from the brow, to a sparkling Pacific Ocean 15 km away, suddenly gave us extra strength. During the last few km we tried every phone we came across to say happy Christmas to family but they either didn’t work or a message said the line was busy. At 5.15pm we arrived at the Pacific Ocean in the resort of Maintecillo…it was heaving with people enjoying Christmas picnics on the beach. The waves were huge which disappointed John as it was the thought of a swim that had kept him going. We cycled up the long beach front looking for some decent looking Cabanas and eventually found some set back 20m from the beach road. It’s now 11.00pm and we can hear the sound of waves crashing on the shore….they are huge! After dinner we dashed out and just managed to catch the sun setting. The water was very cold which meant the temperature was pleasantly cool. Saw lots of Pelicans and another Eagle flying overhead on the way back.
