Day 22 - Puesco to Junin de los Andes - 86km ( 2 punctures)

Had a very peaceful nights sleep and woke to the sound of birds at 7.30. Packed and immediately started cycling up a steep dirt track with a lot of potholes and corrugations. It was very hard going but thankfully it was still cool and shaded. The loose stone was a tricky surface to master and any tweak on the handlebars often meant a fishtale slide. 8km later the road straightened and started to level out and we started enjoying the views again. The valley was now a lot steeper and narrow with the occasional lake opening up the views. We met a cycle tourer travelling in the opposite direction for the first time in nearly 2 weeks! His name was Harman and he was German with a very nice bike. We chatted about the route in either direction, bemoaned the poor maps and complained about the mad bus drivers. 'The bus drivers are f****** crazy', he said 'and forget cycling in towns they try and run you off the f****** road'. Quite, we agreed. He started nearly every sentence with 'And tell me this', but most of the time we couldn't which must have been annoying for him. In an attempt to be helpful we talked about the weather and that set him off again. 'Don't talk to me about the f******* weather, I'm heading north for some sun!'. We let him go in search of a beach and advised him to avoid Vina del Mar.
We continued up into a land out of Jurrasic Park (not that I've seen it) with huge ferns, Araucarias and views of yet more volcanoes. We met a lot more 4 wheel drive vehicles and returned their waves and v-signs (the peace kind) ...or at least I think they were, it's difficult to tell when looking in our rear view mirrors.After 17 quite tough km we arrived at the check point armed with passports, little slips of paper handed to us in Chile and deodorant! We couldn't go into a confined place with other freshly showered Chileans smelling bad, especially as they would know where we were from and possibly think all English people smell. They politely smiled, held their breath and ushered us out in double quick time....hopefully they were just being efficient? We then ate all our perishable goods in the few kilometres of 'no man's land' between the Argentinean and Chilean checkpoints, Just as we finished and felt as though we were about to pop John's back tyre decided to with a sudden explosive whoosh! So we replaced the inner tube with a well patched replacement and vowed to buy some heavy duty (forget about the weight) inner tubes at the next town.
At the next checkpoint we were expecting to fill out 4 different forms, as we had done at the Chilean border, but the uniformed officer just smiled, took our remaining slip of paper, held his breath and pointed to the door. Record time! It's a good job it was straight foward as the road over the Paso Mamuil Malal was terrible. Really badly potholed, lots of loose stone and frustratingly corrugated. The views were spectacular though. We had entered a new country and a new landscape of broad valleys, big skies and a massive tail wind!! John had his second puncture beneath a group of huge Araucarias ,which was lucky as they offered some shade and an amazing view of Volcano Lanin.
At 42km we hit tarmac and had the most amazing ride where we barely had to pedal for 20km, even uphill! The gradient was gentle, which meant you could just sit back and enjoy the view. At 70km the road started to climb and we turned into the wind and struggled to hold our line. We crossed 2  bridges with a timber slatted deck with gaps just wide enough to swallow your wheels! The last 10km is something of a haze until we reached a petrol station (which was the only place to buy drink/food since Puesco) and bought Coke and ice creams. We sat in the shade and regained our senses before looking for a place to stay. Discovered a lovely little Hosteria next to the river in the quiet fishing town of Junin de los Andes and  enjoyed very long showers. The grounds were lush and green with a beautiful crystal clear river running just beneath the window. Had trout for dinner (back to 10.00 eating times) and collapsed into bed. A beautiful but tough day.

Pucture stop