Leaving camp
Packed up and had breakfast at the reception/café cabin (which was the scene of a noisy party until 3.00pm the night before). Watched a line of students staggering under the weight of their backpacks, frontpacks and bedrolls to the road where they collapsed to try and hitch a lift. We set off into the sunshine and had just 3km of road before the dirt tack began. The dry weather meant a lot of dust and at times it was impossible to see more than 20m ahead when a big truck or fast car went past. Despite the surface the road was very busy and we spent most of the day spluttering our way through dust clouds which was a shame as the scenery was quite dramatic in places. The map indicated that the road was in the process of being improved so we hoped to hit a sealed surface sooner than indicated on the map which was over a year old. The surface just seemed to get worse with steeper hills, more loose stone and potholes. The cars seemed to want us to ride in the dry, ball bearing like stone just to the side of the wheel tracks, where it was impossible to maintain any sort of traction and often meant wheel spinning or sliding. Despite a wide road with no traffic coming in the opposite direction they hated to leave their tracks despite it being no effort to pull out and pass. They would beep their horns or whiz past scattering stones and dust. I probably swore more times in four hours than I have done in four years and even though I had read that gesticulating could lead to confrontations I actually thought ‘bring it on’. If anybody had stopped to remonstrate I dread to think what a scene the driver would have been met with. A dust covered, grey haired, grey eyebrowed, grey top lipped (unfortunately!), gritty eyed creature spouting foreign obscenities. When we stopped for lunch at a beautiful lake called Lago Correntoso we fished out some wet wipes and cleaned layers of dust and grit from our faces. When John took his helmet off he had grey stripes in his hair and a grey dusting on his eyebrows which made him look like he’d been made up to look like an old(er) man in a pantomime. We shared our picnic with three horses who came to drink at the lakeside and then stand very close (1m) whilst we tucked in. I am usually petrified of horses but when there was a potential threat to our Dulce de Leche….I bravely blocked their advances. We saw a Magellanic woodpecker today (black with bright red head), we think it has a call which sounds just like a stone skipping on the surface of an icy lake!? We also saw Austral parakeets, eagles, orange breasted geese and various birds of prey. When we returned to the road we rode with bandanas, which was a big help to keep the dust out, but made us look a little menacing banditos especially with sunglasses. The final section was steeper and with more loose stone so it was a huge relief to arrive to the clean air of a paved road after 12km (one of our maps was again optimistic again showing the tarmac starting 10km before it did!!). In just over half an hour we had arrived in the up market tourist destination of Villa La Angostura where we stopped at the first café for a coffee. There was a huge queue for accommodation in the Tourist Information Centre opposite so we trusted our instincts and good fortune to date and stopped at the first Hosteria (Traunco) we came to. We took their last double room and had the most welcome showers so far. The water ran grey and finally our true hair colour and texture returned. We had a huge 3 course meal in town and started to feel human again. Spent the night sneezing and wiping grit from our eyes!
