Near Pedro Luro

The wind was not with me the next morning at Bahía Blanca. It blew forcefully from the west and I rode out of the city south, through an industrial area, and then west, into the gusting wind. I was finally on Ruta 3 which was combined with Ruta 22 until 30 km outside the city, and it was hard going, my head down, turning a low sprocket on my second chain ring, riding on the white line of the shoulder with the trucks passing. My right quad still bothered me and I pulled my toe clips tight and concentrated on my cycling form, trying to get a full revolution out of my legs and using muscles other than my quad.

I was forced to stop at a fruit and vegetable checkpoint where my bags were searched and anything found would be confiscated. I was carrying no fruits or vegetables and soon after the checkpoint the road split, with Ruta 3 heading south and Ruta 22 continuing west. I had the choice here to battle a headwind west and then take another road south a few days later to join back up with Ruta 3 at San Antonio Oeste, or to ride south on Ruta 3 with a cross-wind. The trucks seemed to be heading west and the cross-wind would not be strong enough to push me out into traffic, so I turned onto Ruta 3 towards Carmen de Patagones and Viedma.

The country was in some parts lush and green, with rolling hills between the flats, and there was an area of small lakes between the sand dunes and it was very different country than the dry, dusty farmland I had ridden across from Buenos Aires. It was not difficult riding with the cross-wind and I would now be on Ruta 3 all the way to Ushuaia.

But then the wind changed and I was fighting a head wind and it was difficult riding. At Mayor Buratovich I stopped at a supermercado and bought some pasta and sauce along with a cold beer. I was exhausted and wanted to set up camp and to use my stove for the first time and the idea of hot pasta and a cup of coffee excited me.

The cashier at the supermarket said it was another 10 or 15 km to a lagoon where camping was free and it was a very beautiful place. I did not want to go further into the wind and it was past 6pm and the sun was getting low in the sky, but the idea of cooking pasta at a lagoon seemed a perfect one and I rode on out of town. I passed a grove of pine trees and some other excellent places to camp but continued on for the lagoon.

The lagoon was not 15 km from Mayor Buratovich and two guys at a service station told me I had another 10 km to go. They were correct on the distance but failed to tell me about the additional 4 km on a dirt road. It was past 7pm now and I was dying in the saddle as I rode carefully down the rocky road towards the lagoon. Mosquitoes attacked me but I could not ride any faster and I swatted at them. Then my wheels sunk into the sand and stopped. I got off and slowly pushed the bike through the sandy stretch, the bike much harder to push now with the additional water weight, the mosquitoes landing all over me, and then I hopped back on when the road firmed. 

But not much further I hit fine sand again and got off to push the bike, slapping at mosquitoes, and I looked up into the setting sun and did not see any end to the sand. I had not gone 1 km on the road and knew I could not push the bike another 3 km with the weight and mosquitoes. My plans for the lagoon had fallen through. I cursed my bad luck and turned the bike around and pushed it back through the sand and rode back to Ruta 3. I had passed numerous excellent campsites on the way here and now I had nothing and the sun was going down.

I rode another 10 km before I saw a dirt access road going back through the scrub and turned down it and found a sandy spot between some shrubs. I quickly set up the tent and put my gear inside and got a pot of water boiling on the stove. I put the pasta in and gave myself a quick shower from a water bladder and cracked open the luke-warm beer. It tasted great. There weren't even many mosquitoes here and I stood watching the stove work and the sun setting over the orange fields and I realized there would be time to eat and to relax a little before night fall. Things were working out after all.

The idea came to me suddenly--and it appeared to me in my fatigued state to be an original work of genius-- to use the water from the boiled pasta to make the coffee, and when the pasta was ready I poured some into my cup with the coffee powder. Both the pasta and the coffee cooled at the same time and I ate pasta and drank coffee inside my tent and I was very tired but very happy. I had ridden 40 km more than I wanted but the day had turned out alright. The lagoon was no doubt teeming with mosquitoes anyway.

Bahía Blanca 2

I awoke late and the wind was blowing hard. I left the hostel for a café con leche and a grilled ham and cheese sandwich and I realized the wind was blowing south. It was too bad I was taking today off. I could have had that wind all the way to Viedma on Ruta 3 and put up huge mileage. There was no telling what direction the wind would be from tomorrow.

I needed a small camp stove and got the address of an outdoors shop from the Oficina de Tourismo. They only had the MSR version I had passed on buying in the US. You could not find fuel for this stove in much of Argentina and I did not understand why it was even being imported here. In fact, there is no camping gear made here in Argentina, everything is imported.

The man at the first store directed me to a second where a friend of his worked. Ariel was the name of the guy and Sherpa was the store and he carried a small Chilean made stove that fit into a small red plastic box. With the purchase of an adapter I would be able to use 2 types of fuel canisters to power the stove. I bought the stove, adapter and butane canister and went looking for cookware and silverware.

It was always good to walk through a city when you had some task to perform and to see a city in this way and I enjoyed all the going from shop to shop and not finding what I was looking for. I did eventually find silverware and then found a thinsulate lined pot and a cup at another shop. It was a good day of walking through Bahía Blanca and I returned to the hostel and cleaned my drive train and began to consider how I would pack the bike with the stove and accessories and the 2 full 6 liter bladders of water I was going to need to carry from here on into Patagonia.

After unsuccessfully trying to squeeze the stove and full water bladders into my panniers as I had them previously packed, I realized I needed to remove my sleeping bag from the rear pannier and to carry it on top of the rear rack with the tent and ground pad. It was simply taking up too much pannier space. I moved gear around and I found I could carry one 6 liter water bladder in each of the rear panniers and still have considerable room for food supplies. Though it was nearly impossible now to lift the bike off the ground with the water weight, the bike handled as before. I ate a baguette, sausage and cheese and a yogurt and went to bed. I was maybe a day, if the wind was right, from hitting the official border of Patagonia.

Bahía Blanca

I did not truly know it until I had made the hostel at Bahía Blanca, but I had needed time out of the saddle. The hostel was in an old building with high ceilings and access to shared and private rooms through an outside mall. I took a private room with a shared bath as I cannot risk the theft of any item of my gear and it was only 8 pesos more. The bed is a double and I laid down and almost went to sleep. I had been free-camping in my tent for the last week and it felt wonderful to lay down on a mattress. I got up. I needed to eat. I was as hungry as I was tired. I took a shower. It was cold but more pleasant than the water bottle showers in a field I had been taking for the last week.

The desk clerk told me a restaurant was down the block that served very good fish and meats. I ordered a bife de chorizo with papas fritas from the menu and a 375ml bottle of Chianti. The wine tasted very good to me. I had not had wine in a very long time. Before the food a wooden bowl with bread, breadsticks and wafers was served with a bowl of delicious aioli. I ate everything as quickly as it came. But then the wine got to me. I needed to lay down.

Along with the bill I was served a glass of sparkling wine. I drank that too and walked back weakly to the hostel. I was lucky it was only a half block away. My legs had nothing in them and the alcohol had overwhelmed me. I slept most of the afternoon.

When I awoke I went out and walked through the city as evening fell. I took a table at a outdoor café in the centro and had a café con leche. The center of Bahía Blanca around the plaza is a busy area of clothing shops and boutiques and banks and casinos and I sat and watched the people pass. I was still weak and finished the coffee and walked back to the hostel. I had dinner at the restaurant I had eaten lunch at, ordering raviolis stuffed with mozzarella and proscuitto along with a beer. Tomorrow will be a rest day but there remains much preparation to be done for the trip south into Patagonia.

Cabildo

The storms lasted through the night and it was raining when I awoke. The mosquito population had grown at the top of the tent inside the rainfly and hundreds were now also perched along the tent shell. I started the killing. I crushed mosquito after mosquito between the tent wall and the rain fly. Then I slapped the sides the tent, drawing down the mosquitoes massed at the top, and I crushed each of them. I killed mosquitoes for a half hour and after I had killed them all, my tent covered in crushed mosquitoes, the rains had let up.

I packed my panniers inside the tent and put on my full rain suit (jacket, pants, and booties), more to protect me from the mosquitoes I knew were waiting outside than any coming rain, and got out to take the tent down. Hundreds of mosquitoes attacked my face and I swatted at them and ran around my camp site as I worked. I packed the tent soaking wet and quickly loaded the bike and rode out of the balneario.

Dressed in my baggy yellow rain suit I must have looked ridiculous and the towns people that were awake stared and would not talk to me as I passed. At the edge of town before the intersection with 51 I saw a pack of 15 dogs. They had not seen me yet and I looked down the sidestreets thinking I might go around them, but I saw only muddy dirt roads. The pack had split to either side of the street and I picked up a head of speed and then one saw me and began his chase, and then a few others, but I had too much speed going and I broke through before the pack had decided to give chase as a unit, and with my heart racing and my legs shakey, I rode through to the rotonda and back onto 51 towards Bahia Blanca.

I stopped at a petrol station for a coffee and a hot proscuitto and cheese sandwich. A woman approached my table and we began to talk and in fact her brother lived in Nice, France. She spoke good French and liked to speak it and I understood her perfectly but when I tried to talk my responses came out in a mixture of Spanish and French. She gave me the address of a hostel in western Patagonia that her cousin operated and I said that I would try to get there.

I had seen hills beyond Coronel Pringles to the south and back on the road I was riding towards them. They were rolling hills to start but then the wind picked up from the south and I was downshifting to ascend them. The hills steepened and the wind strengthened and now the ascents were more difficult and I had to drop a chainring.

My right quad was bothering me and I hoped to rest on the descents but because of the wind the descents became tougher than the ascents. The wind would hit me with a blast at the top of the hills and was ferocious on the downside blowing up from the valleys, and I was unable to coast down and even had to downshift from my ascending gear to fight down the hill. And the wind would only gather in strength through the day.

Lago Paso Piedras

I rode over 10 hours and covered 86km to Cabildo. At the end a cross wind pushing me out into the road made it almost too dangerous to control the bike with the trucks passing. I had a Coke at a hamburger stand at the toll both befor Cabildo and the man there smiled and told me this wind was nothing. It would be double in Patagonia, he said. 80km south of here I would learn about another sort of wind. 

el viento

I rode into Cabildo but it was Sunday evening and nothing was open in the little town. There was no municipal park to camp in and I rode back out and found a dirt path back from the main road and set up my tent there. I had two bags of cookies, a box of juice, and a lot of water, but I was too tired to eat much and I went to sleep.

Coronel Pringles

The roosters woke me at first light. I lay in my tent and heard the cows moo-ing and being driven out to pasture. Then the geese began to squack in the dirt beyond the trees. The dogs started barking. The white and brown cat came to my tent and meowed. He wanted to eat. A trucker gunned up his engine and pulled out. I got up. It was time to get on the road.

I had no pesos to buy breakfast at the bar so I packed up. It was cool with the sun just up over the horizon but I would be visible on the road to traffic. It was 35km to Krabbé, where there was said to be nothing, and another 64km to Coronel Pringles. I hoped the banks there would have money as across the country the news was reporting that cities--some of them large like Cordoba--were entirely out of cash in their ATM machines. A former central banker had said it was an attempt by the government to control inflation.

I took my first break and ate some cookies at a bus stop and I was encouraged that the mosquitoes did not attack. Maybe this mosquito epidemic had passed. It wasn't much further that I saw the sign for Krabbé. There was nothing more than a dirt road back into the fields. Krabbé was only a name on the map.

 

Coronel Pringles was another 30km and I felt the energy of the cookies and banged out the mileage and it was before the heat of the day that I arrived at the city and rode down the tree-lined avenue towards the centro. I stopped two men on the street and asked where I could find a bank with a tarjeta de cajero. I spoke with them both about my travels and then one man told me to follow him in his car.

Cemetery

The streets near the centro were cobblestone and it was slow going and he stopped in front of two banks, got out of his car and shook my hand and wished me luck and he gave me two pens. It was the sort of helpfulness and generosity I have received often in Argentina.

The bank had money and I took out enough for a few weeks and then began to push my bicycle along the sidewalk looking for something to eat. 2 men approached me followed by 2 young guys wearing aprons. I asked about somewhere to eat and the 2 men sent the boys to get me a sandwich and a Coke. In fact they all worked at a bike shop on the corner and were very excited to speak with me and to examine the folding bike. I ate the sandwich and lectured on the features of the Bike Friday and tried to make clear that this bike had changed everything and that oneday many would tour through their city on Bike Fridays or some other make of folding bicycle. I thanked them for the sandwich and soda and believe I convinced them to stock a folding bicycle in their small bike shop.

I found a café and had just put my bike up against the window from which I could best watch it and had begun my rigorous security protocols to protect from thievery, when I looked up and an older man, grinning, was standing at my side. I thought at first he owned the café but he was something of a town promoter and had many questions for me. In fact, he said, my appearance in Coronel Pringles merited the coverage of the press and he was going to call them. I followed him into the bar and he insisted on buying my café con leche. The press was on its way, he said. 

I had just been delivered the coffee when a man arrived with a camera and microphone. We spoke a little and then he asked me outside to stand beside the bike and to be interviewed. The interview ran about 10 minutes and my Spanish was good throughout and he thanked me and passed me along to the newspaper man who wanted to do a story for the local paper. The town promoter asked me if I wanted a new coffee--certainly mine had gotten cold. No, not a problem. Argentine hot drinks are served too hot anyway.

I sipped at the warm café con leche and told the newspaper man much of what I had just told the television reporter. It was still early when I said goodbye to the press and the town promoter and I sat the rest of the afternoon in the café. I had another coffee and later I ordered a beer which, if you are not specific about the size when you order, you will be served a 3/4 liter bottle. A near liter of beer was enough to put me to sleep and I left the bar sleepy and looking for a supermercado on my way to the campground on the edge of town.

There were dark clouds in the south and I bought a sandwich, water, chips and crackers and rode the 10 blocks to the balneario. The campground was overrun with mosquitos and I got the tent up quickly and got inside with my food and killed the couple mosquitoes that had come into the tent with me.

Then the storms began. The rains and wind battered the tent and the lightning lit up everything inside. I lay on my back, warm and dry in my sleeping bag, listening to the storm and watching hundreds of mosquitoes gathering inside my rainfly at the top of the tent. I was already covered with bites from these large aggressive beasts and I did not want to think about how I was going to deal with this problem in the morning.

Later I was awoken by a man outside the tent. He said his boss had sent him to invite me to join them at a barbecue they were doing among the campground staff. I was half asleep and had already eaten and politely declined, but I also did not want to go outside where I knew the mosquitoes would swarm me and eat me. I looked up and saw the mosquito population massed between my tent and rainfly had doubled. There must have been 300 now. I went back to sleep.

On Ruta 51 (30km to Krabbé)

The inside of the rain fly was wet with condensation and still wet from the rain on the outside. But the big storms had passed. Water had pooled underneath the tent between the ground pad and the tent floor and I stepped out of the tent into the wet grass and knew I would pack the tent wet and have to stop in the afternoon to dry it in the sun. The rain had bred many mosquitos overnight and they swarmed me and I packed my gear up quickly. These were big, strong mosquitos that landed quickly on you and began sucking blood and they could fly into the wind without any problem.

Back on the road the wind was cold and blowing into my face from the south and the skies were clear. I was down to my last 65 pesos, had limited water and food supplies and it was about 180km to Coronel Pringles. There was nothing along Ruta 51 to Coronel Pringles on my map except for a small pueblo called Krabbé. It would be 150km into this tough head wind and my plan was to stay the night there.

My legs felt alright but today would be nothing like the easy, wind-assisted ride of yesterday and I was going to need to ride further. A town called Santa Luisa was indicated about 10km off 51 and I planned to stop there for water and supplies.

At the sign marking the turn off for Santa Luisa there was a white-washed bar and restaurant and I stopped and went inside. For 15 pesos I had a meat empanada, a plate of cheese, sliced sausage, bread and jam and a café con leche.  The bar did not have packaged food for sale but the woman told me there was another bar 25kms down 51 where I could purchase supplies. While I ate an old, toothless blind man walked unsteadily through the bar tapping the chairs with his cane and he called out again and again to me asking where I was from and where I was going. I paid the bill and refilled my water bottles and half-filled my 6 liter water bladder, and if I could get more food at the bar ahead I felt I could make Krabbé though I would learn later if I had the legs.

At the second bar I bought cookies, muffins filled with dulce con leche and some salted crackers for 15 pesos. I spoke awhile with the owner and she wished me luck and then I was back on the road. I tried to take breaks because of the tough head wind but immediately when I stopped the mosquitos attacked. I had never seen such powerful, aggressive mosquitos and they sometimes landed within a few centimeters of each other on my arm and quickly began sucking blood.

At the rotonda where 51 crosses 86, and there should have been a petrol station and was not--and someone will oneday put one there and become wealthy because of it--I stopped and aired out my wet tent and slapped at the mosquitos. I ate most of the muffins and a few of the cookies and drank some water and got back on the road.

It was like other days into a headwind, with the oncoming trucks slamming you with a wall of wind and I was thrown a few times off onto the gravel or into the tall grass. I did learn that if a truck coming up on you from behind honks it is not to simply alert you to its presence but to tell you to get off the road; that an oncoming truck will pass at the same moment it will pass you and there may not be room on the road for the three of us. Sometimes too an oncoming truck would flash its lights to indicate you needed to get off the road because of a truck coming up on you from behind.

But most vehicles slowed down for me and many would honk and give me a thumbs-up or yell out some encouragement. But you had to ride the white line always and even better if you could ride the sliver of pavement to the right of the white line when there was some. Because there was always a truck or autobus that would pass you within inches without slowing down or honking and you were thankful then that you could ride a straight line on the edge of the pavement into a strong headwind.

30 km before Krabbé there was a bar and restaurant truck stop and I pulled in and had lunch. I had already ordered when I remembered I had only 35 pesos but figured I could make up any difference in US dollars. I had a plate of beef filets covered in an onion and tomato sauce, with a tomato and lettuce salad and a 1.5 liter bottle of water.

The man and woman at the bar told me there was nothing at Krabbé. I would be better to put up my tent under the trees outside the restaurant and stay the night here. There was a bathroom and shower and drinkable water from the well. It was a good idea and I was tired and had had enough of the wind and trucks and I told them I would stay the night.

Playing with a dead armadillo

Owls outside the bathroom

The meal came to exactly 35 pesos and I paid and went outside and put up my tent and crawled in and went to sleep. I awoke before sundown and ate the rest of my cookies and drank some water. I had one peso left, a few muffins and an emergency bag of cereal, but I would have a full load of water for the ride tomorrow. Then I went back to sleep and prayed the wind would be with me to Coronel Pringles.

Near Loma Negra

I left the balnearios at Tapalqué early in the morning and had a café con leche and 3 media lunas at the panaderia in town. I felt good on the road and 51 south was good riding with the wind behind me. I concentrated on my form and found that by keeping my back very straight I could alleviate some of the pressure on my right shoulder. I also switched up my hand positions on the handlebars often and I now believe it was prolonged riding on the brake hoods that caused the shoulder pain. I rolled my shoulders while riding and this also helped to loosen them up. I felt good and would do big mileage.

I was riding easily and made Azul before lunch and decided to head west on an auto pista that would reconnect me to 51 near Olavarria. Heading west with 2 lanes of heavy truck traffic and the wind now in my face, I realized it was a mistake not to have stopped in Azul. I gutted out the 35km and had lunch at a petrol station in Hinojo, just before the intersection with 51.

Back on the road it was getting late and I had the decision to ride west another 15km to Olavarria, or to head south on 51 and hope to find a supermarket and a place to camp. I was running low on pesos too and had not seen an ATM in any off the small towns I had been in. I choose to head south and with the wind behind me again I was riding fast and easy.

 

Too tired to chase me

I found a petrol station and had a dinner of beef and salad and a 1.5 liter bottle of aqua con gas. I bought another bottle of water for the night and got back on the road looking for a place to pitch my tent. I passed a little path that went down off the roadside, protected on either side by large bushes and circled back to it. The path ran back to a fenced in pasture and did not seem to have been used recently by any vehicles. I pulled my bike down behind the bushes and put up my tent.

In the south the sky was dark and after the sun set the wind changed direction. I was ready to fall asleep and figured the dark clouds would blow in my direction and got out of the tent and pulled on the rain fly and put the protective seat cover over my Brooks saddle. It was not long after the wind began to really blow and the tent shook, and then the rain pounded down and the tent was lit up by lightning. It was a violent storm that lasted through the night and the wind howled and battered the tent and the rain fly whipped in the wind. But I was dry inside and cozy and the tent did not come down.