It´s a wonderful day today ...

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What a glorious mornings ride. We set off on our bikes before 9am and then enjoyed 3 or 4 hours of demanding but wonderful cycling.

There were several significant climbs uphill over the first 22kms, usually followed by a fast downhill straight back down to the lake shore giving up all the hard work we´d done, but as I´ve found in the past if you hate the downhills because of the uphills to come well you just shouldn't be cycling.

Christie´s achilles and knee were really hurting her by the time we stopped for a bit of a break and we were both looking forward to a rest in San Martin. We finally made it to the plateau above the lake, and got to enjoy 10km of fast riding down a long valley, a short climb up over a ridge, and then 8kms of really fast, furious downhill into San Martin. Beware the Slippery Ripio though - nearly came a cropper several times.

Booked into a beautiful hostel, only 55 pesos ($A25) with big comfy bed, own shower and really nice breakfast. Just what we needed. Think it´s called Las Lucanas. It´s only a block from the central square as well.

After hot showers we parked ourselves in a little cafe and proceeded to eat about $A40 worth of food. Believe me this is pretty hard to do in Argentina. Tomas, a German guy we´d spent some time with in Villarrica, wandered past the window, and two minutes later he and another guy were beside us beer in hand.

San Martin is a really outdoor town ... Think Queenstown, New Zealand. we dropped off our laundry (I felt very sorry for them), jumped on the internet and caught up on the news from home, and then went out for more food ... Parillador Libre (all you can eat of course). Discovered a new thing ... ice in red wine. We laughed at first, then thinking we should do as the Romans do we tried it ... it was really good.

I was asleep 2 minutes after walking back into our hostel. Christie took advantage of the first bath we´d found in South America and soaked her knee. I found out about this the next morning.

Bliss.


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Nonthue Campground to San Martin do Los Andes
Distance: 39.63km. Toptal Trip Distance: 269.4km
Mood: Bouyant but slightly weary.
Route. All Gravel. Several hills, but none too steep. Great run into San martin, but very slippery surface. No shops or anything much in between. One picnic area and a couple of houses.

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Photos

The sign says it all ...
I loved this sign ... it sort of said it all for some of the hills we climbed up today.

Breakfast
Things were getting dire. Breakfast consisted of milo with powdered milk, two pieces of chocolate, two very squashed bananas and a stale white roll. Yummy.

Tent
Oh dear ... discovered that my tent is on it´s last legs. This is where the top tensioning pole goes in. Can´t see it lasting the Patagonian Winds.

The only way is up.
You see an awful lot of these signs. An awful lot.

Christie´s Knee
You promise me that signs wrong? I can´t go up any more.

The unbeliever
It looks like it goes down, but does it really? Will I have to just pedal up again? It does, I can see it up there in the distance.

San Martin
Chocolate, beer, hot food, shower ... Look, we´re almost there Christie ... Christie? ... Hey, come back here, wait for meeee ...