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Published: November 19th 2005
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Around the next corner ...
Life´s always goodf when viewed from behind the handlebars ... So it was beautiful, pretty, gorgeous, amazing. Every corner brought a new view, a new surprise, the road dragged us onwards ... blah, blah, blah ... I´m sure you get the idea, and if not, wait until I get another CD burnt of my photos and I´ll show you what I mean.
In short it was a pretty amazing day.
There were a few niggles. Firstly the bitumen pavement ended about 1km from where we camped 😞 ... but it was 50km of the best dirt road we´ve cycled so far by a long, long way. Plus it becomes bitumen again at the Southern end of Lago Espejo, about 15km before El Cruce where we´re spending tonight.
Another slight complaint was that about 8kms (of wonderfull downhill) from our windy and wet campsite we found another official campsite which was at a lower altitude (hence the downhill), was on dry ground, was shaded from the wind, and was beside a gorgeous clear river ... the benefit of hindsight hey! Oh well, next time.
The biggest problem of today was Christie´s knee which just got worse and worse. We´ve agreed that she´ll take the bus to Bariloche tomorrow
Beautiful Forests
This is just 20 metres from where we camped the night before. and I´ll cycle there, then we can rest a couple of days and see if it improves. It´s not so nice to be cycling with someone who looks like they shouldn´t be walking, never mind cycle touring, and knowing all you can do is let them shout at the world and hope that you get to the end of the day without anything too bad happening. It didn´t. Yay!
Other than the amazing forests, the highlight for me today was the people. Feeling tough and independent cycling where we were, we came around the corner and met two guys from Buenos Aires hitching down the same road with guitars on their backs. Doh!
A couple of hours later we were sitting beside a small lagoon called Laguna Bailey Willis which is in the absolute middle of nowhere. Seriously, I´d be willing to bet that you wouldn´t find this Lagoon using a Google search it´s so remote and unknown.
So anyway, we´re sitting there eating cheese, avocado and meat paste sandwhiches and this little white buzz box of a car pulls up and out jump these two Australians we´d gone snorkelling with up at Bonito and travelled down
to Foz de Iguazu with. We´d last seen them there and they were on their way up to Peru after a quick vist to Buenos Aires. Apparently in the time it had taken us to get to our little Laguna, they´d flown up to Cuzco, walked the Inca Trail, travelled down to La Paz in Bolivia, cycled the world´s most dangerous road, and then flown down to Puerto Montt in Chile, hired a white buzz box for five days and were cruising around the lakes District. Small, small world.
As we set off from lunch 30 minutes later, I saw this motorbike coming towards us and the guy pulled alongside me and started chatting so I pulled over to have a yarn. Turned out he was from England and had been riding through the Americas for the last 19 months. We actually think we saw him and his companions in Cuzco several months ago ... small, small world as I say.
He had some great stories to tell. such as crashing into a minicab in Peru and spending ten weeks in Cuzco with a dislocated shoulder and later smashing his front forks, turning his front tyre into an
Where we should have camped
views back up the way we´ve just come from. oval shape and breaking his hand when trying to ´run a peasant blockade´in Bolivia by sneaking around the side of Lake Titicaca at night ... There was no blockade, but someone had dug a big trench across the path to stop people such as him from attemting exactly what he was attempting .... over the handle bars we go .... ouch!
Big bit of interesting news is that his friends managed to fly their motorbikes from Santiago to Auckland for just $US500 excess baggage ... How about it Rod - bring that newly restored bike of yours over here and come join us for a little trip down to Terra del Fuego??? I´m sure Christie would love a bike with an engine for a change.
So that´s it ... another day, another 60kay. My bike has been developing a very nasty sqeaking sound over the last two days, but I can´t pinpoint where it is coming from. Not good, but hey - who´s worried? Christie (who is reading past blogs next to me) has just informed me with her middle finger extended in the air that she does know about bike mechanics, so all is good.
Almost
Bike
Goldie needed a rest. Too much squeaking, plus Christie´s chain fell off and she needed some space. forgot, saw the coolest sign at the end of the bitumen road, basically it said that this section cost $33,990,834.30 pesos. Which is siilar tp saying it cost $15 million dollars and 30 cents .... you got to like that attention to detail!!!!
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Lago Villarino to El Cruce (Villa la Angostura)
Distance: 64.11km. Total Distance: 385.2km
Mood: Better than a beer on a Friday night. Worried about Christie´s knee though.
Route: 50km of pretty good dirt roads. Lots of undulations. but mainly nice grades with a few steep sections ... road works are in progress and it is obvious some of the nastier sections won´t exist in the near future. No real shops or anything until Villa la Angostura which seems to have the lot. Last 15km is sweet. sweet bitumen with really nice easy gradients. Lovely way to finish the day.
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christie
non-member comment
you would cry too!
Well my knee is still in pain, infact Im having difficulty walking, sleeping and siting. Too much too soon I say is the cause, or maybe just a bike thats not setup properly. I have promised jd, that when my knee recovers and i can ride without pain again, that i will not swear as much. I promise. You dont realise how much you miss driving or catching a bus, until you ride. So thats why Im utterly upset at my knee. I want to get back out there asap. Can let jd get too much fitness advantage over me.