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Published: October 13th 2019
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Day 18 Antonito to Olo Caliente
To prove we aren’t telling porkies check the screenshot of the temperature this morning. We left Antonito at just before 10am - we waited for the temperature to get closer to 0 before setting off. Once again we were well layered up. The route quickly took us onto the BDR and we noted as we started, the temperature had just reached 0 C. We climbed on a gravel road, narrow one track with the by now usual rocks to 2800m. Didn’t check the temperature here but felt colder, we had to stop regularly on the climb to thaw our hands out.
We descended to ride a gravel road beside a beautiful river. This was scenic but on a gnarly rock strewn track. Concentrating on negotiating the rocks it was hard to take in the fantastic scenery with gold & yellow deciduous trees. We had plenty of “thaw” stops so luckily we got a chance to admire the views.
Before long we climbed again on an even more rocky track, finally reaching an elevation of 3100m & of course it was still very cold. Even at that altitude there were people out camping
in caravans or as they call them here trailers. We continued on more single track with lots of rocks & now baked hard 4 wheel drive ruts which after heavy rain would be a water course - in the dry a hazard to be avoided. We stopped at a nice spot for lunch & soaked up some sun to try to get a bit of warmth back into our frozen bodies. Gradually dropping down to just under 2000m on a good track we, of course still encountered the occasional rocks, culverts & sand which kept us on our toes. Joining a sealed road as we turned off the BDR we diverted 25kms into Olo Caliente where we had booked very rustic accommodation. Only 165kms today but freezing hands the whole way.
After our early arrival we walked down the road to the Olo Caliente mineral pools. We spent a couple of hours here soaking our weary bones & then back to our world record darkness motel. We think there must be a code that moteliers adhere to where they limit the number lights in each room & if they do have a light it has the lowest wattage bulb
you can buy & a black lampshade.
A highlight of the day was the steak restaurant attached to the motel. The waiter/restaurant manager was a good advert to vote against the decriminalization of dope. This guy was very pleasant, but he was definitely “One toke over the line” He had a habit of disappearing (probably going back to his room to top-up). He told us that this area was weird without elaborating. He did explain that the weather in this region was affected by being in a straight line from the Pyramids in Egypt. I am not a meteorologist or a qualified cartographer which he may have well been, but it occurred to me that if you spread out a world map you could draw a line from the Pyramids to anywhere in the world. Mmmmm!
We dined in this well set up restaurant which had tables & seating for around 100 plus patrons. We were the only customers! The food was good but the “piece de resistance “ was the music. Played by a young Cuban pianist who was brilliant. He said his grandfather had been the pianist at the Copacabana in Havana. He played a lot of
Chopin plus some Billy Joel & some jazz. Later in the evening he was joined by a bongo player & the restaurant owner on the drums. On request they did a fantastic rendition of Take 5 by Dave Brubeck. Altogether an entertaining night.
Day 19 Olo Caliente to Cuba (the town not the country) Retracing our steps back up the sealed road 25kms to re-join our route, we then did around 30kms on an enjoyable gravel road (albeit with the normal rocks) through a National Park Forest. We then reached the small settlement of El Rico and shortly after turned onto an expert section of the BDR. This was once again a single track rocky, gnarly uphill climbing once again to close to 3000m. Descending the other side we encountered some steep loose rock downhills where I pushed the “bravado” button as the “skill” button seemed to have gone AWOL. We somehow managed to negotiate all this successfully to arrive at the main sealed road towards our destination of Cuba (town not country). Interesting to note that this state of New Mexico is very Mexican – signs, which many of are in Spanish & the people are often
speaking to each other in Spanish. Gassing up at Abiquiu we then turned onto the BDR route & traveled up a valley on the Old Spanish trail next to the Rio Chama (note correct spelling as in the last blog I spelled it incorrectly) At the head of this valley there was a Hydro dam. The road zig zagged up the face of this rock/earth dam. At the top we viewed the body of water behind the dam which was around a km away from the dam & very low. The road from here was seal for around 40kms until we turned off onto a nice gravel road getting up to around 2600m & meeting a few other motorcyclists coming the other way - probably following the same BDR route in reverse. We joined a sealed road for around 20kms then the route turned off this sealed road onto a really enjoyable gravel road which meandered through some great scenery leading us into Cuba. 250 enjoyable kms today. Our motel is basic, reasonably priced ultra clean & a huge surprise the motelier came in & replaced a blown light bulb with no prompting. We can see what we are doing
for once!
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Rob Gillard
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From down under
Really enjoying the blog, fantastic write ups, go well all of you, and please say "hi" to Keith.