Los Antiguos

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When I looked over the different sections of the route, as designed by the Ride Adventure company, I noticed that today's run, at 120 km, was by far the shortest. I wondered why. Now I know. While the scenery was spectacular, as always, today’s trip was all about the road. It wound along the southern shore of this, the second largest lake in South America, a winding slash carved out of hills that drop straight down to the lake. Sometimes swooping down to water level, sometimes climbing high to the plateau, the ride provided all the conceivable challenges a gravel road can offer – except for one. It was dry. If it had been wet, I would still be out there.

Have you ever noticed that little orange @ indicator light that sometimes goes on when you are driving, usually when it’s a little slippery. I have never given it much attention. It turns out on these new fangled, ride by someone else’s wire motorcycles, that little sign means that the power turns off when the back wheel loses traction. That may be great when you are in ice or snow. It can be very disconcerting when tracking uphill standing in the pegs in deep gravel and you hit a washboard section. The bike is bouncing around and just when you need the power to get up and out of it, it cuts off. Yucchh. It will allow power to come back again when it feels like it. Makes handling the beast even more tricky. I haven’t fallen, but it was close back there, until I figured out how to cut that feature out. Part of the learning curve I guess.

Tonight I am back in Argentina, in a town called “Lost Antiguos”, the Old Ones. Seems to fit me somehow. This area has the largest plantation of cherries in Argentina. We are at harvest time, and I had all the cherries I could eat at dinner. They were really good. The hotel on the lake is a nice, old-fashioned-on-purpose place, with the 1950’s feel of many older hotels in Uruguay (even though it was built in 2000). Very comfortable.

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Photos

Morning looking West and down on the lake
Puerto Guadal down on left.

Morning, looking East along the lake
from high up on the road.

I thought this was the veneration of an accident site
but the collection of bottles is very strange.

Evening take on House on the lake
Photo taken evening before, from Terra Nova Hotel at Puerto Guadal.

Comments

[Gerlach Christopher]

Your stories
Become more fascinating by the day. Good to see you have such a great time.

[Beth]

You are in danger of overdosing on all that gorgeous scenery.

[Harry]

You are going to be really pleased when you blow some of these shots up, especially the house on the lake, one of my favorite kinds of shots.

[Harry]

Lost communications
Somehow after you left Antiguos your system says one can comment only on some blog that I can't figure out how to get to. So I'm following but can't comment. Good Luck