Day 13 - biking gods said rest - High Maintenance - 6 Week Carretera Austral - 2024

January 31, 2024

Day 13 - biking gods said rest

The biking gods and my body said rest. Oh that and the rain that is falling down right now. It was just spitting early in the morning when Alejandro left and now it’s coming down pretty good so it’s a good choice to stay to rest and relax. So this posting will be more of some fun shots around town than biking stories. It is a good idea at least at my age to take a break and let your body recharge.

Forecast for next few days. Will plan rest days when raining. We don’t mind riding in the rain, just if you have to set up a tent in the rain it kinda sucks

There is this great cherry tree outside our dining room, open the window and pick a snack !

David had time to play video king.

https://youtu.be/HKRiTbcM1Nk?feature=shared

I lied yesterday, a cousin of Bert nailed me as we were getting ready to start riding. They do leave a mark !

The stairs going up to our room. Going up you need to lean forward otherwise you would fall, and going down you need to lean back otherwise you do a header.

Remember my comment about the rebar sticking straight up and getting impaled, another example of survival of the fittest or as we say culling the herd. Some steep inclines were easier than a 4am bio break at 4am in the pitch dark.

I need to start the next part with an apology to all my friends that are vegetarians. Last night as we were going out to look for a place to eat we passed this great barbeque place and saw this nice slow cooking piece of lamb on a spit. Unfortunately it was not gonna be ready till 8 PM and usually this is a two hour meal so therefore we decided to pass on that last night and David and I we’re going to enjoy a great lunch having barbecued lamb. After seeing a few pictures of me on this trip, my daughter said “dad you look too skinny you need to eat more” so here I am eating more and also I was given the go ahead to eat junk food so there you go everything is a plus with this trip .

Like eggs and chicken, aka Pollo everything taste better here. Because the chickens run around visiting your tent or wherever you are they are not eating the garbage they eat in Ontario

David ready to chow down. No mint sauce required.

For those of you that remember Breaking Bad, you should remember the trucks with pollo on the side. Your Spanish lesson for the day.

For those that need a reminder ! One of the best Netflix shows

Remember, cash is king. Bring pesos instead of credit cards. Few reasons the credit card company is always ding. You on exchange rates in their favour and the merchants always have to pay a credit card fee. Remember that the merchants down here are poor and have very little so therefore, the more money they don’t have to waste the better. Do not assume that someone will even take a credit card or even American cash or Canadian cash a few places we saw where people try to pay by cash and the cabana and the host did not accept anything but a peso.

As David told me in Argentina, it’s a different story since their currency is so sporadic with valuation the American dollar is the key there. So for Argentina do not bring Argentina pesos, use your American cash. It is hard to recommend any kind of budget since everybody will have a different way of spending money on their travels. The average decent meal is about 20 to 25,000 pesos. A cabaña or a hostel will range anywhere from 15 to 35,000 pesos depending on double occupancy. In some restaurants, they automatically add a 10% tip which of course you can decline but again these people are very poor here so I don’t mind tipping even a little higher, depending on the service and the food. You will be amazed at how nice the people are to you and how they want to make sure you’re happy with the meal and the service.

For those of you camping you can make your own real coffee. The further you get south the further away you get from real coffee. We packed some ground coffee, and in hindsight, we should’ve packed more we’ve almost exhausted our Costco coffee, and will be getting close to drinking Nescafé. Which if you are a coffee snob that is not coffee.

Nescafé ! sacrilege that’s not coffee, I’ll drink tea before drink pretend coffee

Razor wire ???? Like what’s in there kind of gives me the creeps

Hahahaha you can tell it’s not a cycling day!

We ended the day with movie night. NYAD on my IPad .. excellent movie !

David getting comfortable with the chips !

Oh those that leave comments and well wishes we thank you so much, I’m trying to figure out how to reply. Every time I try asks me to sign in. I’ve got a month to figure it out !

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