Day 8 - getting to La Junta - High Maintenance - 6 Week Carretera Austral - 2024

January 26, 2024

Day 8 - getting to La Junta

Another planned late start. It was not going to be a long ride so might as well enjoy the river and pretty scenery,

Get away day. Kind of sad to leave a beautiful spot

Morning coffee sitting on a log watching the water rush by kind of puts your mind at ease.

We met a nice young German couple the night before. So far German tourists and a British couple toss in Spanish, French, Scottish, and Argentinien, quite a mixture. The beauty of traveling and meeting new people.

I’ve spoken so much German on this trip. David is now telling me stop though. I’m waiting for someone to say I recognize them.

So far this was the best place to stay, for those that like camping try wild camping.

In case I didn’t send the link before

https://ioverlander.com/

David showed so many people on the road how to use it. You find so many things like places to stay, reservations Reviews of quality and pricing. All user driven.

At the campsite we found a relative to Bert. It was Charlie caterpillar. I was just going for a nice short walk in the woods and felt geez what is this biting on my left shoulder and there was this little hairy caterpillar starting to munch me. The reason I call it a relative to Burt is because usually a caterpillar turns into a moth or a butterfly, but anything that bites has to turn into an ugly little nasty fly, so if in a few weeks, I have a lump on my shoulder and all these little ugly little flies come out then I’ll know for sure it was a Bert caterpillar.

Like the chicken had to cross the road !

They were everywhere even the German couple commented on them crawling in the sand. As we were riding down the highway, they were crawling all over the payment. It must be that time of the year for them.

Okay i thought I was a techie. How without wifi when you scroll up on a phone apple can tell you it’s a spongy moth. They are all Bert relatives to me

Today was quite a cloudy day, and there was not as much to see as other days, but still some beautiful scenery,

Well today was another day of firsts. It was amazing to be riding down the highway and seeing cows on the side of the road halfway through the other lane, cars and trucks passing them and they didn’t even blink an eye.

Sometimes you have to look behind you to get a great shot

I will never get bored with riding on these roads. Curves and views.

One of the great things about cycle touring is meeting other people. We met this nice young man from Argentina he relocated to the states and we cycled with him for the rest of the afternoon and had a great dinner with him. It was so good to go to a restaurant and have somebody speak fluent Spanish and order food and not have to do the old Google Translate like I do.

Food truck with real fries. Won’t see a mcains bag

I must’ve repeat this tip a few times. I’ll repeat it again. If you’re doing a trip in a foreign country, learn the language. You don’t have to be fluent, but you should have a few good phrases under your belt

The rain gods have been very favourable with us. This is this was our seventh day riding and we had no rain. The rain finally started as we just got into La Junta and by the time we settled in our hostel it was coming down pretty hard,

First time using a hostel and to my surprise quite nice. It was very clean a warm shower, small compared to the cabana, but serves a purpose. Some you share a bathroom we got lucky had our own. The real advantage is you get to meet other travellers.

To those of you that are starting out travelling using Komoot is great however, today was the first day I didn’t use it because my batteries were too low. I kind of wondered do I really care about the upcoming hill. Komoot is great to track your elevation and stats on the ride An option is if you don’t really care is just have it running in the background if you have enough battery power and just ride and live in the moment of “hey there is a hill, I’ve got to go up it anyway”. The unexpected downhills are much nicer when you don’t except them

Another tip if going wild camping and rely on electronics better have them charged ! iPhone batteries get stupid over time and suck at holding a charge. I started today no power in my USB charger and phone at 45%. To hell with Komoot pictures and videos were more important.

For those following Komoot, luckily David had enough power

I’ll do the rest of the not know how bad a hill will be, just go with the flow.

Today's ride: 40 km (25 miles)
Total: 578 km (359 miles)

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