A tale between 2 cities.

January 18, 2011

The hostel in Puerto Madryn was a full house, it being the holiday season, and for that reason it wasn't easy having a shower in the mornings, unless you rose especially early which I don't when staying in a hostel. Thus it is always well after midnight when I go to bed, so unlike camping when I lay-down to sleep when it gets dark. After cooking and eating dinner in a hostel kitchen which is always a little more extravagant than can be managed when camping, be sociable with the other guests, write my diary and do the up-dating of the journal, the time has flown and the watch shows a new date and perhaps 00.57.

This morning however, I was fed-up with the smell of body-odor, and was determined to shower before breakfast even if it meant waiting outside the door. This morning, though, there was no waiting, that door which is normally closed at this time and the hiss of the shower within was open and the bathroom empty. The shower is blissful, as good as the cup of strong coffee which will follow.

In Patagonia, there are days when you wish to have remained indoors after setting off from a hostel, or at any rate, think about turning back and checking in for another night. Today was one of those days. I was late, I've said, not having followed the theory of getting out early before the wind rose for the reasons I've said while staying in a hostel. Today, but, it was only 65km to my goal, Trelew, and because of the comparatively short distance, I wasn't overly rushed.

The main road, Route 3, bypasses Puerto Madryn a few kilometres inland, and there is an access road up from the city that meets Route 3 at a right angle on the hilltop. It was on this road that I thought the wind is definitely too strong today and I should maybe turn back and try getting away earlier tomorrow morning. Leaving the last houses behind, I could feel grains of airborne sand hitting me in the face and getting in my eyes. There were papers and cardboard tumbled across the road. And up ahead clouds of dust billow like a house on fire across the road.

I don't know what they were doing there but on a wide unpaved service road running paralell, were grading machines, loading shovels and tripper trucks working and this was the cause of the dust storm. By this point I'd no longer thoughts of turning round as it was clear that the strong crosswind would be a tailwind once I turned South on Route 3. I had to endure riding in a blinding hail of dust and sand. It got in my eyes, I crunched sand between my teeth and dust went down my throat. I felt like a drowning man for a bit. It would leave a gritty sheen on my skin the rest of the day.

Such a relieve it was to pass the area where the machines worked and to reach Route 3 where as always the inter-section is a big roundabout, here I turn ninety degree and while the wind was still a crosswind, it came at me more to the rear and so was of little consequence. The paved shoulder that there was on the day I arrived in Puerto Madryn continued today but there was also a new carriage-way build off to the right, as part of a scheme to turn this section into a dual-carriageway. This was not completed and thus was not open to traffic, but, I elected to ride it rather than the shoulder, as I felt even safer there from the possibility of a sudden gust of strong wind from the side pushing me into the traffic.

The road South crosses a veritable open moor of brownish scrub. It was across this that the Welsh after many weeks spent in their shelters on the beach had to march across. Hungry and thirsty, they weren't even sure of the way. One of them, a man called Joseph walked off to climb a hill to see if he could see the Chubut Valley. He became lost and never was seen again. The hill is now called Sierra Jose, or, Joseph's hill.

The start of the decent down to the Chubut valley.

The new unopened road was good but like all good things it didn't last. I reached the section where the work was taking place, with rollers and ash-felting machines, but by now I didn't have far to go. The shoulder back on the road was now gone, so after pushing around the rollers and other machines, I's able to ride on on the level compacted hardcore which awaited ash-felting. I only had a few kilometres of this until I reached the point where the road goes down into a great hollow, the Chubut Valley, not far from Trelew. Here I stop for lunch on a pile of metal pipes laid by the roadside. I had the usual problem of making a sandwich and eating without shelter from the wind. Anything light you take from the bag most be anchored down by something heavy and the plastic bag with the food fluttered crazily in the wind as I make a sandwich inside it, a measure to keep the bread and ingredients clean from airborne sand and dust as well as sheltered. I only had tap water today and it quench my thirst but thereafter it tasted of chemicals, so I would be mighty glad to reach the first service station on the way into Trelew.

The swoop down into the Chubut Valley with Trelew in sight. By now the cloud was closing in.

The last stretch, I ride on the gravel service road.

It's the way when you're so thirsty on entering a city, there's seemingly miles of billboards, works, warehouses, waste-ground but a long way to that first shop and possibility of buying a drink. So it was on entering Trelew. I sit now in that looked forward to service-station cafeteria having gulped down half a bottle of coke which I'll finish.

I sit almost an hour with the computer open before me. A little too long, as when I'd come out the weather had turned vile. Thick gray cloud had closed in, it spat rain and it was now very windy. It was still a few kilometres to the city-centre and I was considering turning back and taking shelter at the service-station as I now ploughed against the wind. Kids on bikes came meeting me and joggers too, as I struggled along a kind of cycle-lane, so this type of weather is considered normal here.

I soon turned off into a street where the houses provided shelter from the wind. I rode around a little as I became co-ordinated with the streets and tried to remember which street the hostel was in, I stayed at the last time in Trelew, but could I remember, though it came to me eventually, the familiar street. The first thing I done after checking in was have a shower,the second today, to wash the dust and grit off.

Today's ride: 69 km (43 miles)
Total: 9,017 km (5,600 miles)

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