November 26, 2010
Big detour.
I awoke sometime in the night, the fly-sheet being discarded because of the heat, looking up at familiar star consolations and distant galaxies hundreds of light years away. It makes you think how brief life is in the great scheme of things and desire to live life to the full, perhaps, cycle-touring.
By nine the next day,I had already covered 45km and had reached the first houses of Federal, a large town just as it began to swelter. A snake glided nimbly over the hot tar and before I knew to halt between my front and back wheel, though it past through safely without any part being run-over. I had to stop and look. The snake was feeling it's way along like a blind person, each circular curl of it's body making strong contact with the road flicking itself forward at an incredible speed for a legless creature, while It's head rebound backwards over it's pointy tail with each curling motion of it's fat middle. It didn't seem interested in returning into the safety of the grass verge, instead traveling along the dip depression left by truck wheels. And danger was imminent as a convoy of three trucks fastly approached on this side. I watched. The first truck-driver most have seen the snake as it moved out to avoid it, the other three followed in unison, nevertheless I thought it a goner as it blindly moved within millimetres of the wheels. Those truckers seemingly have big hearts and don't like killing wildlife on the road if at all possible.
I had enough food in the bag but a cold drink and water on days like this is always welcome. I stop at a PetroBras service station on the other side of town. As I refill my water bottles, I become the usual centre of attention with the forecourt staff, a thing I loath as I sweat profusely and my mouth is parched and I just want a cold drink and I most tell my life story. Argentines are extremely extrovert people, thereby instantly approach strangers, like me, that they are curious about. Most of the women are polite and approach saying "desculpe, estoy curioso", excuse me I'm curious, where are you from? This I can handle without feeling stress inside. The men on the other-hand tend to jump over pleasantry and fire away with questions like how did you earn the money to travel. I feel like saying mind your own business, but I remain polite. I buy a beer which the shopkeeper thinks is funny, stupid old stereotype, Irish people like beer and drink alot. But there is simply nothing in the world more refreshing on a hot day than a cold amber pilsen beer which froths-up when poured. I leave the forecourt and find shelter underneath trees by the roadside to drink my beer unmolested.
Cycling on, I had no idea how far it would be to the next cold drink or a road junction where I would turn South as I was now off my well detailed ACA map and back on the no detail Rutas Argentinas map. I am, remember, riding a big detour, consequently adding an extra 130km to my itinerary because the direct route is Route 14 one of the busies roads in the country and therefore by the planners logic deemed to be narrow without a shoulder. Another thing the planners overlook are rest areas. The roads have a great wide space between the roads edge and the fence, a leftover from the days when cattle were driven to market and so needed a wide berth. In this space, it wouldn't have cost much to plant a dozen pinetrees at intervals for shade. I would like to stop and rest but where do I without getting burned.
I reach a comidor just in time for lunch. The young guy in attentants tells me it is 5km to the junction where I will turn South. While I was leaving a cattle truck pulled in and the driver comes in looking for lunch. Let me set the reason for my curiousity, the road I's on now was populated by truck after truck full of cattle, articulated and double decker some of them road trains, all of them thankfully where considerate giving me a wide berth, well there wasn't much other traffic hence rarely oncoming vehicles and when there was they slowed and waited. I was taking a photo from the veranda when the driver returns out. I ask where the cattle came from. "Lots come from Corrientes. Those are from Misiones", he replies, pointing to the cattle nervously shuffling in the top deck. "There going to be" he continues in a queiter tone, moving his index finger across his throat to represent a knife. "Where are you taking them" I inquire. "Those are going to San Juan" he replies. San Juan is a dry arid Andean province, a very long way from Misiones.
I made a useful discovery in the afternoon. In this part of the world if you order a beer in a restaurant they serve you a litre bottle in a polystren cover so that it remains cool. It had been stiring me in the face all the time, namely, I simply roll a cold bottle of coke in my foam sleeping mat, simple and it works.
Later in the afternoon, many kilometres into the road South from the sought junction, I was passing a farm where a son helped by his mother and her daugter in-law, I surmised, were separating a calf from a cow. The lively cafe got away and the young man grabs it carrying it in his arms but it was too heavy to be carried long and it struggled and slips to the ground. The young man's mother comes to the rescue grabbing it by the tail and the daugter in-law wards off the furious cow with a stick. Suddenly, then a group of cattle break away running from the herd round-up off to the side and two gauchos come galoping after overtaking, turning them back to whence they came.
I stopped again at a small store petrol station at five and bough a big bottle of Pepsi, now confident I could keep it cold. I kept going then for another two hours, more than I would have liked as finding a place to camp proved a little difficult, there being houses every few hundred metres. Eventually though, I come upon a gateway to a field of maize enough distance from the nearest house. It was not well shielded from the road but I think if I'm not trampling crop people seemingly should not care.
Today's ride: 164 km (102 miles)
Total: 6,531 km (4,056 miles)
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