August 29, 2010
Entre Rios: New province. And this one should be better than the last..
Day 23. Sun 29th Aug. Santa Fe to Parana 30kms.
My watch alarm bleeped at 7.15 and again at 7.20. I's awake though some time before after a deep but short night's sleep. Somehow I didn't feel that excited about cycling on today or I didn't want to remain in Santa Fe another day either as it's expensive. I moved slowly putting my things together. The hotel costs 70 pesos or 12 sterling which presently is rock bottom price but doesn't include breakfast as it's only for a small room nothing else. I remember only a few short years ago 15 pesos for a cheap hotel 40 to 50 expensive. Now hosteling internationals are 40 to 50 for a shared dorm. But I've wondered off from where I was in a cafe because the hotel didn't serve breakfast drinking a double espresso accompanied by three croissants or medialunas as they're called here. I had a second double espresso, the total came to 20 pesos or 3.35 sterling before returning to the hotel and checking out.
The road east out of Santa Fe didn't help my cynical out look either. The sky was uniformed lead coloured. The wind blew from the south chilling to the bone. The ground a bleak tundra. Then, as if that wasn't enough the signs indicated the road ahead would sink into a tunnel under the Parana river. But at the toll-gate for the tunnel, a man with a breakdown trunk employed pacifically to tow vehicles which breakdown in the tunnel out, loaded my bike and trailer on the back of his trunk and drove me through the brightly lit blue and white tiled tunnel to the police check point into a new province, Entre Rios.
The police didn't see me being dropped off and were quite surprised when they did see me as they couldn't work out how I'd got there and thought I'd cycled through the tunnel which would have been quite fatalistic as well as illegal. After I'd explained I had had an accomplice I got on to telling them, as they were curious to know, all about my cycle-tour which led to the officer in charge ringing a few local newspapers. I didn't much like the idea of talking to a reporter but I didn't want to seem ungrateful either. Finally after what most have been a dozen or more phone calls which all went like this 'I've got an Irishman who's cycled from Salta and will be' and so on. During which there was much waiting while the person on the other end phoned a reporter who didn't answer or if they did were not happy to be waken up on a Sunday morning.
I cycled the few kilometres more into the Provincial capital Parana which had a waterfront on the river a large open green and now as the sun was shining was full of people enjoying Sunday. The map I obtained from a tourist info centre on the way in showed the city centre to be somewhere east of this green but there was a great hill in the way with some type of fort or look-out on top. There were many roads steeply up this hill but seemingly no way round. I doubled back along the waterfront for quite a bit and was getting fed-up so turned inland up a street which didn't look as sleep as the others which just happened to be the one leading to a hostel two blocks from the centre.
Mon 30th Aug. Parana, provincial capital of Entre Rios.
What a relieve there being a hostel in Parana costing 45 pesos is and this one cannot be described as anything less than excellent. The interior is open plan with reception, lounge with comfortable sofas and beanbags, good kitchen all in the same airy open space not bad for the equivalent of 7.50 sterling sleeping in a dorm which doesn't matter as I'm the only one it being low season. So I,ve remain here another day.
I wanted to take photos of the city as I didn't get the chance to take any in Santa Fe what with one thing or the other. The day unfortunately was even greyer than yesterday. I thought maybe the afternoon would turn out sunny, but it got even more overcast and like rain. It was sods law me waiting an extra day here to take photos and it being so grey but I set the ISO to 200 and dialed the aperture down to 3.5 so allot of the photos have nice blurred backgrounds, perfect.
This year is the bicentennial of the May revolution when The united provinces of the river plate, as it was then called severed ties with Spain. Here is a little wall art referring to it in the next photo.
I then took a few photos in the plaza before walking down towards the waterfront to a park on top of that hill which worried me yesterday. There there were swings and slides but I soon got carried away taking photos of small birds. I continued on down to the waterfront before returning to the centre where I's able to take a photos I thought of earlier namely of new pavement being laid and a billboard with the president taking credit for it.
In the hostel the Internet has been down most of the evening so it has been a slow job up-loading these photos so perhaps the hostel isn't flawless after all.
Tue 31th Aug. Parana.
As the hostels empty of guests except for me the owner had a dinner party last night. I'd already drunk a bottle of my own wine but one of the quests kept topping up my glass. Consequently I wasn't in the mood to leave this morning, even less so as it was raining. So what do I do today? I'd over a kilogram of stuff I aught to sent home as it's just stuff I don't use which I planned to do over breakfast but in Argentina a simple job of posting a package home is made hard as nobody or at lease everybody I asked didn't know where the customs house was. Eventually someone said it was by the port but as that is quite a large area they couldn't narrow it down further and they supposedly close at midday and now it was eleven. So I gave up and was left with a package under my arm the rest of the day until I returned to the hostel.
I's due a hair cut. The barber as barbers are was very talkative. The conversation kicked of as is usual with my bike tour. 'Tan lejos' such distance, 'que loco'. That led to the story of the entreriano as locals are called cycle to Ushuaia in July which although winter at lease it's still. Which prompted comments on the Patagonian wind. The barber told me he'd a brother living in Comodoro Rividavia which is said to have the strongest wind in the world. It could be right as when I's there a few years ago the strong wind was ceaseless day and night making it impossible to stand up at times. Then as my tour goes on to Uruguay and Brazil he's able to fill me in on such things as prices. I'm glad he agreed with everybody else I've asked that the food is cheaper in Brazil and muy rica, very good. So there, I've mush to look forward to in the weeks ahead.
Today's ride: 31 km (19 miles)
Total: 1,266 km (786 miles)
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 0 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 0 |