November 17, 2010
I enter Corrientes.
Leaving the cafe in Posadas where I made my last up-date, I find an ACA (Automovil Club Argentino) office just round the corner which believe it or not had a map of the Province of Corrientes. The ACA maps are as detail as you're likely to need including even most country houses and I've found the distances marked to be accurate.
I cycle back to the hostel in evening rush-hour traffic feeling vulnerable as drivers here really are crazy. They past so close it's as if you do not exist. There are hundreds of scooters buzzing past and absolutely no cycle-commuters. I think the general attitude here, at lease this is what comes across when people see me on my bike, is "why ride a bike when I can sit on something with an engine?". The idea that health and fitness through a little daily exercise hasn't quite yet caught on in South America.
Arriving back at the hostel thankfully in one piece, I at once fill a bucket of soupy water and set about washing the bike of the coating of red mud. Most would agree, there's nothing worse than riding a bike after a day in the rain without it being cleaned first. I adjust the brakes so they now work well and oil the chain.
Later, after preparing a simple meal of rice and vegetables which was by far, more nutritious and a fraction of the cost squandered in the restaurant the preceding evening, I was sat in the hostel dining area, while the lady that ran the place had the TV on. There was a football match, Boca verse River Plate, then she switched channels to the evening news. "What? This isn't the usual Argentinean channel. And why are they speaking with a strange accent?" I think. I ask. "Es Paraguayan" it's Paraguayan TV the lady repied. Then followed the weather, another warm day.
In the morning I had to make a few purchases then I was set for whatever lay ahead. The hostel as aforesaid was located on Route 12 only a few kilometres from the end of the builded-up zone so leaving the city was quick and easy. There were small wisps of white cloud so today wasn't as warm as it had been in recent days. The countryside ahead was flat, quite different from the rest of Misiones, the traffic was light which I kind of expected, most of it had most probably turned off onto a link road to Route 14, the main road South to Buenos Aires. At last I could cycle on the road without feeling that I may end up like roadkill.
Soon I was entering a new province, Corrientes, which was marked by a Gendarmeria Nacional check-point. I was flagged down. The officer checking my passport fingered through every page and looked at every stamp. He could not find my recent entry stamp though and concentrated on an entry stamp in July. I explained I had travelled for over a year and had made many border crossing back and forth into the country. Finally he found the relevant stamp and I was free to go.
The province of Corrientes is very different than the one I had left, Misiones which is all hills, it is low marshy pampa. There is a large wetlands area in the middle and it is this that my road South most do a big detour round. I was expecting a flat endless void but no there were pine plantations on either side providing relieve to the eye and also the scent of pine resin in the air. It was a pleasant ride. Through a gap in the trees on the right I see a great area of open water stretching to the horizon like an inland sea. According to the map it's the Parana river which is very wide at this point.
The pine plantations suddenly ended and so the road continued across the void, the flat boggy pampa with a row of electricity pylons on the left. The town that was my goal for the day, Ituzaingo, was at the far end somewhere. In that direction I saw plumes of white smoke, a scrub and grassland fire most likely.
A little later, the ball of my left foot began to hurt as I'd covered 85km without a pause but it was only 5km more. And then I find, another 2km off the main road. I stopped for a well earned lunch at a PetroBras service station on the way into town and end up spending two hours reading the latest up-dates on the website.
The town itself from what I saw cycling around looking for the municipal camping site is nice with tree-lined streets and a beach on the Parana river where people were sunning themselves. The camp-site was nearby. I find a hardware shop, after asking at the town's info centre the whereabouts of one, where I could buy some small alloy tubes with which to repair my broken tent-pole. The shopkeeper had just what I's looking for. I took three, one each for the two breaks in the pole and a spare. As I offered to pay he nodded his head and refused to take any money for them. So the day ended with me happy to be able to repair the tent.
Today's ride: 101 km (63 miles)
Total: 5,723 km (3,554 miles)
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