October 9, 2010
Route 31: Day 2. Long road to Salto.
It'll take me a while to get used to the so called Summer daylight saving time and adjust my body clock to the fact that it's now 7.30, not 6.30. Besides it was an overcast morning, the lack of sun fooled me into thinking it was earlier than it was until I looked at my watch. While I lay awake a light breeze blew the fly sheet back and forth so the tent was dry and ready to pack for the road. It was one of those mornings which although looking grey you knew it wasn't going to rain and the low cloud would soon clear.
The road this morning was next till empty of cars, perhaps one every twenty minutes or so. The road like yesterday remained narrow, rough and patchy. It had not been surfaced in who knows how long. Often the cattle grazing the rough pasture on either side would be by the fence and stir curiously at me. Apart from the cattle looking on there weren't much that was man-made other than an occasional drystone wall or approaching noon when I passed a derelict house with a tomb nearby. The inscription read, J___ ___ who died 25th May 1915 aged 67. Remember by his dearly beloved wife and sons. Allot of money had been spent originally on the tomb with iron railings decorative plaster work but now wife and sons are gone too so it's sadly fallen into neglect.
I pressed on till I found a place suitable to stop for lunch. I'd salami and bread left from yesterday plus a little bit of cake but now I's quite short of water. There were lots of pools and slow flowing streams which didn't look good even if it were boiled. I'd just half a litre left and that would have to last until I encountered a village. However I'd seen few houses never mind villages on this road. Looking at the map there were white circles farther on but would the circle be a place with a shop. I would have to wait and see. At lease it wasn't a warm day so I didn't feel too thirsty.
It was now 1.30 and I'd only covered 35km in the morning. This afternoon I needed to keep pressing on and not waste mush time stopping if I wanted to get to Salto early tomorrow as for obvious reasons I like to arrive in a city no later than early afternoon. I'd need to cover in the region of 60km to make up for slow progress in the morning.
In the afternoon the landscape changed from looking like North Yorkshire to looking more like Patagonia with a long straight road across a rolling plain. The road dipped down and crossed quite a few slow stagnat streams with a steep rise up the other side of the bridge. On the bridge over one large stream I stopped and looked at my map. I found a curvy blue line with a name which matched the name on the sign for this stream. The distance marked from the stream to the junction with route 4 where there was also a circle marked was only 5km. Twenty minutes later as I approached the junction I could see a village across the plain on my left. At the junction was the sign, Celeste 1km arrowed left. 1km south on route 4.
Celeste was a small place of twenty houses or so and no sign of any shop at first. As usual people looked from their houses at me while I cycled along the dirt street. A little girl toddler came running out off a garden towards me the mother quickly ran after grabbing her by the waist and taking her back in. Farther on the street turned a corner revealing a school, a play ground and amenity area. Turning again I's back on route 4 but then I saw a house with a sign on the garden fence, Provisions. The lady filled my water bottles and I bough a bottle of coke. I asked was there Alfarjores. 'No there wasn't' she replied so I bough four pastries instead. I sat on the grass outside eating one which was a poor alternative and drank my fill of coke before cycling back to the junction and route 31 again.
There was another village and the countryside ahead was more populated as now it was less than 60km to Salto. This of course made finding a place to camp that nuch harder. I past a small wood with a gate open so I got off and began to wheel the bike in but at that moment a kid was cycling along the road and I'm sure he would have told everybody. It didn't matter though as I first discoverad bee-hives in the wood, then chickens and then a few steps further I saw what I now suppected that the wood backed onto a farmhouse so I's out off there.
It was such a change from there being no houses most of the day to now when every grove of trees was looked upon by a nearby farm house but in the end it's nearly always possible to find somewhere to camp.
Tonight as I write I'm camped in a grove of trees along a field fence shielded from view from the road by undergrowth and a thick tree trunk. It's only little over 200 metres to what I though to be a lived in farm house but I don't see any lights on tonight. This evening as I prepare pasta for dinner I'd the company of a dozen or so black heifers stood looking on through the fence curious as ever to what I's up to.
Today's ride: 116 km (72 miles)
Total: 3,716 km (2,308 miles)
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