January 27, 2011
Ruta40 to Esquel.
The countryside around-about Tecka is wild and windy, where the Patagonian wilderness dwarfs mans efforts at building. There's the rugged foothills of the Andes to the West and the mountainous plateau which I've crossed in the last two days to the East. In the middle is the lush meadow land along the Rio Tecka, where Pink Flamingos can be seen side by side with grazing Hereford cattle. The climate is cold, even in Summer it's a place to rap-up warmly. Typically heavy cloud moves in from the Andes and cold rain falls one minute, the next warm sunshine breaks through.
| Heart | 0 | Comment | 0 | Link |
Having reached such a place and with only a day to ride until some days off the bike you'd think I'd be happy, but this morning for whatever reason Is in bad humour. It began at six o-clock when I heard rain plopping on the tent. I thought, it's going to be an awful day riding in the rain. Is spared though, as the rain stopped before it started proper. It always sounds worse in tents and under tin roofs anyway than it actually is. The morning, as I set off from Tecka, was sharp with big twists of cloud floating in off the Andes. In a minute the sun would shine brightly, then it would turn dull, and the wind was icy cold.
The wind was buffeting me from the side or front depending on which way the road swung. I recalled riding this stretch the 1st of January 2007, when the wind was just like this in the morning, by the the afternoon it had gotten so strong, bike and I were forced down on the roadside unable to stand-up or do anything. I hoped today wasn't going to be the same.
The road follows the valley with it's willow tree enclosed Rio Tecka and it's lush flood-plain. On either side, there are rolling dune like hills grayish or black when a cloud casts it's shadow. The wind was troublesome in open parts, in other parts it's narrow with a near vertical bank on the inside, which provided shelter.
My foreboding for what the afternoon could bring from the memory of that terrible day four years ago meant Is in no humour to wave at the countless cars that hooted as they past. It's tiresome anyway every few minutes, while struggling with the wind. I like to keep my hands firmly on the bars and head down.
In a sheltered place I stopped to take a photo of a sign inscribed "Huella de los Rifleros" or the trail of the Riffles. With the outcome of the Indian wars in the 1880s, the former nomadic inhabitants of Patagonia were now dead or in Army detention camps, and most of this vast area was empty and largely unexplored. A colonel Fontana was appointed the first governor of the then territory of Chubut which had as, as it is at present, it's capital in Rawson and was only populated in the Lower Chubut Valley. An act in the Argentine parliament was passed to explore and populate the unpopulated areas in the interior and West to the Andes. And it was through this Act that Fontana organized an expedition, a band of mainly Welshmen called The Riffles that would explore the way to the Andes. Here, where I'd stopped, was where they'd past through on the way to what is today the Welsh settled valley centred around the village of Trevelin.
Shortly after setting off again, I saw another cyclist coming in the opposite direction. I crossed to his side when we drew level. I can count on one hand the number of touring cyclists I've met since leaving Salta in August. He told me his name is Herman, cycling from his home in Mendoza down Ruta40 to Terra del Fuego. He told me too that it rained on him this morning and that I'd a big hill coming up, which he need not have bothered, as I well remember it.
The worse about the climb which lasts a couple of kilometres, it goes from the valley where at lease there's some chance of shelter, up to open steppe where there's none. The road meanders though, so on some stretches the wind is less of a hindrance until you get to that bend and turn, from where it's in your chest and face, and sudden gusts push me off the side of the road. Route 40 (Ruta40) though has recently been reconstructed and there's a wide, albeit bumpy shoulder, otherwise with the amount of fast traffic there's no way I could safely ride with the wind.
I was lucky to reach a leafy bush on a section of old road where I could stop for lunch. It provide good shelter. As I lay there resting the sun came out and it was suddenly too warm so I took off my warm fleece. Then when I stepped out from it's shelter I was hit by icy cold wind and could see an awful downpour ahead, so I put the fleece back on and my rain-coat too before setting off again. The rain was over by the time I'd gotten that far, but I kept the rain-coat on though as the wind was cold. Gusts pushed me on a few occasions on to the gravel margin where I had to put my foot down quickly to stop being blown over completely.
The afternoon wore on and I'd only covered 15km in two hours since lunch. It spat one minute and the sun shone the next, besides the wind which thankfully wasn't as strong as four years ago. The road is gradually uphill the whole way until a final climb up a lower shoulder of the mountain massif to the South of Esquel, therefrom the last dozen kilometres is downhill.
On the hill down into town, I heard a clunk from the back-wheel, couldn't say what it was. It didn't sound like a breaking spoke and on inspecting the wheel all spokes were in order. I still don't know what it was, suffice to say the bike suffers too in the wind.
I am now writing sitting in the pavilion of the campsite in Esquel. I can report to finish off the day a tent-pole instantaneously snapping. This is nothing much to be anxious about as it's easily repaired, but it poked a hole in the fly-sheet which is something to worry about the next time it rains.
Today's ride: 100 km (62 miles)
Total: 9,851 km (6,117 miles)
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 0 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 0 |