Santiago onwards.: Route 34. Not the best road to cycle on, in which I meet a hitch hiker, come face to face with a bull and I'm awaken yet again by the Police..

August 27, 2010

Thur 19th Aug. Santiago to Beltran. 27km. Maps 3 and 4.

As the hotel didn't serve breakfast, I cycled the few blocks to a corner bakery which I'd spotted last night. There I bough five apple facturas which in Argentina are pastries commonly eaten to breakfast having vanilla or jam filling as well as apple. I sat outside and ate them before cycling to the same cafe where I ate last night which had wifi. I ordered a double espresso and got stuck into up dating the journal. This was to take some time and before I'd finish the waiter came over complaining that his boss didn't like me sitting so long having only drunk one coffee and could I please order another. I's at that point where I would've soon ordered another anyway. As it was the photos were very slow to up-load and I's there for lunch too.

It was three o'clock when I eventually got on my bike to ride out off town which being siesta the streets were quite empty and traffic light. So not a bad move as the alternate was to pay another night in a hotel which like everything else in Argentina are becoming expensive, then make my way out in rush hour tomorrow morning.

The provincial capital Santiago del Estero is small in comparison to Tucuman and so the road out to route 34 wasn't far. This road is the most logical road for the direction I'm headed and seems to terminate in the city of Rosario which according to the big green sign is 733km. So perhaps I'll visit Rosario I think. The road however was more of the same as route 9 a narrow single carriage way, having no paved shoulder and heavy truck traffic, so I'd cycle mush time on the rough compacted gravel shoulder to avoid the instants where the trucks are passing in both directions which was most of the time.

Tonight I've camped near a service station on the edge of a town. The noise of trucks passing is constant. The scrub land around me has rubbish strewn everywhere which is an all too familiar sight around South American towns and roadsides as most people couldn't care less for their environment.

Day 14. Fri 20th Aug. Beltran to clump of trees on roadside, 85km.

I slept soundly and when I awoke was so comfortable I didn't want to move, though move I most. I decamped at 8.30 and cycled to the nearby service station for breakfast where the man brought my coffee but not the facturas which I'd ordered. What was going on I thought. When I got up and complained stressing that I did order two facturas, he shrugged his shoulders, apparently he'd forgotten. They were dry and hard when they eventually did come and it was well the bill was only six pesos as I wouldn't want to pay more for such shoddy service.

I'm now sat writing in an YPF service station where I've stopped for elevens. Here the service is excellent, the premises spotless unlike where I breakfasted which was messy. I've just been looking at my map and if I plan to go as far south as Rosario it may mean going on to Buenos Aires as there isn't a bridge over the Parana river, or not on this map anyway, from Rosario and only one big bridge further south which if I remember from speaking to another cyclist some time ago cannot be cycled.

If the reader wonders what the landscape is like, it's nothing must to write about really, suffice to say it's flat, farming on an industrial scale. There remains though many plots of scrub and cactus as it would seem there's so mush land it's not easy to fine a use for it all. There's even a very wide unused stripe on either side of the road.

At three in the afternoon I stopped in a village to drink a coke. I saw a Hitch Hiker on the opposite side of the road thumb out at every northbound truck. I's just about finished and was getting up to leave when he crossed over to me. He was dressed completely in black, wore a black bere, had a sunburned face and a goatee which was just a neglect of shaving the under side of his chin. He told me his name was Sebastian and he's from Buenos Aires. He'd spent a whole day in his words, this damn village as nobody seems to want to stop. I's becoming short of money and would need to be passing through a place with a bank soon so he told me the next place southbound with a bank was 70kms.

The prospects for wild camping were looking good as there were lots of trees to hide among in the aforesaid wide stripe along the road. I didn't say though that the railway runs parallel to the road and just before I found that camping site at five I passed where three frate carriages had derailed and presently a crane was lifting it back on the tracks.

That night I was awakened by the sound of a bull approaching. Alarmed, I quickly jumped up and opened up the tent just when it was a short distance from the tent.It stopped dead lifted it's head from the ground where it was making a bawing sound stired at me and I at him. Then it turned and walked quietly round the other side of the trees which I's hidden behind. It was very good of him to walk around. I later saw him standing sulking under a tree on the opposite side of the tent before heading off into the night.

I soon fell asleep and was awaken yet again sometime in the night by headlights and the rustle of a car approaching through the grass. In a flash I jumped up and opened up the tent to see a white pick-up truck with blue lights on top. Oh no not the cops again I thought. They now were approaching, 'we just observed you, are you resting?' said one. As if I cycle through the night, of coarse I sleep. 'Oh yes just resting' I replied. His college was allot more thorough asking to see my passport, when I'd entered the country, my full name and even what I normally eat.

Today's ride: 113 km (70 miles)
Total: 720 km (447 miles)

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