December 31, 2010
Tandil - Benito Juarez.
Staying in the hostel in Tandil was Flora, a nice girl, a thirty-something woman but with a little girl's face. She is a teacher at Saint Patricks English language school in Buenos Aires where she herself was a pupil and because of that speaks fluent English. Her only failing is she smokes too mush, which she's trying to quite but the craving gets the better of her.
"Anda what do they think of us where you come from?". The question left me searching for an answer. The "us" meant Argentines.
"Well", I opened when I'd thought of an answer, "people that haven't travelled, lease not to South America, group the whole of the continent together and think of short dark skinned people. It soon became obvious on my travels in Argentina, Uruguay and Southern Brazil that all most all are European with fair skin and often with blond hair. I haven't travelled in The US, but mush of the flat monotonous landscape here occupied by the grandchildren of European immigrants, perhaps resembles the Mid-West".
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Today, on leaving Tandil, the scenery was the same pleasant gently rolling farmland I'd seen the day I arrived. It's all man-made, fields of golden wheat, patchwork weaved with brownish white mature pasture and fields of green. The only feature that isn't is the craggy rocky outcrop hills sticking through.
I stopped at a crossroads to rest in a bus-shelter. A convoy of combine-harvesters and tractors pass followed behind by a white pick-up truck which slows and pulls in, the driver gets out. "Britanico" he said. "No, Irlanda" I reply. "Ah, Holanda". Now here's a problem, I don't roll my Rs, so I sound as if I'm saying Holland. He had the sort of build that says you don't want to disagree with him, but no worry as he was amicable, he walked around the bonnet to my side of the truck and looked at the bike, "Gary Fisher. Que bueno. Es una marca...." He went on to tell me his bother is a mountainbiker. Before driving on he left me a big bottle of apple juice which was mush appreciated.
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I arrived in Benito Juarez at one o clock where I decided to call it a day as now it was too warm to continue. The streets are cobble stone which is normally uncomfortable to cycle on but when it's so warm, it's many times worse, there's the jolt jolt jolt in quick succession while the heat of the sun is intense as you move slowly along.
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I ride around the plaza, the only part of town not cobble-stoned, I ride off down this street and that street, I was looking for somewhere to stop to eat but I couldn't see any and it's the time of day when the streets are empty. I return along to the plaza where a man stands out on the pedestrian crossing and draws my attention.
"Que buscando" says the stout man with cropped hair. I told him and he directed me to a Rotisaria, or take-away food place. He told me his name is Raul, a volunteer fireman and if I needed a shower am welcome at the fire-station. He also pointed out where there is a camping-site.
The Rotisaria was shut early it being New Years Eve, so I sit-down in the shade of a canopy outside a corner-shop to eat a lunch purchased there of two meager ham and cheese sandwiches, crisps and drink a can of Quilmes beer.
The camping-site that Raul pointed out was a park of luxuriant eucalyptus trees laid out with gravel driveway and, Fogones, which are brick structures common in picnic areas for lighting fires and having barbecues. Here, isn't a camping-site but camping is allowed, according to Raul and later a woman outside the Supermercado on the way. And a man emptying rubbish bins by the picnic tables said "si, qualquer queres" yes, wherever you like, when I asked.
The tent pitched on a bed of many seasons fallen leaves, the afternoon was spent sat under a tree lost in time in a classic of English literature. A cooling breeze blew in under the trees and overhead Wood Pigeons hooted.
Today's ride: 95 km (59 miles)
Total: 7,680 km (4,769 miles)
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