The infinite Road.

May 24, 2011

Tue 24th, Wed 25th and Thu 26th of May.

It is still dark at seven thirty as the clock isn't changed to daylight saving for the Winter months. The time is nine o'clock when I wheel my bike down the steps of the hostel into the street, but it only feels like eight as the sun is still low and there's a frosty feel in the air. Cycling from the main plaza, I follow a road taking me up a long hill that happened not to be the right way to leave the city at all. North of the city of Chilecito there is but one road, Ruta Cuarenta (Route 40) and it was this Is hoping to reach instead of cycling up a long hill leading to nowhere. Though meanwhile, having realised my mistake and the road now leveling out on the hilltop; looking to my right, I could see over the low adobe mud-brick houses in garden plots that make up the blocks in the grid of dusty side-streets running downhill into a built-up valley on the northern side of the city. It was down there I needed to be. I came to a corner with a wide smoothly paved road and turned towards the valley. The road swept down passing through a few roundabouts on the way each having a green sign with the next place to the North arrowed ahead. It looked like going back into the city again as either side of the broad thoroughfare is enclosed by commercial buildings though passing through another roundabout following the sign for places North, I'm soon on the road on the northern limit of the city still going steadily downhill into a broad valley.

The lone hill off in the distances is where I aim to be by lunchtime.

The long straight downhill road finally bottomed out and began to go gradually uphill again in another long straight to where it curved around the vertical slope that it had now reached and into the mouth of a narrow side valley. Here it curved in the opposite direction in a semi-circle across and back out again towards the broad valley where it yet again went gradually downhill while following close by a range of arid hills to the left. To the right across the scrubland, it was perhaps a few kilometres to another range of hills appearing hazy in the sun. Ahead could be seen a small humpback hill sitting alone in the middle of the infinite plain stretching onwards where the long thin line of the road could finally be seen and then seen no more as it disappeared from sight. It was this hill I aimed for and reached by lunch-time.

The afternoon got quite warm and I took off my fleece but then it suddenly became cold as an icy cold wind rose and I'd to stop and put the fleece back on. Luckily the wind came along the valley in the same direct as I cycled bowling me along and I reached Pituel, over seventy kilometres North of Chilecito by mid-afternoon.

The village is almost a kilometre off the main road along a tree-lined access road which is pleasant to cycle. I am thirsty and was looking forward to buying a Coke or something but it's the middle of the siesta and the street is deserted so supposedly no place is open. There is a big plaza with a white church to one side but as yet I haven't seen a shop. I feel dishearten having come so far off the main road wanting to drink something more refreshing than tape-water and finding nothing. But alas on turning the corner beyond the church, I see a house with a window open and the sound of television coming from inside. I peek in seeing the TV but seeing no one, so I ring the bell to the side of the window. Still no one. I ring again. This time an old woman rises from behind a sofa looking rather groggy.

"Que quieres" what would you like said she when she'd got to the window.

"Tenes Coke, un bottella de un y medio litro" I needed a big bottle of Coke.

She had only small half litre bottles so I bought two. And looking out past me she sees the bike and begins looking at me then the bike and asks where I've cycled from. I just say from Chilecito which I have and is true for today and don't say anything about where I've cycled before. I didn't want to get into the whole itinerary around South America thing preferring to have a relaxing ten minutes sitting in the plaza. The plaza was still and peaceful at four in the afternoon. There was absolutely no one about. With broad leaf trees and shrubs and grass adding to the ambiances, it was a different world from the dry thorny desert all around the village.

Looking back towards Pituel as I rode farther, I could see a haze of dust blowing in that direction as there isn't much scrub cover there to stop it. I rode to five-thirty finding a place to camp on a dry stream well hidden from the road as now the road traverses country of dense thorn bushes well above head-height.

View while relaxing in the plaza during siesta.

Streams and rivers are dry outside of the Rainy season.

Wednesday 25th May:I was drawn out of the tent at six thirty by natures call. A crescent moon and bright stars shone an inky blue sky with clusters of faint far-off consolations. At this time there isn't the faintest glow in the East of the coming day and there won't be till well after seven.

My morning routine now is as follows: I climb out of the sleeping bag at around 7.55. It takes till 8.30 to prepare and eat breakfast which these days is a mix of oats and sugar coated Cornflakes in a lukewarm powder milk. If I have a banana, I add it sliced. Beverage is filtered coffee. I've got one of those sock things which I place on top of the cup. I am packed away and on the road at 9.15.

Places to camp for the past week have been easily come upon as the country is all desert. The bed of a dry stream is an excellent campsite. These intersect the road at frequent intervals. They are level and the sand between bars are comfortable to lay upon. The bushes along their banks grow taller and there are often trees which add to the ambiance with birdsong.

Nine fifteen: looking back towards Pituel where I'd a break yesterday afternoon.

And looking ahead towards the next village as yet a long way off.

Roadside shrine with bottles of water left as homage.

At Pituel the road turned ninety degrees and ran straight for sixty kilometres. I was halfway along this stretch when I stopped for the night. In the morning I reached the range of hills on the far side of the plain where the road dropped down into a river-valley and turned ninety degrees yet again following parallel to the hills. On this stretch along the valley, there is one village after the other and between, the river provides water for orchards and field crops like maize. Each house has the light blue and white national flag hung from under verandas and on sticks stuck out windows. The schools are silence whereas normally at eleven there'd be the gaggle of children from the playground. It is the 25th of May, National Day, and a holiday.

An original inhabitant of the land that became America which includes all the Nations from Argentina/Chile in the South to Canada in the North.

It is like a Sunday: People are dressed neatly and move at a leisurely pace.

I stop first at a shop and buy bread and salami for lunch; then at a petrol-station to fill up on water for the stretch ahead. Here, I am confronted by a beardyman that was the spitting image of Saddam Hussein when they found him hiding underground.

"Where you from?" he addresses me in English.

"Ireland", I reply.

"Holland", he says.

Now here is a problem. I have not rolled the R, and so it sounds as if I've said Holland. I try again and this time I'm understood. And when he asks where I've cycled from I say Patagonia. "Wh-hat?" He said with a confused tone and expression on his face. I repeat Patagonia three times, but either he hasn't heard of the place or it is a little too much to swallow the idea of cycling so far as he looked flabbergasted. Salta I say when he asks where I'm cycling to. This he did understand and such a deep breath and suck of air made as he grabbed with the idea, as if I was attempting the, impossible!

I am out off focus I know! Perhaps a new rating catergory is appropriate such as "Bad Pics".

The ride to Londres was particularly long. It was sixty kilometres on the sign when leaving the last village but in reality it is seventy-five. Route 40 turns onto Route 60 (an international road to the Paso San Francisco cross the Andes to Chile) for a few kilometres; then, turns off and climbs steadily with a vista back the way traversed. It is possible to see all the way back to the range of hills at Pituel and beyond perhaps one-hundred kilometres away. The distance is perceptive as those hills only look as if a hike down the hill and across the scrubland. Cresting the top of the hill the road levels out upon another plain of thorn bushes with hills close by to the left. Ahead the mountains are silhouetted in the afternoon sun, ridge upon ridge in hazy blues like a wavy psychedelic pattern. And the road forever straight and infinite blends in the blue haze seemingly into thin-air while the dark green of the thorns remain as if in midair on either side of the disappearing road.

Thursday 26th May: at one o'clock, I came out after eating lunch in a trucker's cafe just before the town of Belem glad to have lunch over early whereby I'd have a good four hours to make up as much distance as possible before calling it a day; but, was disappointed to find the front-wheel flat. And it doesn't rain that it pours. A while later, riding up through Belem, I heard the familiar rumbling sound that the trailer-wheel makes when flat. The following morning, I'd just gotten to the top of a short hill when I feel the also familiar sensation of the back-wheel rim bumping on the road on a deflating tyre. The Maxxis tyres on my bike say Puncture Resistant but of coarse no tyre is one hundred per cent puncture resistant. On all three occasions I find small thorns in the rubber; those little fawn coloured jags that are allover the side of the road.

Another stream: so frequent along Ruta 40 in the provences of La Rioja and Catamarca that when the time comes to stop I stop.

Does anyone see any houses or even a town ahead?

Today's ride: 249 km (155 miles)
Total: 15,003 km (9,317 miles)

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