January 23, 2011
Traverse-to Las Plumas
I was kept awake last-night by a group on the camping-site that had had an Asado (BBQ), then proceeded to play music till 3am, so this morning I was stiff and tired getting out of the sleeping-bag. Tiredness notwithstanding and fully awake, I cycled up the hill away from Dolavan at eight. It was a sunny still morning and I's hoping it would remain so, please no wind, I prayed. Once crested the hill, the landscape ahead is open scrub-land to the horizon, which looks flat, but is deceptive, as the road progresses steadily uphill, the gentle gradient is only noticeable by being on big sprockets at the rear and having to pedal hard all the time. How mush worse it would be if it was windy. The road eventually reaches a range of low hills and curves it's way through them, dropping down into a saddle depression the other side where it can be seen as a thin black band rising steeply up to the horizon ahead. Here I's feeling fed-up and wishing it was time to stop for lunch, but lunch wouldn't be until I reached the crossroads petrol-station Las Chapas, where I hoped to buy a cold drink and have somewhere to sit in the shade, there being none out here.
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I sit now in the shade at the front of the petrol-station Las Chapas. I'm feeling done out. I feel as-though I won't be able to ride farther today, and thinking of camping here tonight, riding on to Las Plumas tomorrow. Then, to my disgust, I see the place at the back with picnic tables, the possible camping-place, is so dirty with rubbish strewn everywhere. There are hens and chickens in a terrible state, having pecked each other bare of feathers around their necks which are red and raw. It's a cruel sight to behold.
I take a seat at one of the tables and eat a boiled egg and a slice of the dense homemade bread bough in Dolavan which tastes past it's best, tasting of mould. I couldn't manage more as the state of the place was such a put-off, the hens so unhealthy looking and hungrily begging for crumbs. I begin to read but my eyes just want to close. So I lay-down on the bench and soon sleep.
I slept only a short time, Las Chapas being a busy place today, it being the holiday season, cars were coming and going constantly. Not many though were filling-up on petrol, just buying cold drinks and taking a rest on a long drive. One driver even had the cheek to ask the proprietor how far to the next petrol-station, "73km en Las Plumas" answered he.
The proprietor is a miserable scruffy looking man that always gives short sharp answers whenever asked anything. There's no passing the day or conversation or smile. He scurries around as in a huff. You know it's a hard life in this out of the way place watching him. And business is perhaps not as great of late. His wife is equally sad, the daughter the same.
Gone four, I resolved to keep on going to Las Plumas even if it'll be night when I arrive. For the road, I wanted to buy a big bottle of Pepsi, but he'd sold-out of all big bottles, so, I settled for a can of 7-up and a can of beer instead.
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The road ahead is even tougher than what had been so far inasmuch as the hills were relentless, the road looping-up to each summit, thence dropping down into a saddle which curved steeply to the next summit. There were also a number of dry saline lagoons, stark bare brownish white patches in the scrub, which the road traversed followed by especially long climbs up the other side.
I had periodically stopped to drink tap-water, it was warm and tasted awful. The beer I'd drank before setting-off from Las Chapas. I held-out until I'd covered at lease half distance to stop and treat myself to the zesty 7-up, when, I came upon a lone leafy bush on crossing one of the lagoons. My backside was now sore and it was good to sit on the ground a while, perhaps 20 minutes, and start with renewed vigor.
Even-though it was evening, the sun now sinking to eye-level, it was still warm and a light breeze blew hot air in the face. The road then turned rough, eaten by hard winter frosts, having a lumpy quarry-chip protruding out of the tar surface with cracks and grooves, adding to the pain and misery I's now feeling. I's aware though from previously having ridden this road, that it wasn't far to go now until the road leveled out before a last 10km decent to Las Plumas. Presently, the sun had sank behind the hills, but it would still be light enough to get there. Shortly, I was riding the level part and approaching that point where the road turns around a sweeping bend and so begins the decent.
The decent at last. My speed on the computer showed 39km per hour. The road sweeping back down to the Chubut valley which in the afterglow of the sun was a wonderland of silhouetted ridges in purple and black stretching to the far yonder and not in my power to describe. And then on the final kilometre, the sun still glowed brightly on the top of red-rock cliffs rising up from the road, looking like molten metal, unbelievable. Though absolutely knackered, I felt bliss at being here.
And so the day ended with me camping on the riverbank just across the road from the village's petrol-station where I's able to buy a refreshing cold beer.
Today's ride: 156 km (97 miles)
Total: 9,316 km (5,785 miles)
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