February 12, 2018
The Pink House, Rio La Leona: Feeling a bit like a cheat
Our sleep was rather disturbed last night, first by many of the other guests having a late supper right next door to our room and later by three extra guests joining our room at around midnight. We woke up soon after six o'clock feeling as if we were short of a few hours of sleep. We spent the next few hours watching Fitzroy change colour as the sun rose higher and by catching up on the internet, that was now fast enough to be functional, and having a quick breakfast of baguettes that we had bought last night.
After packing up we headed into town to look for loo paper and toothpaste plus some more food for the road. Toothpaste was nowhere to be found but we got loo paper at the mercado on the northern entrance to the town. Then it was back to the southern side of town where I stopped in at the ATM at the bus terminal to get some extra Argentinian Pesos. Fitzroy kept demanding to have its photograph taken so it was about a quarter to ten by the time we eventually got going. Even then we kept looking back over our shoulders at the wonderful view and stopping to take photos.
The westerly wind was blowing freshly and the tarmac smooth and pretty much hill-free so we sped along the eighty eight kilometers to the junction with Ruta 40, Argentina's main road through Patagonia. We took our first stop for second breakfast at the forty five kilometer mark and a lunch break at about sixty nine kilometers. After we turned right onto Ruta 40 we struggled diagonally into the strong wind that had been so helpful for the first few hours. We alternated working and drafting and once the initial shock was over it wasn't too bad. At the final mirador looking back at Fitzroy, still amazingly large and clear at a distance of ninety kilometers, we stopped to chat to a French couple who were hunkering down behind a bank to eat their lunch. They had also cycled from El Chalten this morning and while they loved the tailwind they were now hoping the wind would drop later in the afternoon.
As we pulled off from the mirador we heard a shout behind us and it was Ninon. She had left about an hour after us and had ridden strongly to the intersection where she spotted us in the distance. She was heading for the well known Pink House, a deserted old building (hotel ?) about twelve kilometers south of La Leona, that has been used by cycling tourists for many years. La Leona is historically significant because Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid had hold up in the La Leona Hotel for a month after robbing the Bank of London in Rio Gallegos. We stopped in there because Leigh and I had planned to camp there for the night. Ninon once again helped out as an interpreter and got the details from a fellow behind the bar. It turned out that they wanted 228 Argentinian Pesos per person for camping. No thanks, we'll head for the Pink House as well. We did pick up a couple of beers and some chocolate brownies for which we paid well over the odds so we didn't leave unscathed.
The ride onto the Pink House was mostly easy with the wind now once again more on our backs. It is quite a different place. Just a rather ugly squat that is covered with graffiti from cyclists from all over the world. Ninon found it quite disgusting but both Leigh and I saw something special in it. Still, it is shelter from the wind and the nearby river is a source of water with which to wash and it is, for whatever reason, a landmark for touring cyclists.
Today's ride: 124 km (77 miles)
Total: 1,382 km (858 miles)
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