February 16, 2016
3 2 43: Km2065 to near Pico Truncado.
I am anxious to get on the road early so am up at first light, shortly after six; make a big pan of porridge, which I sweeten with sugars pocketed in the café yesterday, and pour on milk.
Its a bright sunny morning but the wind is blowing by half eight, fortunately from the south west so tailwind. The countryside ahead has lots of even better camping spots than where I'd camped in the lea of a banked up road: the road having dipped down and crosses a dry lagoon where the road again is banked: the east facing side providing good shelter with evergreen bushes to make it even more pleasant.
Further on the road approaches the Deseado river valley. At some distance can be seen the cleft hollow all the way from left to right, rimmed with level topped line of barranca hills. The road drops down a slope and levels out for about five kilkometres, then down a second slope and continues straight for a few kilometres more, upon a second shelf before the big downhill to the river valley. Though the river is near enough dry and the valley black, brown and tan scrubland, a desolate place a few kilometres across to a big climb up through the far side barrancas. And once the road has straightened out upon the plateau above, a car can be seen travelling on the road for Puerto Deseado, coming in on the right.
All morning midnight blue rain cloud has been closing in from behind and I feel the wind from the storm with spots of rain on reaching Fitzroy, a small village looking like a collection of boxes on the level steppe on approach, becoming peeling paint wood and corrugated iron houses close up, but there's a few shops and at least two restaurants, so a route 3 service stop. First I stop at one shop and buy a litre and half bottle of apple flavoured water and litre carton of wine for 59 pesos (£3). Then try to find shelter both from the wind and imminent rain. The only place is a seat by a closed kiosk beside the YPF petrol station, sheltered from the wind but not rain. The rain doesn't reach this far though, remaining just outside town in the desert to the south and west.
There is limited water here; in fact, on turning the tap in the petrol station toilets, only a small trickle come out, not enough to replenish water bottles. I remember when here in 2011 a tap in a playground back in the grid of streets off route 3; Czech Peter also mentioned this is the only water in the village. But where? I ask myself as I cycle round, shivering cold as a bit of drizzle come on then stops. Then I pull up outside the library and go in and ask. The librarian directs me a little along the same street, where there is a trough and tap.
I debate whether to continue; only a kilometre north is route 43 running off to the left, but I'm concerned about being caught out in the open in that rain. The dark blue shaft of rain moving in on route 43 to the west.
I take my chances. Once I've turned off 3, it goes twenty minutes before the first car passes. The road near enough empty as it goes equally long to the next. I'm riding west-north west on a strip of tarmac across dead level scrubland as far as the eye can see in all directions and slightly uphill, barely noticeable unless looked upon more closely: the level horizon ahead is fairly close and I'm in a lower gear than would be normal on the dead level. The wind has settled though and rain comes no further this way.
At a point the road crests said near horizon and the horizon ahead spreads out far ahead, where there are some kind of stark grey uprights or towers. I continue toward them for an hour or more, the cloud having cleared and sun gleaming from the roofs of the first town on the route, Pico Truncado, the towers belonging to a great big ugly power station on the eastern approach to town which is a complete dump, literally; plastic bags clinging to the thorny scrubland bushes over an extensive area, papers and all sort of domestic rubbish on the edge of town, beyond which is a shanty town right by the power station, where people live on whatever they can salvage from the rubbish tip. The main road veering left and bypasses town, passing dusty unpaved streets of hastily build block houses, many without windows. Then there's a nicer west side of town upon the way out and on, with streets lined with planted trees, making it feel that I'm no longer in the desert but somewhere, anywhere, perhaps Europe.
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I ride on about five kilometres the other side of town, now looking for a place to camp. The countryside the same but owned by YPF the oil company with oil derricks pumping up and down here and there. And from there being no traffic before, the road is extremely busy, mainly due to route 12 having come in from the north on the way into town. Most of the vehicles oil workers pickup trucks. The only place with wind shelter and cover from the road is an old railway line parallel on the right side of the road, which has been banked up high, though on the wrong side of the roadside fence which has gate access for oil workers vehicles at regular intervals. I pull into one and uncouple the panniers and lift them and bike in turn over the gate, then recouple the panniers on the bike, ride over the railway line where there's a "Prohibit A Pasar" sign, turn right and down along a sandy track below the banked up rail-line, until coming to a near enough perfect spot to pitch the tent.
Today's ride: 160 km (99 miles)
Total: 5,960 km (3,701 miles)
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