January 23, 2016
Cold Shower: Ravine campsite to refuse hut, 24km before San Sebastian.
On waking up, I have stomach cramp from eating rice again for dinner yesterday evening. It is a sunless morning from being cocooned in the tent and the wind has risen, buffeting the tent, when I thought the banks of the ravine provided good shelter from the west. Then as expected when I unzip the tent and have a look out, there is full cloud cover and impending rain. And not long after there's the familiar patter of rain on the tent building to a steady drizzle, so I decide to stay put comfortable in the tent rather than be taking down the tent and riding in the rain. I have plenty to eat and a book to read if the rain is on for the day.
It rains on and off till eleven, when it stops long enough to say that it is clearing up. I have a look out and see the rain has moved away to the south and the tent has already dried in the brisk wind, which seems to be coming from the north, so it is time to get going. I pack all and take down the tent and with all loaded on the bike, wheel the bike along the stream to the lease steep part of the embankment back up to the road. I wheel the bike diagonally up the slope, which is feeling incredibly heavy in my weakened state. I have to pause for a breather halfway up.
Out on the road and rolling, the wind is to the left and rear, so it'd seem a north-westerly. There's quite a climb out of the ravine followed by a climb inland which Chilean road builders deemed necessary to meet a left turnoff road going inland at the top where the turnoff is straight on, while this road goes sharp right back downhill again toward the coast.
Not far ahead I see another cyclist stopped in the shelter of a road cutting; head down looking at his map. He doesn't see me approach until I'm within a few metres of him when he raise his face and smiles.
"You speak English?" he asks with an American ascent. And when I reply that I do, adds "Hi, I'm from the United States."
Craig from Florida has just started in Ushuaia and as yet is fresh and unbeaten by the wind. He is waiting for his two cycling companions, who I meet a few hundred metres further: Sarah from Washington (state) and Brian from Oregon. I relay information about their road ahead like places to camp and the hospedaje in Porvenir.
Even though there is no climbing today after that initial climb, going is very slow on the stony rough ripio. It takes an age to cover five kilometres, marked by bright green marker boards every five kilometres.
On the treeless stepp I reach a clump of trees by the roadside, which once surrounded a house, but all trace of the house is gone and the place is now used as a welcome rest-place. Here I lunch. Salami sandwich again, an apple and biscuits. It isn't too far in from the coast where I have a view of the whole of Inutil bay, where it is raining heavily on the far shore and off to the right of the rain is a shaft of dark blue rain storm. It looks far away. But after I've watched it for a while I see its getting nearer and before long, the north-westerly wind swings round to south-west coming directly from the approaching rain storm.
I hurry packing away my stuff even though I could have done with resting longer. But it is too late by the time I'm ready to go, the rain has reached me with a swift tailwind. From a first few splodges it comes down horizontal sleet. The road ahead abysmal brown stepp and grey gloom as icy rain soaks though my tights. And I shiver as the wind pushes me along without the need to pedal.
The storm passes within ten minutes leaving me soaked and miserably cold and leaving clear blue sky and sunshine in it's wake, just as I reach an important junction; with a road south along the south side of the bay and a road coming in from the north and curving left which become the road straight on to San Sebastian. And also on the corner is a refuse hut kindly put up for travellers, mainly cyclists to overnight out of the wind. I stop and rest in the hut for a while.
A huge pickup truck with a Brazilian number plate pulls up out side the doorway. I rise to see what the commotion is. A slim eccentric white haired man in his fifties dressed like a park ranger jumps out and asks "You speak Spanish or English?" I reply preferably English. He then asks do I know about the penguins and says he is going to visit them. There is a colony on the beach fifteen or so kilometres along the road south. Then asks am I going to visit them. I say no as it is a bit of a detour. He then gets back in the truck and turns and drives off down the south road.
I hang around for almost ten minutes more before setting off on the road to San Sebastian. But I have barely left the junction when I hear the same Brazilian pickup truck approach again. He pulls up alongside. His wife in the passenger side looking at a google map on a tablet. He asks how far it is to San Sebastian as if I would know better than them. I reply I think it is forty-three kilometres. He then asks is there a gas station at San Sebastian, he is getting low. I reply yes, fifteen kilometres further on the Argentine side of the border, roughly sixty kilometres away. He then says "Oh, I go see penguins" and turns round and drives off down the south road a second time. A strange man. He is low in fuel yet he is risking running out through his fascination with seeing the penguins.
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It is still only six o'clock and I would like to make some distance. This new road is numbered CH257. And not far in I meet three young German cyclists, who say they've six months to a year off and have no idea where they'll cycle to.
I cycle what must be twenty kilometres more when I come to another refuse hut which is too good to pass as there is not much shelter elsewhere. Here I settle in for the night, simmering up packet soup for supper that warms me up before getting into the snug sleeping-bag.
Today's ride: 64 km (40 miles)
Total: 4,359 km (2,707 miles)
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