February 22, 2016
Dead Legs: Woodland camp to Coyhaique.
It rains hard during the night and my only worry is the zip in my sleeping-bag is at the point where it draws apart, opening again when the zipper is pulled up, so I endure a cold draft until morning because I couldn't be bothered moving to find the headtorch to fix it until morning; remedying the problem with the pliers on my Leatherman by pinching both trailing sides of the zipper together when packing. It should work temporarily.
The morning is bright clear blue sky at seven when first out of the tent, though cold. Then back in the tent I reach out for a rear-pannier which was on it's side outside during the night and has a puddle of rainwater in a crease that I don't see spill over my warm thermal tights and down onto my sock, as if knowing this will cause me great discomfort on such a cold morning. It does: the water icy and it leaves a puddle inside the tent.
I manager to boil water to make tea and porridge, on the tinny bit of alcohol left, so I'm feeling confidently a competent touring cyclist-camper by not running out of fuel.
I push the bike down the track and re-join the road shortly before half eight. I'm warmly dressed but I'm still cold, especially as its all downhill. There's no pedalling to generate heat and I've to worry about the split rim, using the back brake to go slowly down. Crashing on the road when this cold doesn't bare thinking about.
...Hard to believe though, the transformation I've seen this last couple of days, from leaving treeless steppe. Ahead as the road levels out its a soft pastoral valley. Small fields enclose by what look like hawthorn hedgerow with an occasional broadleaf tree. I pass one such field of black cattle to the right, or east side of the road, the low sun now breaking over the hills creating brilliant yellow tints of light and a sheen on their backs. Further there's a stubble field of round baled straw, that had been a field of oats: a stripe of uncut oats missed by the machine by a lone standing tree near the road. Most of the landscape of the valley bottom however is golden, the warm colour of late Summer.
The only other thing to mention is fatique. After eighteen days on the road, I need many days off the bike to rest. The distance to Coyhaique draws out, though. The wind has picked up, crosswind until turning a corner at Villa Blanco, where it become more a tailwind. But from here, the final leg is quite hilly, not the kind of road I want to ride when my legs feel dead as they do.
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I eventually ride into Coyhaique at half one, find a bank and withdraw money, treat myself to a coffee, shop and ride out to Hostel Salamander. The owner Tim, says "You cyclists are crazy." when I tell him about riding from Ushuaia, and adds "There was a cyclist here from Devon, a few weeks ago" I interrupt "Chris White" and Tim replies "Yes. How did you know?"
Today's ride: 56 km (35 miles)
Total: 6,439 km (3,999 miles)
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