August 23, 2016
Final Day: Maizefield to Santa Cruz
I make a big effort to be up out of the sleeping-bag early, being up shortly after daybreak. Breakfast on mat-tee, having nothing else, pack up and have all on the bike shortly before half seven, ready for the long push back between rows of maize stubble across the field to the road. A distance I've said of one and a half kilometres, or a mile in old imperial measurements.
This would be a long anxious day, because of the uncertainly of riding on a split rim wheel; needing to get to the city what else could I do; would it hold; fortunately, it all worked out in the end. Though until I got there, I's all the time thinking of the thump I heard when the rim split yesterday, the fear I'd any minute hear a sudden bang. A rear tyre blowout. It could well do, then I'd have to walk and push, while hoping maybe to flag down a pickup truck for a lift.
I ride slow and cautiously. The bike feels wobbly, like having a buckled wheel. The terrain is flat and it being the rear wheel, it isn't as dangerous as a split rim front-wheel, which would bring a rider to a halt very quickly if for instants the tyre were to blowout, so quickly it'd probably cause a fall and injury; while, the rear-wheel would rumble along on it's rim until the rider could safely stop.
It is like riding on egg shells, but everything goes well until about 20 kilometres to go, when there's a sudden knock again. The rim has flared out further. I open up the brake caliper completely to accommodate the wheel without the knock and drag caused by rubbing on the brake-pad.
The wheel is now wobbling madly underneath me, making the bike less easily controlled. Though the last stretch into the city is upon wide four lane either side dual-carriageway, so there's plenty of space that cars give me a wide berth unlike if it were a narrow single-carriageway road.
The road passes through a ring-road with turnings for route 4, Puerto Suarez 655km, on the Brazilian border, which would've been my road on, but now I'm uncertain of what happens from here on. Shortly after I'm in the chaos of the city-centre where I've to ask the way to the main plaza, there being no sign and it not so obvious.
I fail to find a place to google a hostel, having entered a few cafés, none have Wi-Fi; so, I find my way to the tourist information office on an island in the middle of a park water-feature; but, have to wait for an hour because they're shut for lunch until 2.30pm. When the doors open, the girl behind the desk seems not to know what a hostel is at first, perhaps me failing to pronounce the word properly. I repeat "Hostels" three times until she understands me and hands me a city-map and sheet listing accommodation, including guesthouse kind of hostels, common in Spanish speaking countries, not the cheaper backpacker kind. I set off for the nearest located upon a big avenue, which is basically an urban motorway flanked by university campus and a motely assortment of office blocks and villa houses without clear numbering. I cycle along one side, then back along the other, looking for 344, failing to find the place. Having given up, I cycle back to the plaza, where incredibly, I spot a café with a Wi-Fi logo on the door. I go in and have a coffee and once logged on, find an array of hostels on Hostelworld.
Now having checked into a hostel and this evening as I write, I'm going to try finding a bike shop here that can provide me with a new rim, though I don't hold out too much hope.
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Today's ride: 69 km (43 miles)
Total: 12,656 km (7,859 miles)
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