November 15, 2015
First Wind: Tandil to km 424, Route 3.
The wind has been my friend today; from the north with pleasant warm sunshine, moderately strong and pushing against my right side, though enough to the rear to propel me along rapidly.
Hostel owner, Barbara become concerned about me and asks, where I would stay tonight. I reassure her, I would find somewhere to camp. And the distances are so far and the wind so strong in Patagonia, she goes on. Serra Ventana is about four-hundred kilometres, you know.
The last named place, Serra Ventana, isn't Patagonia yet, but its near and the distance now is far between every town.
As is usual with staying in a hostel, I make use of the wifi and have to wait for breakfast and talk to other guests; and so, it is ten o'clock when, Barbara sends me off after taking a photo of me with my bike.
The hostel is uphill pass the lake, about five kilometres from the centre of Tandil. Its rural with a scattering of other wood clad bungalows on small holdings. There's a small country shop, or "amacer" where I bought my groceries. The old lady behind the counter therein, looks like an aging Eva Peron, complete with blond bun on top of her head, would call me "corizon", love, whenever I entered. Upon the counter is a wheel of locally produced cheese cut into wedge slices, and I would've bought a wedge, but she explains the cheese is hard and used grated to garnish pasta, not what I hoped for. Her eyesight isn't great, as she squints through glasses at a price-label on a bottle of wine, then gives up and asks me to look and tell her the price.
There's five kilometres with tailwind, flanked by groves of tall populars swishing loudly in the wind, to route 74, where I turn right, going south-west, and another sixty-three kilometres to the next town, Benito Juarez; with only a few "estancias", cattle ranches on the way: the country undulating with a rocky lump of a hill the road swings to the left around and, similar hills further off on the left. There are also large fields of wheat and barley, green with fully formed bearded seed heads waving in the wind.
The access road off 74 to Benito Juarez, is slow going into the wind. Within a short distance from the central plaza, there are all the services I could ask for, but being Sunday, most businesses are shut, except for one corner-shop, where I buy lemon favour soft drink and fruit. Outside I've leant the bike against a concrete wall exposed to the sun, radiating heat and making it unpleasantly warm while unlocking the bike, when, a couple of teenage boys have noticed me and come cycling up to me and begin asking me curiously, the usually twenty questions, while I burn. I give brief replies and when they lean their bikes and enter the shop, I steal away to the shade in the plaza, where as I lunch, they latterly circle around, but leave me in peace.
Then I kind of get disoriented on the ride out, going the wrong way; in which, the road I'm on ends at the entrance to a town park, the very park I camped in New Years Eve 2010; and doubling back in the realization, I've wasted a lot of time; and, there seems an awful lot of traffic-lights, delaying me more, and, I keep having to answer questions at lights. A little boy stands in the passenger side seat with his upper body out the window of a four-by-four, asks politely "Senor? Adonda sos?" Then his mother leans over and takes over the questioning. Such is the forwardness of Agentines with a travelling straighter, usually wanting to know all about you when on a bike. I smile and answer briefly.
Out of town, 74 joins route 3 at a huge grassy roundabout, an "empalme"; to the side of which, is an YPF petrol service station and a chance to get more food. Here too, I attract curiosity, when three men stopped in a grey four-door Ford pickup with mountain bikes racked on the back, come over and inspect my bike at the window, then come into the cafeteria to talk to me about my cycle-tour. I am tired of the word "Ushuaia", when asked my final destination (not my overall final destination), as its a long way off and lots can happen in the interim. Anyway, my main point is, they like to make a hero of me riding so far, but, I'm doing nothing special, just riding a bike. Before they leave, the man doing the talking hands his phone to a passerby to take a photo of the four of us together by my bike.
I ride for another hour on route 3, with a vile dark blue bank of rain closing in ahead, making it dark prematurely and as was the case the previous Sunday nearing dusk, there's constant northbound traffic towards the capital. So when the time come, when I feel it is no longer safe to cycle in diminishing light, I pull into a gateway, uncouple the panniers and lift them and bike across the gate to a field without livestock. I pitch my tent, hidden from view behind a cattle loading pen therein.
Today's ride: 96 km (60 miles)
Total: 490 km (304 miles)
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