January 7, 2016
Nothing: Calafate to Cuesta De Miguez
On the road I crave food other than easily carried and prepared rice and tuna and whatnot with whatever fruit and vegetables I pick up along the way. Simple foods like whole milk on my porridge of a morning; melting butter on pancakes then sprinkled with granular sugar. Nothing fancy. A bit like the pared down existence of a long term touring cyclist. After a year or so unnecessary items of personal effects are left behind.
So this morning I sit over my last pancake breakfast for perhaps a week or more. While doing so the white dog passes outside the hostel window. He had mysteriously disappeared for a few days; perhaps, some veterinary people took him in for vaccination and kept him for observation, or do they do that. Now he's back. His usual picture of health in shiny fur coat and later will be feeding on leftover steak at the restaurant next-door.
Well as not to be waylaid by dogs and other things out the window, on the road further south the plan is to detour through the national park "Torres del Paine" over the border in Chile. The park is close to Calafate as the crow flies just to the south, up the barrancas and through the hills which are the border. Though for some unbeknown reason there's no direct road; either, the barrancas are so steep as to make engineering a route difficult and prohibitively expensive, or, both governments history of mistrust for the other in defining the border this far south means it just hasn't happened. Whatever, the only way from Calafate to that part of Chile is a circuitous route east, then south, south-west and north-west. Almost a full circle back to where you start out.
I check-out late, there being no hurry as I'm well within schedule. When I take my wallet out to pay, the nice woman hostel owner waves it away and smiles, saying "de nada" you owe nothing at all for the last three nights camping in the garden. So I save three-hundred pesos.
I cycle to the bank. Today there's a big queue of other travellers to use the ATMs. The new right wing government being free marketers has lifted restrictions on foreign currencies, so the Blue Dollar rate is now irrelevant; good news as there is a better exchange rate from banks and therefore, living expenses are cheaper.
Then up a steep rise to the bus terminal, where I'd been told at the tourist office, bus company "Andesmar" change money. I need to buy Chilean pesos for the entrance fee to the park. I know I've been lucky in not paying in other parks, but I'm thinking I may not be as lucky this time. Thereat out of breath and sweating already, I join another slow queue to the ticket sales window. Anyway, the entrance is eighteen-thousand Chilean pesos (£20), which cost me four-hundred Argentine pesos. I assume this isn't the best of exchange rates.
Back down cycling east along the main avenue, I stop by a bookshop where I'd seen an interesting travel book, "At Home With The Patagonians" by George Musters, first published in 1871 and documents the authors then recent journey through Patagonia, with the Patagonians: the nomadic Tehuelches. A time before European settlers came and there was neither house nor road. I have been without a book for a couple of months and at 190 pesos, this book isn't too much.
Once I've bought enough rice and tuna and biscuits to last at least a week at the La Anonia supermercado further on, I call at the YPF petrol station a bit further and spend another hundred, thereby using the money saved on camping, on a full map of Patagonia from a company called Chalten.
When I'm finally ready to ride out of town, it is one o'clock, but then it doesn't start getting dark until eleven.
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There is a sharp climb up out of the calm sheltered small river ravine where Calafate is located, out into a strong tailwind. I feel pity for any cyclist riding the other direction today. I generally don't pedal, or soft pedal in a lowish gear while braking on and off, avoiding picking up too much speed as the road curves so the wind turns to something between tail and crosswind.
With the wind come overcast sky and it's chilly to stop for long. Then about six the wind isn't as strong as hitherto with cloud dispersing and warming bright sunshine. I'm feeling tired and lethargic having been to bed late last night and up early, so sit in the shelter of a culvert for forty minutes in which time I sleep.
Not long after when climbing "Cuesta de Miguez", taking the road up out of the Santa Cruz valley, where I know the road swings right at the top and thereafter I'll have a crosswind and needing to turn in early, decide to camp on arriving at a deep sheltered culvert.
Today's ride: 56 km (35 miles)
Total: 3,654 km (2,269 miles)
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