Principle: near Tres Lagos to Rio Leona.

December 24, 2015

Low cloud and rain has moved in overnight filling the valley further down from where I pushed the bike back up from where I'd camped to the road. Soon the rain is on. Sheer misery as sleety pellets hit the side of my face. And soon I turn a corner, where eleven years earlier, I remember seeing Tres Lagos ten kilometres ahead, appearing like a cluster of white boxes across the ochre steppe with a barranca slope backdrop. Then a sunny afternoon. Today misery. The road a soaked black sheen and around grey mist and falling rain.

The road eleven years ago was still unpaved of coarse and reached Tres Lagos to the west of town. The new road swings left a good bit before and reaches town upon a road running east of town, then unpaved too, but now paved.

It is eight o'clock when I get this far saturated, feet like ice and miserably cold. I go right at the roundabout and it's nearly a kilometre more until I'm riding through a wet deserted street at this hour.

I continue out the other side, remembering a petrol station about three kilometres further where I'm looking forward to a coffee stop and a chance to get inside for a while.

The modern road bypasses this petrol station, which now is a couple of hundred metres off on the right along an unpaved road to Lago San Martin. There is no sign of life when I cycle in on the forecourt. The shop looks closed as I lean the bike against the window; perhaps it being Christmas Eve; then I see a woman behind the counter inside and trying the door, it opens.

Inside is rustic nineteen-seventies just like the rest of the petrol station. There's a shop counter the whole way along the rear with shelving behind stacked with packets of biscuits and canned food. On the counter is a glass cabinet with sweets and a platter of empanadas with a transparent cover. I ask for one with my coffee and take a seat by the window, where fortunately there's a power-socket and so I plug in my camera to charge.

On the wall is a wall chart map of the province of Santa Cruz, which I study while waiting for the woman to come out with the coffee. It is nice to look at possible routes in comfort, often not so nice when out on the road riding them. I am looking at a possible road back north once I've reached the end of the world, Ushuaia. I'm thinking, up route 3 by Rio Gallegos, two-hundred kilometres more to Piedra Buena, then there's a paved road north west to Gobernador Gegores, where I was a couple of days ago and mentioned it as a good stop point. Thereafter up route 40 to Bajo Caracoles and strike off west for Lago Posadas by the Andes. I have been on this road previously and it's find, albeit slow and arduous. It connects to a border crossing into Chile, where I can reach route 7 north. A brave detour would be to turn off for the national park Perito Moreno, a hundred kilometres before Bajo Caracoles, where according to a map I've got from local road services, there's a track on north from the park to Lago Posadas. I imagine it is very mountainous in this area and what the track is like, there's no way of telling if such a route is doable.

After an hour of charging the rain has stopped and the sky has cleared. The road on is gradually uphill all the way and the wind has picked up hitting me head on.

Struggling on at walking pace I see something which looks like a loaded bicycle-trailer sat on the gravel shoulder and closer, I discover a push-cart and meet a young Argentine called Martin. He is running from Ushuaia to La Quiaca: the most southern to the most northern town in Argentina. The cart is healed up, so the front wheel is off the ground, which acts as a parking brake. He takes something from a small bag on top of the luggage, in so doing sets it down on the front wheel and leaves it like this when he walks a few steps away. With no brake now the wind starts moving the cart forward on its own. I shout and we both make a run for the cart careering along with the wind. Martin being faster catches hold of the rail before it has picked up speed.

Martin running north, luckily has a good tailwind; so good his push-cart wanted to go on itself without him..

I thought the road which continues rising, would come to a summit from which it would be downhill toward Lago Viedma. Then I recall the day eleven years ago on the then unpaved road and there was a lot of climbing.

It is now early afternoon and I've been climbing since leaving the petrol station at half nine. The wind is just becoming impossible the higher I go. But I know it mustn't be far now to the turnoff for El Chalten, the hiking resort village for Mount Fitzroy; whereupon, the road on swings left and I shouldn't have this headwind.

Shortly a car passes slowly and pulls to a halt on the shoulder. A woman is out and pulling on a warm jacket against the windchill when I reach the car. She seems familiar and she recognises me too.

"....receurdo el hostel en Tandril?" she says as way of introduction. It dawns. Barbara. Yes. I remember. "Hay mucho viento..." voice muffled in the wind, she says it is too windy and can I give you a lift. I am going to Chalten and can fit the bike in the back. I am speechless and out of breath, gibbering with exhaustion after over three hours struggling uphill into the wind, but not about to give in on my principal, having ridden all the way from Buenos Aires. What now? I take a lift. I explain no Barbara, I still prefer to ride. I think she understands as I bade her goodbye. She gets back in the car and I watch her drive on. Thoughts of having looked a gift horse in the mouth troubles me when I see the car disappear out of sight and struggle on. But later I'm glad to have refused her kind offer of help.

Not far on the turnoff signboard for El Chalten come into sight and momentarily, I see an oncoming bus turn in across the road and drive off to the right. This is where I aimed to be for lunch as the road for Chalten I recall is banked up and a little way in, has a culvert where I can seek shelter to eat and rest before going further. As it is the road has changed to how I remember. There is no culvert any longer and I lunch in the poor alternative shelter of a low pile of roadbuilding material to the side where the culvert should've been, careful not to let light bits of accoutrement blow away and the wind battering my right side.

Setting off again the wind blows me back to the junction and I turn right, where I've a crosswind, but it's manageable to ride in. Soon the turquoise expanse of Lago Viedma come into view to the right and for quite a bit the road skirts the lake. And although its clear sky and sunny, looking west across the lake, Mount Fitzroy which should be visible at this point, is obscured in cloud rising from the lake's far horizon.

The road swings away from the lake and I've a terrific tailwind until descending to Rio Leona, where I turn into the wind crossing the bridge over the Lago Viedma draining river whose swift melt-water current snakes along. And opposite on the downstream side of the bridge below the road, is a riverbank roadhouse. Here I thought to award my progress with a mid-afternoon coffee.

There is a tree sheltered campsite alongside the drive down and I wonder how much the charge is to camp. Then rounding the corner it is gladdening to see two other touring cyclists. Their bikes have shiny new red panniers and the two young men are attired in matching new red and black windproof jackets and over-trousers and balaclavas; everything new, having just recently started their tour in Ushuaia. In exchange of the road I say I'll maybe stop here tonight if the campsite isn't too expensive. They are from the French speaking part of Belgium and one retort in a way that only a native French speaker would "I nev-ver pay to camp. Why pay to sleep in my tent?" Which hits the nail on the head when I only pay when it is a hostel bed I pay for, with kitchen to cook and other travellers to socialize with. He couldn't have said it better.

As it happen, inside the coffee is normal Patagonia expensive; thirty pesos for a weak cup and a slice of torta (cake) forty-five, which I pass on. The price list is touristy expensive so I don't bother asking the price to camp.

The river valley is serene late afternoon riding on. The sky cloudless and the air fresh as the wind settles. I reach a ravine in brown escarpment rising to the right of the road, a stream from which passes under the road to the river on the left and on a gravel bank down where it enters the river, I find a near perfect place to pitch my tent.

Now I'm glad I refused that kind offer of a lift. If I had, I would now be in a campsite in Chalten with two days ride to El Calafate; and, it would be raining. Here its a clear cold Christmas Eve. And tomorrow I've a short day to El Calafate.

I camp just ahead opposite the outhouse.

Christmas Eve Camp by Rio Leona. The river takes it's name from an incident on it's bank in March 1877, involving a young Argentine explorer, Perito Moreno who was attacked by a lyon "Leon" in Spanish, or Puma, a large wild cat which are still plentiful, but very elusive.

I use the panniers to block out wind in order to fire the stove. And I put my foot in it.

Today's ride: 89 km (55 miles)
Total: 3,336 km (2,072 miles)

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