February 17, 2016
Rare Grass: near Pico Truncado to near Las Heras.
Today like yesterday afternoon is a continuation of this featureless plateau with a gradual incline, perhaps a two per cent gradient going up, nothing you'd much notice, nevertheless noticeable as I'm forced to ride in a climbing gear. Then an hour after setting off about half eight, the wind starts blowing from the north west; a light breeze to begin with before turning to usual strong wind.
I reach Koluel Kayke, a roadside village with lots of small shops and a hotel, a service centre for route 43, also the Sportsman bus stop and ticket office inside a shop, wherein I buy a big bottle of coke and a pallet of facturas, those custard and jam croissanty-pasties, and sit outside eating them contemplating with eyes fixed on a square of irrigated green grass. Then the bus that has been waiting starts moving off. I could've been on that bus and be in Los Antiguos, on the Chilean border where there's trees and a lake and mountains, in a few hours.
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Beyond Koluel Kayke, a ravine on the left briefly opens the view down into the Rio Deseado valley. The slopes have many oil derricks. I'm not sure if that is the proper name for them; some call them nodding donkeys; they're those big arms that go slowly up and down. I thought this is the start of more undulating country. but then, the road swings right away from the drop and view down into the valley and across to the barranca sloped far side, back to the ever dead flat plain with that gradual incline.
There are hills, first seen late yesterday floating in mid air on the horizon, far off to the left. Now there's a range of hills coming into view on the right and ahead. They don't look that far off until I crest a rise and the road dips down and rises straight to the horizon, where those hills perhaps forty kilometres away fall out of view in the dip. The wind though hasn't got any stronger; its quite manageable wind coming from ahead and to my right, as the road goes on and on and Las Heras, the next town seems an awful long way.
The traffic is constant, near enough all white oil worker pickup trucks and a few flat deck trucks with construction steel and also light trucks, one of which pulls in to a halt on the gravel shoulder, the driver out waiting for me as I cycle up. I think he is going to offer me a lift. He is wearing a bright orange hi-visibility vest and holds another in his hand, which he tells me to put on, calling it "Choleta" A present, I'm rightly pleased with. I've a yellow hi-vi vest, but I feel orange is a lot more stand out.
I eventually reach Las Heras gone half two. A much more normal place than Pico Truncado. From a distance it rises out of the desert scrubland as tin boxes gleaming in early afternoon sun and as I progress nearer become a rambling scattering of corrugated iron sheds on the outskirts. But again its still a long ride into town, on the edge of which, my first stop is the YPF service station to replenish the water supply. Then find myself on a long avenue with many intersecting streets, on the look out for a supermercado. At traffic-lights, a man selling hot dogs from a box chats to me, asking me where I'm from and all, gives me directions to an La Anonamia.
Once done at the supermercado, having lunched by the shopping trolleys I set off with a very heavy bike stocked with food and four litres of water for the next 170km stretch to Perito Moreno, but the way on isn't too obvious as every street going west ends on the western end of town looking out across scrubland. I ask one young woman in a car that gives me directions and tells me the road is ripio (unpaved) fin de pavemento, which sure can't be right, as it is shown as tarmac on most maps, Anyway she sounded genuine and I'm worried. Then hesitantly cycling along a rough unpaved street she sent me along, a white excursion minibus stops and the driver calls out to me. I tell him I'm looking for the way back onto route 43, west toward Perito Moreno. He says further up the same street and turn right. I ask him how many kilometres is there of ripio. He replies, alarmed "Ripio! Todo es asfalto." (Its tarmac the whole way).
It is after five when I´m leaving Las Heras, continuing west. The range of hills seen earlier are now near at hand over to the right and ahead and it seems if I puah on to nightfall, I may just reach the hills ahead, until the road crests a shallow rise and I see the road dip and continues dead straight to another level far horizon and the hills beyond. Though, in the dip there´s a culvert and a track down on either side of the road. In the jaws of the south facing culvert mouth underneath the road seems perfect protection from the moderate north west wind with a firm gravel base, which I use a tent peg and side of my shoe to level out before pitching the tent.
Today's ride: 94 km (58 miles)
Total: 6,054 km (3,760 miles)
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