Too Dangerous: Punta Delgado to south of Rio Gallegos.

February 10, 2016

I am awakened by shouting over the din of many running truck engines and think it is morning, but the light streaming into the tent is truck headlights. The watch 01.45. The trucks backed up in a long line waiting to board a ferry. I sleep again. Next I awake it is daylight. The trucks are silent. I'm feeling too comfortable to move so remain put for what must be over an hour, then look at the watch see 07.26. I need to get moving because the first sixteen kilometre are directly west. And if the wind rises early and is anything like yesterday, this stretch could well be impossible and I wouldn't want to be stuck here a day waiting for it to settle.

At the moment it is calm. I breakfast on soup there being nothing else. Then drink tea just as the tent begin to flutter. The wind has started. I pack quickly, take down the tent, load all on the bike and get going. The queue of trucks go back more than a kilometre, most in park up for the night mode as the ferry has just started for the day.

I battle on with wind coming from ahead and to the left, nothing major yet though it feels like it is getting stronger. Soon I see a truck move along a range of barren brown hills ahead from left to right upon the other road, like in slow-motion because of distance, which I'll meet at a tee-junction, whereupon turning right, the wind will be from behind. It takes an age getting there though. Then I think my map is wrong because there seems to be a village at this junction, seeing a scattering of tin and wood houses ahead. But on reaching the junction its an estancia and an awful lot of oil well installations.

Turning the corner I suddenly go from struggling to being pushed along rapidly without much pedalling going on. About half an hour later I reach the village shown in the map in the right place, off to the left in the shelter of barrancas, a crease in the brown featureless steppe, but there's a restaurant out at the access road turning, which I've been looking forward to reaching for a real breakfast.

I have hamburger and chips. Good to eat something which is vegetable. The little boy come in to the dining area just as I'm taking a photo of an old wood stow and gets in the shot. He put instant coffee and a jar of dried milk on the table. Oh for real milk. There's cheese in the hamburger but it is industrial sliced stuff. The other diners, a trucker that come in after me, and a middleaged European couple that don't speak a word of Spanish, as when the senora puts the cup with instant coffee on the table, she asks in English "hot water", not knowing even the words "aqua caliente". The TV has a stupid morning time program featuring a couple arguing.

I buy a pack of chocolate cream biscuits for the road and leave.

I continue with the wind and pass a turn off for a road which appear to be off to the most eastern point on the Magellan Strait owned by Chile, a stony ripio road stretching off to the distance coast. While the way swings sharp left and climbs and from here on I've crosswind all the way to the border, as well as steep hills. Oncoming trucks blow me to a halt with turbulence. I think I'm going to die when a passing bus only has moved out half the lane and it's turbulences suck me almost into its side. Acting quickly to halt I think this is no longer worth it. Its too dangerous.

I struggle on to the border where I'm only too glad to get off the road. In the migration complex there's a big queue of bus passengers, but the officials either like cyclists or more likely, wanted me in a dishevelled unwashed state out as soon as possible, as I'm ushered to the front and processed in minutes. Behind the counter, both Chilean and Argentine border officials sit side by side and address each other amicably by first names. A wonder since the two countries have traditionally an antagonistic relationship, mainly due to territorial deputes: the frontier in the south sketchy until recently. The Carretera Austral in Chile, for example, was built as a military logistics road, to move military hardware in upon remote, roadless until then, areas in the south, in case the Argentines decide to annex these areas just over the border for them between the two countries.

On the maps this place is called "Mont Amond"

Paso Austral (Southern border crossing). To this point I've been on Chilean route 255. Here, route 3 resumes. After route 40 at something like 5000km, 3 is the second longest at 3000km.

I fill my water bottles and go further. The wind now tailwind until it settles down.

I was for stopping at kilometre 2637 (for those not familiar with this, Argentina like many countries, has marker boards ever kilometre with a number, the distance to or from the road's beginning) to eat my biscuits while resting a little before continuing to Rio Gallegos. But at km2639, there's an elongated mound of rocks hard by the right side of the road with a fair space between it and the stock fence. On the other side of which is hidden from the road and shelter from the prevailing wind. I wheel the bike in behind and set up the stove to boil water for tea. I sit on a rock with a boulder as a backrest and it so happens there's another rock in the right position and size for a footstool, so I put my feet up.

Its half five when tea is drawn and I think this will do for the day. Here is perfect for camping.

Today's ride: 88 km (55 miles)
Total: 5,224 km (3,244 miles)

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