Tragedy: Los Glacieros to El Calafate.

January 4, 2016

Well the spot I chose to pitch the tent wasn't as level as it appeared last night in the light of my head-torch, as I awake this morning having slid to one side of the tent, my back tight against the tent wall. But I was comfortable and slept well, which is all that counts.

To avoid the monotony of returning the road I rode yesterday, I will ride the alternative unpaved route back to Calafate: the turning I lunched at yesterday. It is only about five kilometres back from where I camped and within a few hundred metres from starting out, I come to what would've been the perfect campsite, the wide and level grassy entrance to a field gate about fifty metres in from the road. Open to the road but here and in much of Patagonia, there's no traffic after about nine in the evening until about eight the following morning, nor any houses or people nearby to see.

View once I turn right upon route 60, back toward Lago Roca and ice-field retaining mountain beyond.

Having ridden about a hundred metres of it into to yesterday's lunch picnic spot, I'd seen the great order the alternative road is in and today find it continues like it starts out. A little bumpy in comparison to smooth tarmac, but clear of loose stones in the tracks of the occasional passing vehicle. And so I'm able to rumble along at a nice pace. The sky cloudless and an impressive view off to the right of Lago Roca and the mountain beyond. At eleven kilometres in I come to a tee at the slope rising out of the valley. Right is to a place on the lake shore, left to Calafate.

Ripio: a graded stony compressed earthen road (dirt road being the americanism).

Every vehicle whips up a cloud of dust in it's wake.

I am passing a roadside memorial without much thought to what it's about; then it dons on me this is approximately where it happened. The rural workers strike in 1922, violently putdown by an armed army unit sent down to Patagonia by the government of the day.

There is a large signboard with a poetic piece by left-wing Argentine historian and writer, Osvaldo Bayer, about the strikers demands for an increase in wages and better living conditions. There was however violence on both sides as the below Wikipedia piece details.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patagonia_rebelde

Painted stones at a memorial to the violent suppression of striking rural workers in 1922.

Estancia Anita, which was involve in the 1922 strike.

Less than a kilometre on is the entrance to estancia Anita, where many strikers were shot by firing-squad. Today gauchos are handing sheep in front of a large sheering shed.

I am just pulling to a halt to have a look when two other cyclists approach from the opposite direction and veer over to my side to stop and chat. Both on identical mountain bikes and matching team sponsor lycra. They are an English couple out for a ride and point across to a guesthouse on a hilltop where they are staying. The most remarkable thing is she is called Joanna, and has a striking resemblance to nineteen-seventies British television personality Joanna Lumley.

View off to left is of the surreal turquoise Lago Argentino.

The cloud is having a rest day. The ice-field is a comfortable bed.

The good ripio road continues. It is scenically a far superior route than 11, I was on yesterday, with a good view of the long turquoise strip of Lago Argentino to the right and a westerly breeze has risen making pedalling effortless. I lunch upon the wide verge on rice with tuna, having built a stone shelter for the stove and afterwards, it is only a dozen kilometres more to Calafate.

Back in town which is full of Summer holidaymakers, I call at the YPF petrol station to buy a map for Santa Cruz and Terra del Fuego. I am hoping for an ACA map, but in the shop there is only Geoargentina, which the girl at the counter lets me remove from its plastic wallet to look at before buying, which was as well because, it's completely inaccurate; for example, route 40 on the map branches off south-west before reaching the town of Gobernador Gregores, whereas in reality, 40 splits off the road to PiedraBuena a kilometre south of Gob Gregores. So I refold it neatly and put it back in it's wallet and hand it back.

There aren't many roads in southern Patagonia, but there are many tracks, which I'm looking into for a possible route round in the weeks ahead. I try a bookshop on the main avenue, where the maps range from 2-300 pesos. I similarily check the most appropriate map in there. The shopassistant objects to me taking it out of it's wallet, but not before seeing that it only has roads. Anyway the weeks ahead are going to be interesting.

Today's ride: 52 km (32 miles)
Total: 3,598 km (2,234 miles)

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