February 18, 2016
Tree That Nobody's Seen Yet: near Las Heras to near route 40.
I have a lay-in, not getting out of the sleeping-bag until quarter to seven, nevertheless I'm on the road for eight. A sunny but as usual cold start. The road just goes on and on and gradually up over the same plain as yesterday. The range of hills still quite far off on the right; and now there's a great elongated hill holding up a high plateau tabular top off to the left, a slight bluish colour due to distance.
The wind here is relentless, blowing everyday, headwind, though fortunately it hasn't been really strong, nor is it the case today; it's just enough to make progress laboured and slow.
Eventually I reaches the tail end of those hills mentioned and the road is flanked on the right by a hill just as it dips steeply down and then equally steep up again to a turn off on the left for Bajo Caracoles, route 39, an unpaved road going off across the plain south. Its a bit of a milestone for me, as the sign says it is 51km back to Las Heras, which took me four and a half hours to achieve, riding every inch of this monotomous hell. Just into the turning for Bajo Caracoles is what looks to be an old parador (roadhouse), partly demolish, though providing shelter where I sit down to eat half a packet of oatmeal biscuits and an apple. The sun pleasant in the shelter. Then heading on I pass a sign, Perito Moreno 117km, which is something, though at this slow grinding pace, its still a long way.
The way on climbs a steep rise into the hills and through a narrow gap with amble great camping possibilities to the side, if only it weren't only midday; then, descends with the road a straight line ahead across a plain with a cleft all along the left and ahead, the Deseado valley, a little distance off.
It takes from about noon until three to cover the next stretch of dead straight road for about forty kilometres, until suddenly the ground opens on the left and the view is down into the valley, where there's rough pastureland; and ahead a downhill to La Pluma, an oasis in the valley bottom with a shop-restaurant, accommodation and camping inside a large stand of shelter trees, where I sit down to lunch.
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Going further the road climbs back out of the valley and for four hours I'm on the same long straight, gradually uphill all the way, grind, grind. The chain creaks away.
I pass a gravel pit which would make a good campsite, but don't want to still be on this same straight in the morning, preferring to press on to sunset, by which time I should reach a range of low hills ahead.
By the time I get as far as said hills, the sun has set, the road rises up over them, but there's absolutely nowhere suitable to camp. There are mounds created by road building to the side to hide a tent, but the ground is either not level, or covered with thorny scrubs which would damage a tent. I look behind just about every mound as it is getting cold, but its much the same. The only level place and with a degree of shelter from the sharp north west wind is on the right hand side of the road, along a cutting with a roughly two metre wide level strip like a track at the bottom, between the road shoulder and the bank. Not hidden from the road, but then there's only a few trucks passing, one of which gives me a friendly hoot on passing as I pitch the tent.
Today's ride: 102 km (63 miles)
Total: 6,156 km (3,823 miles)
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