Unwelcome Guest: PN Los Alerces end-to-end.

December 8, 2015

For whatever reason my body clock decides not to work, waking me up with the daylight. Instead when I stir, I look at my watch and see 07.23. And I have to still get pass the national park control point before eight o'clock, when the person collecting the entrance fee comes to work, if I'm to avoid paying.

I don't wait around. I'm out and start packing the panniers and have the tent down and all on the bike in what would be little more than ten minutes. On the road its a sharp cold morning to equal a frosty December morning in Ireland. Keep in mind this is the southern hemisphere's equivalent of June. The day is long but the sun as yet is still hidden behind a mountain.

Then passing a sign for the park control, I'm full of expectation. I know foreigners pay something like double what nationals pay, which is a considerable amount just to ride a stretch of road.

It is about quarter pass eight when I reach the park entrance box, but thankfully there's no one there yet. There's some kind of visitor centre house just beyond it with a park rangers pickup truck parked outside, meaning there's people about. So I just remain cool, looking the picture of an honest man, which I am, on bicycle willing to stop and pay, but seeing no one in the box to take my money and hoping no one suddenly appears from the house and asks me to stop, I cycle easily on by.

That was fortunate. I'm in for free. Just after the entrance there was a hedged in laneway down with a gate I'd to open to pass through and continue down to a lakeside where I now breakfast sat on a wooden boating jetty, where as soon as I got here the sun's rays broke over the mountain ridge and warmed the jetty up considerable, while back from the water's edge is still in shade and fridge cold. Amid the pleasant ambience of a still morning with the sound of water lapping on the shore, there are voices of a young couple about two-hundred metres further along, attired in warm hiking jackets, who must be camped in from the shore among the trees. At the moment he is fishing, while she examines pebbles on the beach.

I breakfast on porridge and mate and remain, writing up my diary for yesterday and don't set off again until near eleven.

Dutch cyclist and Argentine cyclists, middle and right.

Cyclist from Trevelin, just down the road.

I haven't started off again long when I see a cyclist ahead, who is going a lot slower than me. It looks like quite an elderly man with white hair, but on nearing I discover a woman. She seems to be finding it tough on the loose gravelly ripio. Then as I reach her, the road is going into a bend with the road banked up in a slope from inside to outside, like the banking on a velodrome, making the riding tricky, as on the level the marble-like stones cause the wheels to skid sideways, while on this it is a disaster waiting to happen.

She decides to climb up the bank and ride on the outside, but then decides it safer to get off and push. We exchange a few words of out of breath greeting while I steer down to ride on the inside, having though if the bike should slide out from under me, it won't have further than onto the grass to go. I ride on ahead for quite a bit, then stop to take a photo. Just then another cyclist is approaching from the other direction.

When he, a bearded dark hair man with dark sunglasses reaches me, another cyclist comes into view in his wake, then another tailing. And as they come to where I'm now talking with the first cyclist, the cyclist I passed is coming the other way.

They are the first cyclists I've met so far. The bearded man, Argentine with an Argentine made trailer, similar to the common Bob-yak, but a lot more sturdier, especially where needed at the swing-arm rear-wheel hitching point, being reinforced to endure the jolts of rough unpaved road. It also has a neater better thought out carrying cage.

The cyclist going my way is Dutch, cycling to Puerto Natales; and the two others are young Argentines, an athletic girl and a boy much slower than her with a guitar strapped on top at the front, both cycling from Ushuaia to Salta.

Hey! Just that you know I'm here looking out for you. All us animals have a shared interest, yes that includes you, to look after this place.

I don't have water as I cycle toward lunchtime, reaching lago Verde. I turn off down a track to the lake, which is steeper than I envisaged: a brake squealing descent with velodrome banked switch-back bends, where I've to be extra careful; and mindful, I'm not going to like the climb back up again, so hope there's a good stream flowing into the lake where I can fill up on water.

Then rounding a bend I meet a young couple in hiking cloths walking up. She a short woman with blond hair and bedraggled from being on the road face, says the campsite below is closed, in Spanish with a French ascent, making her hard to understand. Then I ask is there water, a river running into the lake. "Tsere is the lac" she replies in English.

The campsite is indeed closed with a notice on a wooden cabin to say as much, not that it matters much, but there is a water-tap by the door where I fill my water bottles.

Through the trees opposite the campsite, there's a fence with a gate access, beyond which is some kind of fishing lodge restaurant, on the other side it opens to the lake. I wheel the bike over, open the gate and pass through and close it behind me and ride over to picnic tables, the ideal place to lunch.

I have just unloaded my food bag from the pannier out upon the table and am setting up the stove to boil water in shelter against a cold breeze that has latterly picked up, when along come a lanky warmly dressed young man striding with hands trust in trouser pockets for warmth.

I ask can I eat here. He replies a resounding no. I find this a bit annoying, as I'd only be here a half hour or so. And usually, just about everywhere I go, especial here in Argentina, people are so welcoming. The gate was open and he runs an establishment open to passing public and it seems because, I am not a perspective guest to the restaurant paying money, he just doesn't want me here. Though I can't argue, he being the owner. He passes the day with me, asking me how far I'm cycling and all, while waiting for me to pack my pannier again and see me off.

I return to the campsite and in among the trees find a suitable lunch picnic table with a fogone (fire place) for stove shelter, with access down to the lake via a steep path.

It is a long afternoon on the ripio, the later few hours alongside an elongated lake, Lago Futalautquen, a grey sheet, the day having grown even windier with increased cloud cover, wanting to reach the far end of the park by evening, so I can get by the park entrance before eight the following morning, when the person will be there to check if I've an entrance ticket.

Shortly after eight I reach the far side of the lake and find a perfect place just in from the shore to camp with good shelter from the wind provided by shrubs

It is very cold once I stop cycling and I rap up well, putting on my dunn-jacket and warm wool bottoms. Tomorrow will be a short day to Esquel, the last big place with a few days off preparing for the long push south.

Today's ride: 56 km (35 miles)
Total: 2,146 km (1,333 miles)

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