February 9, 2016
Weakness: Before Sombrero to Punta Espora/Transbordador (ferry).
Once my tent has been pitched on a level well drained site with preferably grass or other soft underlay, I am snug. I wake up early when it still isn't light, the rain battering the tent, but I'm toasty warm and comfortable.
This morning I have a little porridge left, enough to make do. This Terra del Fuego is a terrible hungry place, what with custom restrictions on fruit, veg, meat and dairy products imposed by Chilean agricultural inspectors. The border crossing usually having a remote area following where it isn't possible to replenish such things. Not such a problem for motorised travellers that can get to the next town usually within the day, but a pain to cyclists who could take many days. If not for this, I could've stocked up well for the three to four days necessary to cross the island before the border crossing back in Rio Grande, wherein are both La Anonima and Carrefour. The main thing I miss is fat from butter and cheese, necessary for endurance. In any case, a couple of days in Chile now and I'm feeling empty and lacking energy living on crackers, rice and tuna.
Today was to be an easier day but the wind has different plans. Basically, I'm still on a road heading west. And its a day feared all along since leaving Ushuaia, namely a day of high wind. I should be all right when I get back to the mainland, as route 3 north, my planned itinerary, is predominately facing north east, meaning if wind remains from the south west, tailwinds.
I ride the remaining 8km of ripio to Cerro Sombrero. The name implying town on a hill. A service centre for surrounding sheep farms and oil industry; there being a big depot yard full of oil workers pickup trucks, the same seen on the road. There's a petrol station with no shop. Its a fair size place about fifty painted wood and corrugated iron clad houses, but, could I find a shop. I'd been looking forward all yesterday to getting here to supplement my present meagre diet. I find only a kiosk which is locked up. Nobody about. There's a bank, a cinema and church, but no supermercade that I could find having cycled around quite a bit.
The wind has risen as I ride further, between tail and crosswind and the road is now smooth concrete. Then two kilometres on come a tee-junction, where the long route to Sombrero, I turned off yesterday comes in on the right and the way to the ferry, 38km according to the sign, continuing left into the wind.
Left I go and immediately curtailed to struggling at walking pace and regularly being pushed off onto the gravel shoulder, the wind slightly to the left of head-on. But a couple of kilometres ahead, I see the trucks veer right and continue rightward across the steppe, meaning I should be back to cross tailwind soon.
Before that though is a kind of shop on the right. A kiosk inside a wood clad house on the left. I turn toward it in across a gravel apron at the front. I enter. A big poorly nourish woman with green bags under eyes in a flabby sickly face come out from a living room behind a counter. I ask for bread, thinking there may be homemade, but she says there isn't any. Left with little choice I buy a pack of biscuits, bar of chocolate and litre and half bottle of coke. This is all there is; all sugary fast energy and tooth rot; nothing of nutritional valve. Then sit in out of the wind in the cabin's sheltered lea fortifying my depleted energy while watching a kid's plastic tipper-truck from a house further back being tumbled on the wind across the wasteland; it lift off the ground and lands upright upon it's wheels; whereupon, tailwind blows it further to the road.
On from the shop I follow the road veering right, but the wind at this point has moved more to the west so I've crosswind pushing me precariously off onto the gravel shoulder. Then strengthens in strong gusts, pushing me off the bike completely. Unable to ride I've to walk and push for a kilometre, the road veering right again, where I've cross tailwind, so can ride for two kilometres; whereupon the road swings left and downhill into a somewhat sheltered lea of a hill with a refuse shelter down the bank on the right and a long unsheltered straight of crosswind ahead. I opt to push the bike down to the refuse hut and therein change my bottom-bracket. The hard pedalling in the wind, has started causing a degree of chain skipping on the sprockets during gear changes, which I rectify through moving the gear lever back or forward, though I feel it only a matter of time before the bearing goes completely.
With new bottom-bracket fitted, I set off again and although there's crosswind, I can just about ride but no more, until the road climbs and drops down into a valley where the road yet again veers, round to the left on the flank of a dry salt lagoon taking up most of the valley bottom; upon which, I would have headwind more or less the rest of the way to the ferry. Parts I can ride, but I'm off pushing mostly and the wind is getting stronger, making even walking difficult. My arms ache as I push hard toward wind that pushes hard back against me, often halting me and I struggle to stand up: a game of strength between me and the wind, pushing hard against each other until one gives. Usually, the wind gives in, lessens and I can push forward again.
I push for five kilometres until six kilometres before the ferry terminal. I start thinking yes I've ridden all the way, but not now, now I'm walking. Then, a passing pickup truck slows and pulls to a halt on the shoulder. I was for refusing a lift, but when I reach the driver, its a foregone conclusion. I'm walking, not cycling, so what does it matter now. I gladly except the driver's kind offer of a lift who is out by the rear to help me lift the bike into the back. It just about fits diagonally upright. These modern four-door pickups having not much more luggage space than a saloon car.
Once we've tied the bike securely, I jump in the passenger side and we move on. The driver is going home to Punta Arenas and isn't the talkative type. He tunes the radio and I look out at the steppe and the five kilometre marker board. Not until we reach a long queue of vehicles for the ferry does he remark that the ferry crossings are postponed due to the wind.
The terminal village consist of a visitor centre, outside which two motorcyclists have pitched their tents. To the side of this building is a welcome café, where I lunch on a beef and cheese sandwich.
I spend the afternoon in the crowed visitor centre, everybody else in the same boat as me, not going anywhere until the ferry can run again. Outside sunny but freezing in the chill wind.
The ferries start up again about seven and I make the crossing. On the other side I remain inside the Tehuelche Sur café, eating another sandwich and make tea from hot water which isn't free, but the girl behind the counter doesn't charge me, until dark when its time to look for a sheltered spot outside to pitch the tent. I must've walked the whole way round the terminal village looking, eventually deciding on a spot in the lea of an old nineteen-seventies truck with engine canniballed and so pitch the tent.
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Today's ride: 43 km (27 miles)
Total: 5,136 km (3,189 miles)
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