October 29, 2016
Sat 29th Nov: Esquel to Trevelin
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Its worrying times for the Pound. Worrying if your money is in Pounds and Pence.
The Independent newspaper reports, investor confidence in the pound could remain slow until March 2017, when British Premier Teressa May proposes an EU meeting to discuss Brexit, with the possibility of Britain leaving the European Union by 2019. But a financial expert maintains the present 31 year low in the Pound, will only be in the short term and Sterling will soon start recovering.
At the moment, a pound buys 1.19 Euros and 1.27 US Dollars.
In any event, worrying as it is, there isn't a lot I can do about it.
I also checked prices of flights home, finding December and January to be high season, so it looks like February would be the best time to fly. Furthermore, flights from Santiago, can work out almost as cheap as flying from Buenos Aires, even though the former is a significantly longer distance. There is also the lower living expenses in Chile to consider.
All this time online, as well as Google maps, keeps me up until almost 1 am.
This morning it's after eight when I scramble out of bed. Too late to catch the Old Patagonian Express. Well, I suppose having seen it twice before, it doesn't quite matter. In fact, it's feeling like deja vu being back in Esquel so soon.
It's a dull cloudy morning looking out. When first I step out, the street is soaking wet and its raining lightly, making me think of staying put and checking in for another night. Though its only a shower and soon the sun is out.
The ride to Trevelin is on the terrible busy 258, the road I entered Esquel upon the other day. An east-west branch of route 40 going to the Chilean border. A road best avoided on a bike, because of its narrowness and volume of traffic.
Trevelin has grown as a second home location. It's a far cry from the small village seen on old photographs. Now, fancy wood cabins fill out the valley.
Outside the tourist office, where I'd been to find out where the municipal campsite is, I get on the bike and start riding away, when I immediately feel the hard metal of the rear-wheel rolling directly on the road. I've a flat tyre. Mysterious, as I don't think I've run over anything sharp that could've caused it. Then having removed the wheel and taken out and inflated the innertube by a bench in the plaza, I hear air hissing out from underneath a patch, a patch I put on the day I punctured on a dusty untarmacked road, when a car came along at speed with a billowing cloud of dust in it's wake as I waited for the glue to set before sticking on the patch.
I get to the municipal campsite and spend the afternoon planning my route ahead, or, think of how many days food I'll need. I reckon to be safe, allowing for wet days, a week's worth of breakfast, lunch and dinner should cover it. And having already stocked up on cash at the ATM this morning, I'm set for a week where there are no supermercados or banks. Then I go to La Anomina to shop.
I finish the day in the tent drinking a Patagonia pale ale: the last treat for a while. One for the remote road ahead.
Today's ride: 190 km (118 miles)
Total: 5,960 km (3,701 miles)
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