November 6, 2016
Sun 6th Nov: Rio Senguer to Paso Alta Pampa, Chile
See a Saturday night camping on the edge of a village here...That disco: bass going, thump thump thump... What they call music, can be heard well into the early hours. I think I'd a few hours sleep before it woke me; like a joiner hammering home a nail: thump tor tor tor...From there on, I just turned restlessly, drifting in and out of disturbed sleep. Then awake in the grey light of dawn. The beat having gone quiet.
I lift my watch arm up to my eyes and see: 5.42. And know with the wind having settled, I've to make the best of it while it's calm. So force my tired sleepless self out of the sleeping bag. And manage to have the tent down and all packed on the bike ready to go shortly before seven.
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The town is deserted on leaving. There's then confusion a kilometre on, at a tee-junction. On a sign, there's, Rio Mayo left, and Lago Fontana, right. But no indication for Paso Coyle: the way to Chile. I have to take out my map and study it long and hard. Well, it doesn't look like left is the right direction. It goes east toward the sun which at this moment is a red orb just above the horizon. Paso Coyle is definitely west. So I go right, toward Lago Fontana, supposing after a few kilometres, there'll be a left-split to Chile-a road not shown on my map.
The road on is terrible, loose stones, my rear-wheel ride on which roll side-ways, causing me to stall. There is little or no usual car track clear of stones that I can ride upon, so I have to get off and push much of the way. Perhaps the shopkeeper was right.
I'm pushing the bike when the first car of the six cars I will see all day come along. I turn to face the wound-down driver-side window as it draws level, hoping it will stop and I can ask is this the right way to Paso Coyle. The driver and passenger, two fishermen in green camouflage jackets. The driver informs me to my relieve that it is indeed the right way to Coyle and the split in the road is just ahead. He insists on speaking English; asks where I'm from, and when I say Ireland, says: Ah, Ireland have beat the All Blacks in Ruby. I am after hearing it on the radio. He speaks in a way which says he wants to show his friend sitting next him how well he can speak English. And he isn't listening to anything I say. Finally saying: enjoy yourself and moving on when I am in mid-sentence.
Late-morning: the hills to the west visible from back in town are still a fair way off, looking no nearer than when I first set out. I can now ride much of the road, with short stony stretches I've to get off and push. I'm trudging across a pampa going gradually uphill.
Early-afternoon I reach a final sharp incline. And cresting it, I expected to be dropping down to a wooded valley the other side: instead what I see, is a lumpy round hillock pampa stretching off to distant mountains. Though the good thing is, the road is less a chaos of loose stones with well defined vehicle tracks and therefore easy riding.
I reach the Argentine border post about five: a remote white wooden house with red corrugated iron roof. The celestrel blue and white Argentine flag flaps in the breeze-atop a pole on a grassless lawn in front. The young native-american officer that meets me at the door and sees me into the office is not happy. Once he flicks through my passport, he insists I go back outside and take all the bags in off the bike to be searched. I can only imagine being stuck up here all weekend, away from friends; but, I don't like it being taken out on me. He sees to it that I take everything out; things that have fallen down the bottom and I've forgotton I have, such as a small bag of sugar, he picks up and looks at quisically, before proceeding to stamp my passport.
It's a few kilometres on to the Chilean border post. Beyond which the road deteriorates to loose gravelly stones, though not quite as bad as in the morning; it's still fairly rideable. And there seems no end to the round hillock punctuated Pampa. I'm anxious to get as far as possible this evening while it remains calm.
Eight o'clock: I'm on the look out for a place to camp. Lots of fenced-in sheep and cattle pasture along either side. But eventually, I come to a rerouted section of road, where the old road, an earthen track splits off to the right-round the back of a hillock, out of view. Where I come to level grassy verge with dwarf beech trees, with a view down to a lake filling a valley the road ahead drops down into. With a cow roaring in the distance and the bleat of lambs from the slope the other side of the fence. One ewe looks at her two lambs before moving off, the lambs trying to suckle but she isn't waiting; as if saying: it's too dangerous here. Humans are dangerous. Will you ever learn.
I cook a good supper of polenta in vegetable soup and chickpeas, one of two chickpea-cans carried since Trevelin. Followed by marble cake and tea while listening to a bawling bull nearby on the outside of the fence. He shouldn't come near my tent, I hope.
I'm well satisfied with my progress today, almost thirteen hours, 65km on stony track. Supposedly it's another 55km to the main north-south road in this part of Chile: The Caratera Austral. Another early start tomorrow. Goodnight.
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