Heart

0

Comment

0

Link

Log in to comment or reply

I've made the Happy Hour at the microbrewy pub across the way. It tells when I've time to drink beer at six in the afternoon, as today too has been a rest day, spent resting. Hey, thirty pesos for a small piece of bread and two facturas at the bakery this morning. This morning strong wind and rain still battering the tent. I was surprized then to see so many bikes fully loaded ready to leave, leant against the wall outside the common room. Surely in th7is strong wind the wise thing to do is wait another day.

I breakfast as Jerminy and Lucile ready themselves and Raul who looks despondent, with a oh no does it have to be raining look on his face. Later I would see off six brightly coloured waterproof cyclists, slouch toward the laneway out of the campsite. The wind still north-westerly and their way predominately southeast, so I suppose they'll have tailwind. But the icy rain will soon make it's way through those pullover rain-trousers, making legs cold and miserable.

Predictably, the rain clears mid-morning but the strong wind continues to early afternoon. The morning is spend in the mundane task of sorting through photos. How I hate it. It all takes so long. The afternoon is more pleasing. I set about finishing the book I'm reading, so I can leave it in the book exchange here for someone else. And I actually spend a pleasurable hour outside the tent in the sunshine, fixing the front rack. I think I've done a job that'll last the duration of the tour. And fitted a new set of brake pads, cleaned and oiled the chain, so I'm ready for the road tomorrow.

Half four: I'm up and marching down the street in the direction of the bus station, wherein is an ATM. The prices here are starting to clean me out of my supply of cash and I'll need more before very long. But I have no joy. The message on the screen of the cash machine read "You have entered an invalid amount." I entered 1000 pesos, the highest amount, or £50. This bank malfunction means I've to change my plan on going north from here. I'll have to go south to Calafate to get cash. At least there's an La Anomina there where I can stock up on food for a week for the long ride north. When I think of it, I can't imagine stocking up here at fifty percent on everything.

There's nothing like a solid meal to dissipate the woosey effect of having drank a litre of beer. Steak, potatoes and carrots. Then after dinner, I go for a cycle around town. It doesn't get dark until half ten and the bright low latitude evening is wondrous with stark vivid light. Remembering the first time I came to Chalten in early December 2004. Back then the place was a little more primitive and frontier-like. The streets gravel blinding. Smaller, perhaps half the size it is now, with little or no structure bigger than a two storey house. And I camped for free on a piece of virgin land on the right before the bridge on the way into town. Now the same place has parking and picnic tables and an unmissable "No Camping" sign. For nostaligy it is good to be standing on the spot where my younger self camped twelve years earlier.

I finish my after dinner jaunt with a visit to the climbers chapel. The gate locked this time of day but, it's still possible to lean over and read the names of the climbers....going back to Eggar the Austrian in the fifties, the list goes on down the decades, climbers from many nations.