December 24, 1999
Day 63 El Calafate: ride in Land Rovers
Camping Dos Pinos
We are on the road by 8am. The wind is a gentle tailwind. But the road again is rough. We 90kms to the junction of Ruta 40. We've decided to take a ride in order to be in El Calafate and arrange a trip to the Moreno Glacier on Christmas Day.
Patrick has two flat tires. His bike is too heavily loaded for the gravel road. By 1pm we have done 50 km, our hands and wrists hurt from the jolting of holding onto the bike.
A few cars have passed us, but none are able to give us a lift. Then a green Landrover stops, the lady asks if we are ok or need water. Patrick says we are needing a lift to El Calafate. They seem to want to help but are fully loaded. Then the man says maybe the vehicle they are travelling with could have room. A second Landrover arrives. They decide there is room, and the bikes could go on the top.
The panniers and gear come off and the bikes go on the roof, one on each Landrover and the gear stuffed into the second Landrover. Rachel rides with the couple from Brazil. He is a boat pilot and she an architect and speaks some English. Patrick is in the other vehicle with a couple that are professional travelers. They make a living out of selling photographs, mostly aerial, and writing articles. They own a single engine plane which they have flown to Africa and Australia. He says aerial pictures of out of the way places sell well since there aren't many of them. The third passenger in the car is a young Brazilian who flies air force jets. He has some interesting stories about a recent exercise in Nevada.
The Landrover defender handles awesome on the rough road. We fly towards El Calafate hardly noticing the bumps, washboard or soft spots that plagued us on our bikes.
In El Calafate they drop us off, we load up the bikes and first head down main street to find a travel agent and arrange a trip to and on the Moreno Glacier tomorrow. That goes easy.
We decide to camp at the little campground of the Hostel Los Dos Pinos. There we meet the Swiss girl and English guy we saw earlier with Pancho on the Camino Austral. (Pancho Frey did the water drop for us at Hotel Olnie and left his card under a rock)
In the evening we walk through town and find a place to eat pizza and beer for Christmas Eve. El Calafate is a tourist town with many shops, restaurants and hotels. Back at our place we are invited to have some real nice desert with our old friends and another Swiss couple. It gets late quick, it's been a while since we stayed up until dark.
Days are very long here.
Today's ride: 50 km (31 miles)
Total: 2,570 km (1,596 miles)
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