December 27, 1999
Day 66 Rio Pelaque: camping at police station
Camp at police station
At about 8am we leave El Calafate. For almost 100km we will have a paved road and a good chance for a tailwind for a big chunk of it.
As we leave the wind is calm, we climb a bit and get on a shelf along Lago Argentina. How nice it is to pedal without having to constantly watch for stones, holes, or loose sand. Just pedal and lo0k at the scenery.
At about 40km we stop at a small hotel called Rio Bate for a cup of coffee. Inside are huge dried and stuffed carcasses of puma and a condor. We hear from the woman that runs the place that Hotel Cerrito where we are trying to get to today, is not really a hotel but a road maintenance shed. There is a guy who lives there, and we should be able to camp and get water.
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Just past our lunch break the road starts to climb. From About 600 meters to 1100 meters at the top of the meseta, a large high plain. During the climb we get some help from the wind and good views of the Santa Cruz valley. Patrick stops to get pictures of guanacos and sees a condor soar overhead.
On top of the meseta we see another big group of guanacos. As Patrick approaches with camera and telephoto, they retreat a bit but do not run as usual. Patrick lays down at the fence to steady the lens on a rock and gets some good shots. They are actually curious and approach a bit to check him out.
We stay high for a while and then get a couple of beautiful gradual downhills that combined with the wind takes us many miles without having to pedal. Now this is bicycle touring!
At about 4pm we reach Hotel Cerrito, this is where the easy ride ends, Ruta 40 branches off due west, gravel all the way!
Since the wind isn't very strong today, we decide to go on a bit, about 20 km from here the road crosses a river (water!) and there should be a police station. When we arrive, we ask permission to camp behind the house so we are sheltered form the wind. We fill up our water bottles inside the house. Patrick takes a sponge bath at the river. We have spaghetti with white sauce and mince meat Rachel found yesterday.
Pretty good for the middle of nowhere.
Today's ride: 117 km (73 miles)
Total: 2,687 km (1,669 miles)
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