I talked to a shopkeeper in Las Plumas Sunday. And the pump attendant at the service station in Las Altares Monday. Except for those two human interactions it's been a long lonely road. Reaching the service station in Paso de Indios at two o'clock-Tuesday, I sat in the cafeteria with a Quilmes beer while looking out through the window at the wind blowing so hard it looked as if the pale blue and white national flag would end up ripped off the flagpole. Later in the hospidaje I overnighted in, the wind still howled away outside. I was hoping for a calm morning and hoped it would remain calm. There was still 262km to Esquel and Is anxious to make progress. But in the morning the wind still blew.

I got away at eight thirty and had covered 15kms before strong gusts began pushing me sideways onto the shoulder. Then the road veered right and beyond the bend, the wind pushed me uncontrolably hard from behind until the road curved round left and yet again the wind hit me hard on the side pushing me onto the shoulder.

The weather was taking a turn for the worst as the sky filled with grey-white cumulus. I stopped and put on another fleece, rainjacket and glooves as my fingers were numb. It looked like it was going to snow. Yellowish brown hills ahead were fast being obscured by slanting shafts of grey precipition pouring from the sky. Advancing my way. I wheeled the bike down the shoulder in alongside the fence and lay it on it's side then lay on the ground myself curled up against the trailer with the hood on the jacket snuggly pulled up around my face. It came with a few icy splatters first; then a crecendo drummmed against my hood and jacket and ground all around. It was over in moments though. I got up as a weak ray of sun broke through and saw it move on eastwards. I was glad I wasn't still in Paso de Indios as the sky was dark in that direction now. Pouring it down.

I lifted the bike up and pushed against the wind out to the roadside and began riding again. I laboured with the chain running on the biggest sprocket at the back as if climbing a steep incline. I was staggering in an attempt to counter the crosswind. But a sudden gust took me whether I wanted to or not over onto the shoulder. In an instant I instinctively planted both feet on the ground and held securely onto handlebars and saddle as the wind tried pushing the bike out from under me. Then the wind eased it's attempt at pushing me over and I could start again. But hadn't ridden far when another gust took me over onto the shoulder and a standstill.

I began thinking of the frequent passing cars. It's good to be able to say later, yes I've cycled the whole way and for that reason I don't like taking lifts; but, if a car would've stopped and offered a lift then, I wouldn't have refused. In fact Is hoping for a lift.

A nineteen seveties light blue Ford pickup drove slowly by. Sitting in the back was a black and white sheepdog looking back at me. The truck looked to be pulling in but in the end kept on going. I watched it move up the road. Then, a white pickup passed and pulled over on the shoulder a hundred metres ahead. A short man with cropped hair was out the passenger side waiting and helped lift the bike and trailer into the back where there just remained enough space behind the payload of two blue oildrums. I opened and climbed in the rear door and staightaway found the backseat seemingly designed for small children. I crammmed my knees into the back of the passengerside seat, tight against the door while leaning sideways over a cardboard box in the middle of the seat, with my head pressed against the soft padded roof. At lease I'd a good veiw between the seats in front and out the windscreen at the road passing quickly underneath.

On the left driver Max done all the talking as Juan nodded or said Claro from the passengerside. He was tall and had a cropped hairstyle too. Both were turned out in neat olive green overalls with pale blue and white "Park Services Of Argentina" logo on the shoulder. Max said they were going as far as Esquel where they were stocking a lake in the vicinity with young trout. That's what was in the blue oildrums.

Max reached over and tuned the radio through the channels, paused on Reagtone, but decided he didn't like the song and tuned again. He stopped this time on Folclore and left it to play returning his right hand to the steering. I like the folk music of Argentina and was listening contently to the twang of the guitar when Max asked over his shoulder "te gusta Patagonia" and without waiting for me to reply continued "kilometre a kilometre de nada". People that do live here most be special, living in such isolation." I said which started him off on his beloved Patagonia. "Toda mi familia, Mis abuelos y sus familias viven en Patagonia." He when on but I couldn't folllow as he spoke faster the longer he spoke. He paused to breath and began again slowly talking about the abundants of animals. "En el campo hay muchas animales. No hay ambre. Pero en la ciudad estoy mucho ambre........."

At that point we were passing Pampa Agnia, my original gold for the day. A lone petrol station which from afar looked like a small white box on the edge of the vast plain that the road stretched out across: one long straight line ahead to a distant range of hills. Snow flurries drifted over the road and I knew Is lucky as it was not a day to be out in such a desolate open place. Max hogged the middle of the road driving flat out: there being no traffic lease not oncoming to get in the way.

Further on, we drove up a long incline which continued paralell with what remained of an older road carved out of the opposite hillside along the gap the route past through. I imagined when this road was in use cars had big round bonnets and protruding mudguards. There was a good long run through mellow upland then: of yellow meadows, yellow hills at the side and a turnoff on the right for a place 35km away on a track which meander up and disappeared over the hill. And a red corrigated iron roadside shelter at the end of a track into a sheep farm hidden by a shelter belt of tall trees. There was a place where the road swept down a straight slope across a wide valley of wild grasses, with a big shelter belt of tall trees on the right. Sanctuary from the inceasent wind for another sheep farm. And brown and white horses in the fawn reedy grass on the left. A staggered steep climb followed with a final switchback over a gap into and through a moorland valley with green swelling waves and whitecaps on a lake to the left. On and up a long incline over a saddle, where the white peaks and ridges of the Andes rose out of dark blue and grey cloud filled valleys.

Looking at the Andes, Max remarked on how the rivers depend on meltwater. That poor snowfall during the winter can mean a summer where some rivers go dry before January's out.

We descended in the rain and reached the end of Route 25 at the junction of Route 40 at Tecka: a petrol station and a scattering of white box-like houses in a setting of windswept yellow and grey barren hills. The pale blue and white national flag hung and waved slanting down meaning the wind had eased. At the bottom of the flagpole was a war memorial and a placard with a map of an island archipelego in national pale blue with the words "Las Malvinas Son Argentinas". I was about to comment when Max pointed and remarked "Tecka lost four men in the war. A big lose for a small place like this of a few hundred inhabitants." The comment Is going to make, now sounded somewhat insensitive so instead I asked "what is the main employment here?" Almost all work for Estancia Tecka" Max replied.

The sun shone brightly through while driving onwards. I looked out at groups numbering about a dozen to twenty of rusty whitehead Hereford cattle: little clusters, hundreds in total spread over a wide range alongside the Tecka River where they were inter-mingled with flocks of Flamingos feeding by pools and on sandbars. Pink and white highlight before the sun went back in.

Sleet pelted the road then which futher on turned to wet snow falling in big splodges and disolved away on the black sheen road across open scrubland with distant hills, grey outlines momentarily hidden in low cloud.

Reaching the hills, now invisable except for the dark green lower slopes below the thick cloud, Max turned off for Esquel and the road descended gradually with an increase of traffic beaming headlights out of the gloom. He pulled into a parking space on a street in the city centre and Juan got out to help me lift the bike and trailer out of the back. My ears were full of the sound of vehicle wheels sloshing along the street as I waved after them as the pickup moved away. The air chilled to the bone. After coupling the trailer to the bike I'd to stuff my hands into my pockets to warm them. It felt raw. I pushed the bike along the street. I knew of a place to stay from a previous time in Esquel called El Mochillero: five blocks from the centre, but first I'd to get to the first cafe to get in and warm up.