Tolhuin

February 20, 2020

For the first time on this trip we had an alarm set to wake us up because more than a hundred kilometers to cover we wanted to be on the road by eight o'clock. And on the road by eight we were albeit only for a few minutes because it was so cold we had to stop to pull on a few extra layers.

The first seven kilometers out of Rio Grande was into a gentle headwind but just before the bridge over the Rio Grande we turned southwards and the wind was now on our backs.

The view from the bridge over the Rio Grande with the city in the distance.

The road south of Rio Grande was pretty flat for the first half of the ride.

Estancia Viamonte, about 40Km south of Rio Grande, has a casa de ciclistes and is one of the three main overnight options between there and Tolhuin.

Camping Norte is ther next option, almost halfway down.

At the seventy kilometer mark there is wild camping available at the Rio Ewan.

Argentinean drivers seem to be a bit more aggressive than what we have become used to. We were forced off the road a few times today. It seems that the biggest culprits are young men in small cars. Testosterone when it isn't accompanied by common sense can be a terrible thing.

All along the route are signs showing where people have been killed in motor accidents.

We pulled into Tolhuin at about five o'clock and cycled towards the famed Panaderia de Union. We were still a couple of hundred meters away when an elegant bearded figure shouted at us and gestured that we should follow him. It was Emilio, the owner of the bakery, and it felt so good that he was keen that we should come and spend the night in his casa de cicliste.

Just outside the bakery is a monument to cycle touring set up by some cardiac health organization linked to Dr Rene Favaloro, a famous Argentinean cardiac surgeon.

There are three other folk spending the night here. Nicholas from Switzerland who is walking northwards and Charlie and Camilla from the UK who are also cycling south, having started in Bolivia. So there has been a lot of chatter while I am typing up this journal entry.

Today's ride: 109 km (68 miles)
Total: 1,829 km (1,136 miles)

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