The highway is lined with yellow, blue and purple flowers, which scent the air nicely. The only comparison I can make is that it was a bit like riding the Icefield Parkway, but with lake stretching the entire way. It wasn't hot, but it was easy to stay warm. The temperatures have been cool enough that carrying extra water hasn't been necessary, two bottles have been lasting us up to 5-6 hours easily. Probably not enough, but touring intensity allows this.
As we head south, we've got a huge tailwind. 30-50kph continuous for the entire day. Snow capped mountains on the left, lake framed by snowcapped mountains on the right. We averaged 23kph riding easy, 3 hours of bliss. Stopped at a southern bay for a snack after noon, where I dubbed my new hairdo the "Argentine Breeze". It's the product of riding without a helmet for the day and unfortunately will be difficult to recreate in North America. The waves rolling onto shore at our snack spot were big enough to learn to surf on, and the entire lake had white caps.
After remounting, we headed uphill right away during a lull in the wind. I was climbing about a 5 percent grade at 13kph. A massive gust of wind destabilizes me for a second on the bike, it's like someone just shoved me. I downshift but keep the same force on my pedals. The wind keeps up it's strength, and within a minute I'm climbing at 28kph. I've never in my life experienced such strong winds, and fortunately today our route was 75k with the wind and only 10k against it. The hill had several km to go so I decided to hammer, felt like a little mid day burst (plus my snack stop 10 minutes prior included caffeine). So fun!
Once we crested the hill we were in arrid landscape, looked like dinosaur fossil country to me. We had one 2k stretch of mild downhill at 65kph in total silence as the wind was with us. Eventually we reach the T intersection, and hang a right to come back across the other side to Bariloche. Plowing into the headwind wasn't too bad, we were doing about 10kph. The hard part was steering straight with all the gusts. South of us was desert country, and the highway seemed to have a lot of antiquated Land Rovers on it. You can hear those things approaching from far behind you, aerodynamics obviously was never their selling point. They contribute to the feeling of being in a frontier town.
We stop halfway on our headwind battle for lunch at a supermarket. Baguettes, local chorizo and queso, lettuce, tomato and cilantro are the ingredients that my Leatherman forms into a satisfying sandwich. A kiwi and a yogurt drink balance it out, with a churro for dessert.
We make our entrance into town at the 4.5hr mark for 80km. Town is nice, it's one of the bigger ones we've been in so far. Seems to have a skiing, windsurfing (suicide today!), mountain biking flavour. We cruise around and pick Hosteleria Adquintue. Going rate is $75 pesos or $25 USD a night for an entirely satisfactory room in my books. I've found that Argentina economc math is much easier than Chile (Cl peso is about 450 to the dollar). Argentine prices here are the same sticker price as things would be in Canada, but you divide by 3 to get your cost. So after feeling underspent after checking into the Hotsteria, we check out the local bike shops for supplies (no 700c tires, with more gravel in the days ahead, but the do have V-brake pads for my 'cross brakes). I do a little stunt riding down a wall alongside a long staircase to the amusement of some onlookers (the bike begs for some action once the weight is off!). I notice that maybe one injection mold thread may be worn of my rear tire at this point, but I'm not worried. Tori and I place a bet - I clain I won't have any flats this trip, and she takes me on. I'm confident. We walk around and book $20 massages for an hour, my knee is still hurting from an innocent looking little spill I took a few weeks ago while riding with Jon and Devin on some ice on the footbridge crossing Glenmore trial, obviously aggravated by lugging weight uphill on the bike. They were at an aesthetics type place that seemed like a money maker. 4 womens haircuts going on up front, 4 ladies getting perms on another level, us with massages, and all waiting seats full. When we were done with our massages, all chairs and the line were still full, and two more people were heading in for massage. It was a good massage and left me feeling mellow. My other ailment, an aching left achilles/calf connection is still sore. We'll consider taking tomorrow as a rest day. After picking up two bags of laundry we left at the laundromat ($3, clean, dry and folded in under 2 hours), we head over to the dinner spot I picked. We start with an ensalada Friends, which has every healthy vegetable south of the equator included. We go for a bottle of red Bianchi Bergona ( that's n with the accent, nya) from Mendoza, and a Patagonian wild boar pizza. I get a fried banana for dessert, and afterwards we walk across the street to some overpriced small town fancy handmade chocolate shop, but still our chololate purchase works out to only a couple bucks.
Life is good!
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