Day 60 - going on a cabana hunt

Santa Lucia to La Junta (70km)

November 2nd

Despite our best intentions of getting up super early and rocking out a 100+km day, we slept and slept and slept! No surprise I suppose, we had very little sleep on the boat and had put our bodies through a tough work out yesterday so who can blame them for snuggling under the feather duvet near the wood fire until way gone 9am!

Eventually we prised ourselves out the lovely room, grateful that the wood stove was there to dry our washing (this matters A LOT when you're alternating two sets of clothes, hand washing each night and are no longer in the high temperature, dry environment of Peru!), and ventured passed the baby cow, to the breakfast room.

Ant left me to finish my 3rd cup of tea, pay the lovely Hostal lady and practice my Spanish in the process. Good news! She thinks the road south is very well kept with minimal rippio! Yeah! This motivated us to get a wiggle on and actually get out the door!

It was now abundantly clear that we weren't getting further than La Junta today, so we had a target of 70km. Patagonia was delivering her weather pick and mix style as ever, leaving our jackets and trousers totally confused as to whether they were needed or not, on off on off...! Again she was a tease, clouds hiding the views and occasionally revealing a hint of snow and what lied above. This messed with my mind and seemed a little unfair - we were working really hard to venture across her terrain, she could at least help us out a bit?
Ant meanwhile was loving it. I think he felt the lake district was too 'easy' (!) and that this is much more of an adventure. Plus to his credit, he now doesn't have to do any route planning, just point the bikes on the one road and calculate the distance to the next town - a relief when he's been working so hard to keep us on track the rest of the trip.

So the road - today it started off with beautiful tarmac that tilted up and down quite a lot to test how our legs were coping with intervals these days. The wind - on our backs wahoo! Well initially at least. At some point we descended into a valley and it switched to our fronts - just because you can't possibly enjoy a fast easy descent in South America!

A huge wide river, and appropriately sized orange bridge signalled the start of the rippio, which today was treating us kindly. We were zipping along.

If I'm honest, this pretty much describes the whole day. Trees, mountains, a glimpse of snow, sun, rain, wind (in varying directions), and a very enjoyable ride on almost traffic free roads. Oooh and it wouldn't be a blog post from me if I didn't comment on our food! We'd smuggled some of the delicious bread from breakfast and smothered it in butter and jam. If you closed your eyes and thought hard it could have almost been scones! Teamed with some crisps this set us up nicely for the afternoon.

So we arrived in La Junta at about 4.30pm, nice and early - partly thanks to the initial head wind, but mainly because our legs are pretty strong these days. We were craving our own cooking and it soon became clear this would be a distinct possibility. Cabañas had been sprinkled all over the town like confetti, so it was just a case of finding one that looked suitably snug, reasonably priced and available - and of course the ability to find and communicate with the owner was a must!
After a loop of the town, we picked up our shopping from the bakers and well stocked supermarket - I might have had an awkward moment or two whilst I tried to buy cake from a man who was just a customer in the bakers. He was so enthusiastic about our trip and wanted to explain every type of product that was on offer so I wouldn't be hungry... I just kept saying "ill take three cakes and 10 bread please, thank you"... I don't think he found out as much about our trip as he'd wanted, but he was a jolly fellow who didn't seem to mind too much and wished us well. Though his relief was evident when the baker finally appeared to serve me! Dinner would be toast, ham, mushroom and cheese omelette and potatoes fried in butter, with an avocado on the side, cakes for dessert and cheese on toast as a starter - and man we were excited! And don't worry - we'd tucked four beers into our panniers!

After another loop of the town we decided to check out the cabañas we saw on the way in... The looked lovely but were above our price threshold for the day... So back into town we went... Sweeping the streets like a groundsman sweeps out the lines on a cricket pitch. Out the other side we saw another set of good candidates, but no owner, hmm, perhaps this would be harder than we had expected. But there were still a huge amount to check out so no panic yet. Well it had started to rain and we were starting to shiver, so a home soon would be nice. Ant spotted an excellent candidate and after a few phone calls we were snuggled into our lovely new wooden home, the lady running around getting firewood and making a fire in the stove. It was fantastic.

Ant set about doing strengthening exercises, showering and preparing supper, whilst I went about... Well doing absolutely nothing I'm afraid to say! I'd found myself a comfy arm chair right by the fire and was focussing on snuggling in.

Our supper was amazing, our home was snug, our clothes were drying, and all the while a good Patagonian storm was raging outside. No matter how hard it tried, the rain and wind couldn't get us in here - even if it was shaking and rattling our home a little!

Let's hope it dies down tomorrow - or at least is on our tails...