When travelling you appreciate all the opportunities given to you, and you especially appreciate and miss life at home. Today I've been thinking a lot about my friend Welshy.
So today was, like so many days, a day of two halves. It's funny how you brand a country as great cycling or bad cycling after very little exposure to it. Chile for example is tremendous: Super friendly people, great food, fresh bread, glorious roads with strong tail winds to give you a helping hand on the uphill and help Ant break his land speed records on the down. Plus the scenery has been stunning. Snowy mountains, red desert, salt lakes, flamingos, vicuñas. Of course we've only really met anyone in San Pedro and only cycled a tiny fraction of the country, but we love Chile! This morning (or nearly afternoon by the time we got moving!) was exactly the Chile we've grown to love, be it a vastly short love affair! Simply glorious cycling. We realised just how beautiful our camp site was as soon as we opened the tent and Ant was stoked we'd shared the lake with flamingos who were huddling in its centre to keep warm.
Although the first 15km was uphill, we were fuelled by beautiful scenery and a strong tail wind. Then we swooped down to the Argentinian border.
This crossing seemed somewhat overly complicated. On entry we were given a piece of paper where we had to collect stamps. A bit like drinks tokens at a beer festival and had to go to six different adjacent desks in order to receive the stamps. At desk number 4 we were rather concerned for the boys... They wanted to see our documents to prove our vehicles were ours and that we weren't trying to import them into Argentina dressed covertly like cycle tourists. Eventually they believed us and we were in our way.
50km of flat road and we could start looking for a camp site. Except its never that simple is it! No matter which direction we turned we seemed to be struck by an intense cross wind. "its ok the next 90 degree turn will make it a tail wind", except this never seemed to happen! So we settled in for an afternoon of either cross or head winds and decided to grit our teeth and just get in with it!
Now there are two things you need to know about us: I do NOT like hills; and Ant does NOT like wind, not one bit! Its not that he cant cope with the extra effort physically, it's just that it messes with his mind. Churning the peddles on the flat and not getting anywhere is his idea of hell. So it was my turn to carry him. I got on the front and let him huddle in pretty much the whole way - payback for all the help he gives me carrying panniers up the hills.
With every km, the wind seemed just to get stronger and stronger, until we think it reached close to 70km/h, and consequently we were struggling to push beyond 10km/h.
Eventually we turned a corner that actually did give us a tail wind and we spent the last 10km, whizzing around trying to find somewhere sheltered for our camp site as the Sun started to set. The pressure on, Ant trekked away from the road for about 10ninutes at a time, only to fall into sandy animal holes (OMG animals live here, we've not seen animals for a while!) and get blown by even bigger gusts.
Getting very cold and watching the Sun disappear, we eventually settled on an almost sheltered lump of Earth just off the road on a very large plain. The ground, unlike yesterday, was sandy, which meant pegs would go in, but quickly wiggle their way back out again. Not ideal when you're trying to build a wind proof home! Some cunning engineering by Ant and he'd secured the guys with water bottles and large spikey sticks and soon enough we were ready to settle down for the night (this time we didn't even bother trying to cook, but instead enjoyed a supper of avocado, salami and cheese wraps followed by a desert of cereal, pure heaven).
Lesson for tomorrow - get cycling as early as possible to avoid the afternoon wind!
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