Day 51 - Brutal, just brutal

Conaripe to Pueto Fay (55km) and another 1000m+ ascent day! Friday 21st October

I want him to have a voice (even if forced!) so I will give you Ant's summary before I continue:


"Today was short (in distance not time!) but incredibly steep. We climbed 1000m over 55km, with many good steep sketchy downs thrown in too! A nice road in the middle was solid, but sandwiched between two horribly steep gravelly sections that felt like cycling on a pebbled beach (try it if you dare!). And the day was punctuated with a personal favorite of mine, cars and trucks speeding past and throwing up dust all over us. We were really testing our strength, will power, breaks, balance, hand grips, Emma's arm strength as she pushed Alan uphill, and general ability to persevere and get the distance done".

So...

We started the day on a beautiful tarmacked road running alongside a river out of Conaripe. Wow! Perhaps the map was wrong and the road would be much better than the compacted gravel it promised. A few km later as we turned up the first steep hill of the day we realised that the map was indeed wrong - there was nothing compacted about this gravel at all.

The road bumped and swerved, throwing rippio, stones and sand up at us with each pedal stroke, and then tilted up to a lovely skiddy 20% that at times was impossible to ride up - even for Ant. And pushing two loaded bikes uphill is just the way we love to spend our Friday lunchtime!

Oh well only another 50km to go... Aghddhdjfkcndj!!!!

Our journey became a sequence of sweating and cursing our way up the road, then scraping and fearfully praying our way back down the other side - then repeat to infinitum.

Our conversation today was mostly about stones and pebbles - what caused them to be on some stretches of road and not others, what level of traffic did a road have to have to promote or relegate the number of stones, which sections were passable "come left it's good here... Oh wait... Bump bump pot hole... Clunk... Aghhh... Don't go left its pretty crazy... Aghhhh truck... Bugger".

And then we came to our turning, off the international road and round to follow a river valley downstream to a lake, just before our final destination. "Downstream towards a lake"... That sounds good right? Wrong! As usual to go down, this road went up, and up and up and up. Though this was at least the 'nice middle section' - the stones were firmly set into the mud and trees, and the ground was hard enough to be able to look up at the quite glorious scenery from time to time and spot the occasional waterfall. In fact its a shame we had to spend the morning looking at and contemplating the life of stones, as we had really been cycling through a beautiful part of the world. This path (sorry road... But let's face it... It was a path!!) vaguely resembled the start of the walk up from Chamonix to Flagere in summer and finally we were able to ride side by side, with very little traffic passing us. It even had a bus stop - a great place for lunch (at 4pm!).

Right 15km left and an easier road, we could do this right?

We gathered our strength, hopped on our bikes and headed towards our final turning onto the international road that would take us towards pueto fay and Argentina. This had all the promise of being a tarmacked road - 'international' - sounds big and important, and in fact it looks like it soon will be, but for now the workmen are satisfying themselves with pouring heaps of gravel onto the very wide track and not yet rolling it in. Brilliant! A 'nearly new' road in a purgatory worse than simply being old.

And man it was steep, really steep, and full of trucks and pick ups heading to and from the towns on a Friday evening - giving little consideration for the crazy cyclists trying to push, pedal, grind their way up it.

Eventually we came to the first town, 5km short of our destination and full of very tempting huts, cabanas, camping and, our favourite: 'domos' (a dome shaped cabin that looks and sounds cool - especially when you say it like a 4 year old!). But no. We should plug on as there is only one ferry a day from Puerto fay and we need to catch it if we're to get to Argentina.

A few km later and we found a couple of French cyclists - "why didn't you take this road" shows us road... "its tarmacked almost all the way"... Hmmm! Ours was prettier we told ourselves and a true adventure! They were trying to find the owners of a campsite, but of course it was closed... Again nothing opens till summer!  So they too only had one choice - to push on with us.

Another 200m climb and we reached the town with its shabby cabañas, hospedajes and ridiculously expensive boutique hotel (what's that doing here?!!). We found a beautiful looking cabaña, wooden, kitchen, sofas, bedrooms shower and lept at it. Then found out it was rather more like its owners who were getting increasingly stoned, hot box fashion in the restaurant next door! The door handle fell off, the shower worked intermittently, the water was sometimes warm!... But we managed to get supplies from the shop next door and engineer a supper of fried potatoes and omelette... Yum! Followed by my own new invention - three bananas fried in butter and sugar until they become mush... Yummy!

Then we zonked down for a good night sleep, only to be woken every hour by a dog that was barking at his own existence. Hmmm!