Day 52 - a challenge worth taking

Puerto del Fay to San Martin de los Andes (Saturday 22nd October)

The challenge - 65km... in under 5hours... on rippio... mostly uphill... with sketchy downs thrown in

The prize - a home before dark

The penalty - cycling rippio in the dark... or camping with limited food... no thanks!

Today was amazing! Brutal, like doing five tough gym work outs in one long back to back session, but amazing!

Why set such a daft challenge? Well our boat to get to the other side of the lake left daily at 1pm, arriving 10km short of the Argentinian border at 2.30pm. Possible places to stay were either 10km into Argentina, giving us a very short day today, followed by a short day tomorrow, or San Martin, 55km into Argentina, giving us a long tough day today, but a potentially beautiful home for tonight- a small touristy mountain town, with many hotels, campsites and restaurants. Plus, we just LOVE a challenge!!

The boat time at least gave us an excuse to enjoy a very long a leisurely breakfast in our little cabaña, before we packed up and set about sourcing supplies for the day. Two shops a large bottle of coke and two bread rolls later we were slightly nervous, but will be forever grateful to the boatside cafe that made us 4 delicious sandwiches (2warm cheese, 2chicken and avocado), to take with us.

We met the two French cyclists again, and now, at the beginning rather than end of the day, we were much more capable of sustaining a long conversation. Marie and Christoph had started in Cusco, were in South America for 3months, before heading to New Zealand then Asia. Marie always wanted to travel the world and meet people. Interestingly she finds cycling frustrating on this count as you arrive at a town exhausted, eat, sleep, then leave the next day - this along with her weaker cycling strength than Christoph's, means she's cycled bits and back packed others - a very interesting perspective and one we'd not really appreciated. But as soon as we finished our conversation, Marie was busy chatting in fluent Spanish, energetically and enthusiastically to every interesting looking person on the boat. What a skill! We could easily see how cycle touring would be frustrating for her, but equally appreciated that trying to hold any sort of valuable conversation in Spanish would be frustrating for us! We made the right transportation choice then! Whilst Marie and I discussed the pros and cons of cycle touring, the trials and tribulations of tough terrain and long days; Christoph and Ant more helpfully compared and checked maps, shared tips and discussed possible routes through southern patagonia where the terrain looks like someone threw lumps of land in the sea and forgot to join them up! "Here there is a boat, but only one a week so you have to time it right to get there, here the boat takes 6-8hours, here it's the fastest moving glacier in the world, you can actually see it carve..." The conversation continued. As if she hadn't already made up her mind (she clearly had!) Marie declared she would take a flight from Pueto Mont - the other side of the lake district - back to Santiago, then head to Colombia for a few weeks if backpacking and meeting people, whilst Christoph navigated the Carreterra Austral. I simply smiled and grew more and more apprehensive, yet excited inside! I should also point out Marie and Christoph were probably at least 10 maybe 20years older than us!

The boat trip was beautiful. Indeed I believe people come to do this trip just for the sight-seeing, then head back. Huge rocky tree covered lumps, with crystal clear lake underneath them.

Ant checked the bikes - released some tyre pressure and checked all the bolts were tight - ready for the rocky road ahead. I caught up on the blog. We both ate sandwiches nom nom!
Then we were off! We decided to try to cycle with Marie and Christoph, but unfortunately Marie was finding the terrain sketchy and tough and very slow going. Indeed it was! Horrible bumpy rocky rippio. Our advantage was we've done a fair amount of it now, and like skiing, the more relaxed and fast you tackle things, the more control you have and easier it becomes. I love these sports, you know, the ones where you have to be ok being out of control to actually be IN control - messes with my control freak inside! Anyway, we were on a tight time line and Marie preferred to scream and swear at the road alone with Christoph (I feel her pain, I remember those first rippio, bike throwing down days in Peru!) so we pressed on and realised just how fast we've become on this horrible stuff, even if we still hate it!
Perhaps it was the challenge, perhaps the feeling of accomplishment, but we were travelling well, much faster than we'd thought we might, and strangely enjoying it! Did I just say that?!! I even cycled the whole way up a 15-20% short sharp bit, full of cobbles, without pushing or falling! At last!!

The 10km to the border was bone jerking, teeth chattering, rolling terrain, but the border came surprisingly quickly. A very sleepy border crossing and one of the most fun, with people more interested in our trip than the passports (and to the mild annoyance of my feminist inside, we've also learnt that if I go in first with a sweet sounding "hola, Buenos Dias" and a big smile, we have a much more friendly experience, wherever we go. Everyone here seems to like talking to me and not to Ant. He even gets a slightly cold, aloof, response from the same people who are chatty and friendly to me.  A shame really as they'd have much more comprehensible conversation with Ant - my verbal Spanish is still limited to "hello, nice day... Uh... monkey... apple" and even when they realise this, they talk to Ant through me!).
So border down, and us on our way, we soon realised the road was glorious! Ok not tarmacked, but as gravel roads go this was one of the best. Yes it was bumpy, but it was also firm and consolidated. Pot holes a plenty that would wreck a car, but easily navigable by bike and very fun to ride! Ant was in his element, cycling like elves through a tree lined forest alongside a beautiful lake and I was lapping up the scenery and really, really enjoying going fast and throwing Alan around underneath me to avoid the bumps. Wahooo!

We stopped for our remaining sandwiches at half way and Ant dipped his toes in a beautiful cold stream, sat like a river pixie on a rock, munching away. But not for long, it was time to get moving again. One thing that made this such a challenge was the lack of time. You see you can generally tackle anything if you have enough time - just plod on and get the job done at a steady rate - but the time pressure makes you go at it hard, and that's what really burns!

Next we had to tackle the big climb out of the lake and up towards San Martin, and man was it big!! Up and up and up, steep sections punctuated with hairpins from hell that swept up at ridiculous gradients and had kindly been scattered with horrible big stones to help the cars grip... But they only helped us curse and squeal as we had to fund power in our legs to ride on through them to not get the bike swiped out from underneath us.

At this point we realised that gravel roads are much better for us if they are small and unkempt. The minute some helpful bloke comes along with his work force and 'maintains' them by chucking a load of gravel down to fill in the cracks, is the minute we curse, slide and squeak.

Nevertheless we pushed on, still feeling strong and enjoying this powerplate gym session. After what seemed like forever we checked the map - 3km to the top before we start descending - wow and we thought we were nearly there! 3km on this stuff feels like forever! Still chug on up...

...and then ...relief! We could begin the hairy down - which was of course ups and downs and was littered with more and more rocky gravel as the road got busier. Thank fully all the cars seemed to be full of adventurous types who slowed right down to prevent a dust shower, the. Yelped and whooped and horn peeped, to show their support.

And the scenery seemed to do the same. It just got more and more spectacular as if to cheer us on too. Mountains with snow and looking just how mountains should look, peeked up on the horizon, overlooking this vast green plane that we were descending.

Next came the squiggledy roads leading down to the town, about 10km beneath us. Man if we thought the hairpins were tough on the way up, they were trickier on the way down and with tired legs, arms and minds.

Ooops... Skid, swerve, bump... Well I almost stayed up... But fell. Thank fully I've taken to riding rippio unclipped in trainers rather than cycling shoes to give added reassurance that I can stop myself if I fall... This time though I landed on my hand, but had been able to slow Alan down enough to prevent any real injury... Just a bruise. What a pair we are!

The wind got colder, the descent more tentative and hence mire scary for me (confidence fully disintergrated now!), but eventually we dropped into the lovely town that is San Martin.

Expensive, but lovely. We found a hosterier who's owners were away but which was being looked after by a cool guy, eager to give us route advice and chat journies and cycling.
A lovely and surprisingly well cooked steak and bottle of wine to celebrate the glorious day and successful challenge completion and we were ready to snooze and let our aching bodies recover!

Wow! What a day!!