Day 54 - looking for fire wood

Beautiful camp spot to villa la angostura (75km 1000m climb - again!!) Monday 24th October

So it turns out that even on rolling terrain, our road will pretty much always climb a minimum of 1000m (usually in short sharp bursts) and we will miraculously manage to finish the day at the same altitude that we start (or even lower in some cases!). Either way a 1000+m climb is fairly standard these days!!

Today was no exception. Thankfully again the scenery was simply stunning. Lots of free flowing rivers, streams, waterfalls, lakes and snow capped mountains too. Unfortunately to go around a lake, typically means to climb up on 10-15% gradient for a while, drop down to ride next to the lake, then ride back up again... And repeat.

Though I have to say we were enjoying today a lot more than yesterday and by midday had even just about managed to spin the lactate out our legs. We swept along the roads taking pictures as we went and debating the firewood potential of different pieces of wood, trees, branches, no matter how big or small. The lasting effects of building our own fire last night I guess. It's amazing how long you can occupy yourselves with this conversation! "That would be good... too big... Too small... Too damp... Kindling... Slow burner...!!"

We ate our lunch (or what remained of the food bag we'd packed yesterday - no shops here!) perched a top a rock on the side of a lake, yet again putting ourselves in the way of all the beauty nature has to offer, then did the only thing you can do when your oranges are full of pips - play the 'who can spit them the furthest' game - despite much enthusiasm, I lost.

On the road again and passed the last two of the seven (though we counted more) lakes that we've seen on the 'siete lago' route since San Martin yesterday, absorbing the inevitable ups and downs, We had just one route dilemma today. Go 10km downhill passed the road to 'limit de chile', stay in a town (mmm hot shower bed food), but have to climb back up tomorrow making it a very hilly (over Andes back to Chile) long (100km) day; or stop somewhere before the town, probably camp and have a marginally easier day tomorrow.
Whilst debating this and taking yet more pictures, a lady with a camper van started chatting to me. Now I may not have great Spanish, but I have learnt the stock questions and answers: Where are you going, where have you come from, where are you from (difficult to distinguish between these two, which leaves people amazed we've cycled from England, then follow it up with - wow how did you cycle across the sea... Oh dear!), are you cold? Are you tired? Is it your first time here? All of which I'm now enthusiastically and confidently responding to as if I could speak Spanish... Then as we were cycling again I realised why the lady had looked so confused... I realise now that some of our conversation went like this: "ah, wow, many days?"...  "no not cold, very hot, England is much cold than here", "no many days on bike?" "yes the bike makes you very warm, warm and tired, and warm and hungry, not cold" ... Woman crosses the road kindly assuming that it was our distance that was leading to my stupidity and that clearly any misunderstanding could be fixed with closer proximity " many days??"... "nope hot... (clicks) ... Oh yes 5 months..." Woman breathes sigh of relief promptly ends conversation satisfied, returns to camper van pleased with the progress she made.

We returned to our road and realised that we needed supplies - that would dictate how far we went - as soon as we came across a shop and had enough supplies we'd look for somewhere to stay. Turns our the next shop was a supermarket in the town - tomorrow's gonna be a big day then!

And what a weird place this is! It's one long road at least 5km lined with fairly upmarket hostals, cabañas, and hospedajes, but nothing else. The centre of town eventual comes, signalled by a bus station, fast food place and then several pricey but yummy restaurants (ski village style). Given this place is right next to a beautiful lake, its strange to have only seen busy main road - but there you go! Apparently the shoreline has a few more bits, mostly residential, but there was no way we were going even further down, so instead we did a huge supermarket shop (prepared to camp tomorrow, just in case!) then ate yummy food and lots of beer!