at this very moment i have consumed far too much coffee, sunshine, wind, and great pavement that i feel as though i am going to explode and once again, where do i begin...

after leaving the internet station the other night we walked back to the house of our family and there already prepared for us was a gigantic dinner of rainbow salad and traditional argentine meats!!!

i wish everyone could meet norma. she is the mother of this family and a taxi cab driver. she may be small in size but not in character. i find it sort of comical to be in someone´s home before meeting them...it´s like detective work. i find that i absorb the subleties of someone´s character. in this instance it felt like a gigantic brass orchestra was playing...sometimes in triumphant harmony and sometimes searching for the right notes. if i might continue on this tangent, the walls of norma´s house are red and juxtaposed against these walls are tables and stands of well taken care of plants in every nook and crany of the living room and the kitchen. in the yard out front there is a ferocious pit bull named simon (who is in fact very dangerous and when he broke free from his chain while i was getting something from my bike i almost "smp"). the sofas inside are a white pleather and fit tightly together in the small living room around the television. and the figurines and trophies (from her excellent cycling sons) adorn every available shelf space.

and norma, well, she´s a gem. when we finally did meet her she came into the house wearing red pants, fading makeup and holding a cigarette and speaking quickly in a pleasant but raspy voice. even the wrinkles in her face told outrageous stories. she reached across the table for the glass of rum and coke that "donnie darko" was sipping as she gave each of us a kiss on the cheek. how could we not just adore norma!?

it´s always amazing to experience the kindness of someone...i find that it is most humbling when a stranger invites us into their home, feeds us, lets us shower and gives us a warm place to stay. though we miss camping, we love the experience of being with a family.

when we left norma, chris, and the "donnie darko" look-a-like, norma gave us a little trophy of our own. she gave us a cross-stictched picture of a flower basket and on the back she wrote a memory for all of us. it´s moments like this that make you scream out, "I LOVE MY LIFE!" as you can see, how much weight we carry in our trailers is no big deal as we are now carrying a trophy around with us!

leaving rio grande meant facing the wind again. most of the day we experienced that delicious tail wind. hmmmm...and we could laugh and shout out to the birds trying to fly into the wind, "nunca te rindas!" ("don´t give up!"). it´s true, the birds look like they are suspended in mid air as they try to fly into the wind. in fact, on a day like today i think even the birds cancelled all their flights due to wind.

and last night, once again, we could not predict what was going to happen or who or how we were going to camp. it seems to me that bridges are the "water coolers" of the road. and so begins another episode of this adventure...

we were getting water from a river as the day was winding down and as we were thinking about where we were going to camp for the night we spotted some cyclists coming from ushuaia in the distance. this is the first time we saw people traveling with bob trailers like leah and myself.

the cyclists stopped to say hi to us and we started talking. their names: paco and jose (from spain). as the conversation progressed we learned that paco had broken his bob skewer (the piece that connects the trailer to the bike...and since it´s a proprietary piece and sometimes difficult to find even in the united states you can guess that it would have been sheer luck for them to find one in chile or argentina where the trailers aren´t even sold). but, it was paco´s lucky day because leah and i had an extra skewer (yup, we know this part of the trailer breaks)! so, since we have only a few more days on the road we gave up our skewer (and helped paco fix the shifting on his bike) and thus, we made new friends. we ended up camping together by the river enjoying a campfire and a camping potluck. we learned, through the course of the evening, that this was their first time camping with girls because not many camp in spain (or so our friends say). so, leah ate a live moth to show them that girls rock. jose later tried one too!

there were many great things about camping with these fellas. their fresh spirits being infectious to our weathered spirits. their sheer enjoyment of setting up their tent for only the second time in compared to our scrubby looking home which goes up so quickly now. they made us laugh as they talked about their concerns about the weight of their trailers. when they lifted my trailer (which is now being held together with zip ties and wooden boards...yeah, don´t use your trailer as a grill) they bowed down to us in awe. but, we told them in about a month or so they´ll want to take that jar of jam with them or that spaghetti sauce, that mate cup, or that trophy.

our brief encounter with paco and jose also made us realize just what we had done...how much stronger we´ve gotten both mentally and physically too. and, if i might, how special it is that we are an all female group. we´ve only met three other women on the road...two traveling with their partners and one solo. in this moment, and i can´t tell if it´s the coffee or if i´m getting sentimental, but, i think it has finally sunk in that we have been doing something incredible--sometimes it was difficult, sometimes it was easy as pie...but we just rode our bikes through the andes!! and as we parted ways with our friends this morning they told us of the difficult undulating road ahead of us (to this town) and now that we´re here, we´ve all wondered where the hills were because it seemed flat to us...(though we do here we have one more small pass ahead of us tomorrow).

and today...where are we today? in tolhuin, argentina of course. though we didn´t have any climbing, we fought an incredible crosswind today to get here which turned out to be fairly dangerous at some points. the wind has to be going at about 45mph right now....the roof of this internet place feels like it going to blow off! anyhow, it´s dangerous because the cars drive fast and don´t seem to comprehend how difficult it is for a bike to move through this crosswind. a headwind would honestly be easier. in fact, at some points we did have a headwind and it was a great relief. anyhow, if even for a moment i lost vigilance i got whipped across both lanes of traffic into the shoulder and only in a matter of one or two seconds. the trick is to keep the legs moving freely, relax, enjoy that new sensation and steer into the wind...so you end up climbing on a slant and descending crooked! it´s great. though today, it honestly felt like i was drowning in the wind...it was so difficult to take a deep breath. but, we still managed to kill 50km in about two hours and here we are at this most famous bakery enjoying empanadas and chocolate!!

and before going, i hope you enjoy all the photos. this internet place is the fastest connection we have thus far experienced!

only two more days until ushuaia!!!

i think i´ll go get another cup of coffee and enjoy the mountains, once again on our horizon, and being at the end of the world!

peace. and for those of you that celebrate easter, a very happy but belated easter.

jude.

ps...when i asked our friend chris, from rio grande, how he liked living at the end of the world he just laughed...apparently life here is just "same same."