Of Epic Proportions...

It is indeed day three of riding and I have decided that the cycling through a country is by far the best way to experience a country. There really isn´t a way for me to explain the last three days in the few minutes i have here to give an update. i´ve chosen some highlights.

we surprisingly received our bikes in neuquen and immediately grabbed our things and hit the road in the hot hot sun. as we left town, on a two lane busy highway, we felt as though the whole town was cheering us on. perhaps that faint sound of clapping really was a cheer. it´s funny, what happens next. we stop for water and this man offers us some shade under his fruit stand. so we make our way over and spend an hour or so talking with him and his son, both alfonzo. he gave us some fruit for the road and a tour of his orchard, which he had planted six years prior. it isn´t really this story that left us grinning from ear to ear, it´s that we sat under the shade eating donut peaches with two alfonzos, laughing. and this alone describes what i love about riding my bike.

the roads that first day were awful but i think i would take them over what came next. that first day we found a little stream where we took a siesta and a swim before getting on our bikes. and then the road changed. no more bumby gravel-pavement shoulder...in fact, there was nothing. so there we are three chicas on a the only two lane higway between here and there and everything was on the road with us. well, we survived. our first night of camping was at the side of the road where one lone man owned a little tienda in the middle of nowhere. we bought some fresh cut beef from him and cooked a well earned meal.

day two was a day of epic riding. it was enough for all of us to consider why we were here in the first place. when they talk about the wind in argentina, it´s not a joke. so here we are, three chicas on this two lane highway with no shoulder and i kid you not winds of at least 25mph. the wind was so strong that when a semi passed us on the opposite lane it was like running head on into a wall. our bikes tittered and so many times we nearly fell off of them. then there was the issue of the sun. you see, the sun stays up until about 1030pm and is hot from about 10am until 1030pm. exhausted we finally made it into cutral-co where we would later spend the night at a camp ground.

this next camping story makes us sort of laugh. it was last night and as we were sulking about the lame 35 miles we rode, we mean juan. he´s an old man who seems sort of, well, lonely. his house is in the same area as the campground so naturally we interact but with reservations on our part. so at an inspection center just a short walk away--a place where the police hang out and we had chatted with them earlier--we decide to go back and let them know we had found a camping spot. at about 11pm when the sun had finally set the police came to our site. well as it was we greeted them and then they stayed with us until about 2am drinking matte and chatting. they even went twice to the store to buy us cookies, crakers, and more matte for our trip. and, throughout the night they made their rounds through the little campground which i should tell you was also an abandoned air port and park. it really was a funny story because all of us were sort of curious as to how this situation would pan out and in the end, it was more than we could have hoped for. as you might have gathered, cutral-co isn´t a noteworthy city, in fact it sort of feels abandoned in some way or another even though many people live there. ahh yes, desolate is the word.

well on to day three. today. we continue our journey on our two lane road with no shoulder but slightly less traffic. we´re up even before the sun rises and on our bikes as the sun is riding behind us. in fact the shadows haven´t even left their hibernation in the rock formations as we begin our riding. what i haven´t mentioned is that we´ve been in the desert this entire time. flat as a pancake and dry as a bone desert. we can see for miles and miles. on a day like our windy day, it eludes us and we can´t tell if it´s a mirage or if we really see a few trees ahead marking a city or a small bit of shade to find reprieve from the sun. the scenery is beautiful, however. birds that look like parrots fly in flocks and rock formations as beautiful as those in the badlands of the united states make the riding well worth every pedal stroke. and today we get some nice long hills making it more interesting for us. today we´re also laughing as we ride our bikes and not trying to simply stay on our bikes. and as a little side note, today we were fortunate to have the wind on our backs something that apparently is very rare as it almost always comes from the west this time of year in this region.

i know this update is sloppy. so much has happened. so much i am fascinated by. the people here have taken such good care of us sending us on our way with various food for the open road. i think every time it happens we are filled with such gratitude.

well, i wish i could say more but we plan on putting some more miles in today since the wind is at our backs. i don´t know the next time i´ll write. we´re heading into the northern reaches of patagonia and it could be a few days before we reach a town.

que le vaya bien.
jude.

ps. we have a lot of fun with the vast amounts of curious people asking us about our journeys. sometimes we ask them if we´re headed in the right direction for peru or if we´re only a few days from the tip of south america...