And they're off ...

While my legs were fresh having been off the bike for three weeks, my body was not so fresh having only had four hours sleep. Still, it's amazing what gaps adrenaline can fill. Mike and I had already agreed that we did not particularly want to follow Ruta 40. This is the highway that most cyclists religiously follow going north from Ushuaia, Argentina's southernmost city. While tired limbs will want to embrace it at times, the desire is to ride off the beaten path as much as possible. We are riding tanks after all so there is nothing to halt progress but for tired legs.

The Last Supper?Thus, instead of heading directly north out of Mendoza we took the tourist route west to an old Spa Hotel called Villavincencio in the mountains. It wasn't long before we were riding in barren countryside. We rode through a National Park but it was not exactly parkland, rather desert. It was only when I saw the locals parked up and having their picnics that I realised that this deserted landscape was in fact 'countryside' from an Argentinian point of view. It took a few moments to get my head around the fact that people would travel out to the desert to have a picnic. In Ireland the words park and grass are almost synonymous.

The road started to climb at gradients averaging 5% (5ms vertical for every 100ms travelled). Mike and I would climb about 1000ms vertical to the Spa-hotel that is no longer open. It was not a tough climb but my bike was definitely heavier than in New Zealand and Mike was spinning a gear that made it look easy ... such is life for me with flips and a heavier load. I worked hard to stay close to his wheel. My thinking was that I did not want to cause him to lose strength by having him slow down to my speed. Hardly fair after all the trouble he had gone through to minimise his load Thus, I would need to find my legs quickly and ride training sessions to build myself up to his speed. My body adapts well to increased load so it would just mean a few days above conversation pace for me. We finally arrived at the pretty spa-hotel and had a great lunch at the nearby restaurant. Thankfully the friendly waiter made life easy for us by kindly giving us the okay to pitch our tents in the car-park once all the patrons had left for the evening.

Cribs!Just as I was settling in for the night the beams of car head-lamps disturbed the dark. There was the sound of car engines, voices and doors slamming. I could sense confusion and peeping out of the tent I could see five SUVs and torches blinding the darkness. I had no idea what might be happening so my pulse inevitably quickened. What the hell goes on in the middle of nowhere at this hour? Worst-case scenario it was a criminal gang on the move and trying to dump a body, best-case scenario it was a bunch of Argentinian tourists travelling in convoy surprised to discover that a hotel that has been shut for twenty years was not able to put them up for the night. I kept quiet as a mouse to witness whatever pending crime was to take place. The commotion passed after about fifteen minutes and soon the red sky of tail-lights faded. It must have been a bunch of tourists .... or else a very shallow grave.

More tales from the road soon

Marco