It rained, rained and rained. Combine it with a warm wind and you have a recipe for turning a white scenery into brown one within 24 hours. After resting in the village of Aldea Apeleg as a guest of Gendarmeria for four nights it was time to get back on the bike. If it had been soft snow that had slowed down my progress earlier, now it would be mud.
My knee, which had started aching when I pushed and dragged my bike multiple consecutive days in the snow at the border area, was much better now. It still hurt a little to walk, but luckily biketouring involves very little of it. The guys of Gendarmeria were confident that the road out of the village would be rideable or at least wadeable. Nearly all the snow in the area had melted because of the recent heavy rain and warm days. The usually dry ditches were now flooding to the road forming temporary rivers on the usually dry steppe. Progress would be slow and muddy.
Rain was finally pausing in Aldea Apeleg and got to chase the treasure again, not in a white scenery anymore though.
The road was as soft and wet I had been warned. I was riding to a gentle downhill though, so my journey toward Alaska was still progressing on a decent pace. I tried to keep my thick neoprene covered cycling shoes dry as long as possible by riding across the smaller puddles of water with speed. At the first ‘river’ crossing I tried the same method as a result of having just enough speed to reach the deepest spot of the water. Forced to put my feet down to knee deep ice cold water, I laughed at my pathetic attempt. Nice try! I was glad I was not only wearing neoprene overshoes, but also neoprene socks inside my cycling shoes. The rest of the day I could be maybe a little uncomfortable, but at least my feet would stay somewhat warm.
Which one of these was 60cm deep?
From the village I had 17km to reach the ex Ruta 40, which took me two hours. Slow progress during summer, but now very decent progress compared to my crossing from Chile to Argentina. I had been afraid of the road being a busy paved highway, but that was not the case. The ‘road’ was in really bad condition with occasionally a lot of water on it and occasionally too soft and muddy to even walk on. I pushed my bike on the side of the road the first 10km before the road reached some slightly higher and drier ground. After a nearly full day of cycling I had done 37km. I used to say the wind is the only enemy of a cyclist, but I suppose the mud deserves to be mentioned in the same category. At sunset I pushed my bike to one of the only remaining patches of snow I saw and pitched my camp. Snow would provide me with cleaner drinking and cooking water, than the milk coffee coloured water in the creeks and on the road.
Ex-Ruta 40 on the Argentinian esteppa was soft and muddy.
On the following day I tried to take a short cut toward the town of Gobernador Costa on a trail along the famous Patagonian Natural Gas pipeline, but after a couple of hundred meters had a puncture. Temperatures were above zero and the sun was warm. I did not mind the stop at all listening The Tallest Man on Earth on my phone’s speakers. I found a big thorn on my tire, removed it and fixed the puncture. I had gotten my bike nearly ready to go again, when I realised that the tire was soft again. Had I missed another puncture? After some investigation I found another, this time tiny, thorn on my tire and another puncture hole on my tube. I did not know at the time, that this would be the start of a five hour odyssey of puncture hunting and repairing.
At least the sunset was nice when I was spending my afternoon and evening fixing on flat tires.
It seemed that the night time temperatures of down to -15 celsius a week before had caused some of the (many!) repair patches to start a slow leak now that the tube was not compressed against the tire anymore. I guess part of the problem was also my Thai sourced tube, which rubber turned very hard close to freezing point. I eventually also learned that during the few hundred meters on the trail I had got five new punctures, not just two. A closer look at the trail taught me that there was a new type of thorny plant, which I had failed to recognise. I had ridden over that type of thorny plant a couple of times, my tire prints evidenced. Every day something new. Wasn’t this why I am travelling?
At sunset the temperatures dropped quickly below zero, which did not only make my fingers cold, but fixing the punctures also more difficult. I had had 10 patches with me, but now there was only two left. My Thai inner tube seemed to be rejecting the glue like a Teflon pan a drop of oil and I started to run out of ideas. The best I could do was to warm up the glue, the patch and the tube in the pockets of my down jacket, then make the repair quickly and let the repair to dry in the warmth of my down jacket again. This is what I did and the first patch was holding after drying the repair in my pocket for 15 minutes. The last puncture, which I really hoped to be the last one, was tiny and I could not locate it without submerging the tube and locating the leak by air bubbles. I had a look at my GPS and walked to a saline lake a kilometre away to try to find the hopefully last puncture in the salt water. Like I had hoped, I found just one more leak and back at my bike 45min later repeated the cold weather puncture repair process I had learned an hour earlier. My last patch was holding the air. I could finally ride my bike again and maybe make it to the town of Gobernador Costa 55km away!
I was mentally tired and physically cold, but I was have to find snow to camp as I did not have enough water to stay where I happened to be. There were not much snow left at the altitude I was at, but luckily it was rather easy to find something white in the dark with the help of a powerful headlight. After 5km of slow riding, spinning my head around like an owl a spotlight attached to my forehead, I found snow under some bushes 100m from the road and pitched my tent. In the morning however, I decided to use water from a frozen cattle drinking pond close to my camp, which caused an aggressive burst of diarrhoea even though I had boiled the water well prior to consumption. Why all the trouble of finding the snow, if I did not end up even using it? If there was a lesson, it is that do not drink water from a pond with parts of animals in it.
When striking the camp between visits to baño (choose a bush!) I was dreaming of empanadas and a hot shower, which would wait for me in the Gobernador Costa 50km away. The distance does not sound that long, but with mud in the equation, it could take anything between a half a day and two days, I knew from the experience.
On the way to Goberdanor Costa over the hills. The road was muddy, but the night had been cold enough that most of the mud was frozen, which made the route somewhat rideable.
Dead foxes hanging on fences are not an uncommon sight in the Argentinian Patagonia. I have not yet figured out the reason for the hatred though.
Despite the road being soft I gradually approached the town. I propably could have reached the municipal camping of Gobernador Costa during daylight hours, but a spectacular sunset at 1000 meters slowed down my progress. I reached the town in the dark and steered to the first mercado and filled my panniers with bread, fruits, pasta, onion, tomato and cookies.
Eventually I spent three nights in Gobernador Costa, sleeping on the floor of the kiosk of the municipal camping. 2 euros a night fit my budget and Fernet and Coke tasted wonderful in the warmth of the open fireplace. Wifi was fantastic as well at the local gas station, first time for months. Route wise I did not have much to look forward to, I felt, which further gave me an excuse to stay put and rest. I would have to stick with the paved Ruta 40 for a while before heading to Lago Vintter on bigger gravel roads.
Sunset in the mountains of Gobernador Costa.
The Route
In the winter the route was muddy and wet, but in the summer it should be an easy ride. Some parts of the road could be rocky though and like nearly always, plus size tires would not slow you down, but just make you more comfy. Area has nearly no vegetation apart from small bushes, so wind could be a real challenge though.
