Distance: 115.98 km
Ride time: 4:45:25
Average: 24.42 km/h
Altitude: 1068 m
Total: 25322 km
As we woke up in the morning we were surprised to see clouds on the sky. Something we hadn’t seen for a while. It was also the first time that we saw the surrounding mountains in daylight since we had arrived at 11 pm last night, by the light of the full moon.
The first 30 kilometers were downhill but with a strong side wind. At this point we were coming out of the mountains and down to the Pampa, where we would once again join the famous Ruta 40 going north. At a crossroad there was a small restaurant where we had a coke. Petter decided to go for a solid lunch as well, while I went outside to cook my own food – partly to save money, and partly to use some of my food so I had less weight to carry for the rest of the day.
The clouds that we had seen in the morning continued to hang around throughout the day. At some point I was sure that it was going to rain, but after I took off my sunglasses I realized that the clouds were not as dark as I had though.
It was clear from the landscape that it had been raining a lot around here some weeks ago. Several parts of the roads were washed away, reminding me of how the Australian outback would look like after heavy rain.
After a long day on the bike we passed a town just as we were starting to look for wild camp spots. Normally it feels great to be in a town again after a long ride in “el campo”, but once you are looking for a place to sleep it is better to be in the middle of nowhere. We still had time to continue to the other side of town and put up the tents behind some bushes before darkness came.
