Hot flat roads and headwind

16th Dec- 17th Dec, San Augustin to Marayes (71.25M) and Marayes to San Juan (53M bike, (and 45M in the back of a pick up))
A bit of a theme at the moment, hot, flat roads and head wind. The next 2 days certainly had all of that. We debated about having a rest day in San Augustin and in hindsight probably should have as we were both tired, but decided to push on to get to the larger city of San Juan in 2 days.
The cycling was hard work without any really rewarding views although we did make good headway southwards. On the 16th after a long days cycle we stopped at a small ´maxikiosk´ (family house with one room from which they sell a bit of everything) for a cold drink before looking for a wild camp site, we obviously looked incredibly weary and the owner,  after finding out we were from England offered for us to pitch tent in her back yard. We gratefully accepted. The Argentinians are generally incredibly friendly and helpful despite the language barrier. However the next morning after a night of listening to live music and partying from the house opposite we were both wishing we´d rough camped elsewhere, but the kind offer was there...and it was good to observe the very differnt lifestyle of this Argentine family, that had to use a horse and cart to carry barrels of water to a tank in their house, use a bucket of water to flush the toilet and at least 2 of them slept on beds outside, a really good idea in this heat. So very different from life back in the UK.

On the 17th we contuinued onwards towards San Juan. We made good time with, to be fair, a bit of a tailwind. Still relentlessly hot though. After an icecream and cold drink stop at a garage we cycled on for about 500m and found our way onto a brand new double-laned cycle path away from the traffic. Within minutes of being on the cycle lane a pick-up pulled up offering us a lift to San Juan. '60km ahead of very hot flat riding ahead, miss it out, do you want a lift?', he said, . Both very tired and having already cycled a reasonable distance it didn´t take much to convince us. I felt a bit guilty but the scenery wasn´t that interesting and certainly wasn´t changing much. The only wildlife was the odd vulture, probably circling waiting for another hot cyclist to fall off their bike. So as it turned out we arrived in San Juan mid afternoon, found a hostel near the centre and enjoyed a good shower (cold by choice for a change) and a good parilla (BBQed steak) meal out.

Coooling off by a air conditioning unit in San Juan