Farewell smooth roads!!!!

19th Jan 2012 Wild camp.

We got up early this morning to try and get a few miles under our belts before the wind became a problem, at this point we had turned to an westerly direction and that is the way the wind generally comes from. It was also to be the day we said our farewells to smooth riding and hello to saddle sores!  We did have a fair amount of cycling to do before this happened though.

We started the day with a descent into a head wind so it wasn’t as thrilling as it could of been. Then at the bottom we went straight back up to the same altitude we started at. The scenery along the road was a variety of waterfalls, mountains of varying colours and beautiful winding rivers.  Once we had reached the top of this climb we knew that at the bottom was the town of Villa Cerro Castillo and the end of the smooth riding, but probably most importantly the only place for three days to buy supplies.

The descent wasn't too special to begin with, but after over taking a lorry we came around a corner to the most amazing vista. Mountains in every direction all sporting massive glaciers and Mount Cerro Castillo shadowing them all. It was such a wonderful view that it took Sarah to point out the other thing which she had seen first. A beautiful alpine like decent! One long sweeping turn after another a great opportunity to practise my cornering. So with the sound of the over taken lorry approaching we got going. It was amazing and even with the amount of kit we were carrying we could get the bike round the corners really fast. At the bottom was a long straight which we dropped down as low as we could go on the bike. I managed to max out at 49.8mph a bit faster than Sarah, though it must be said that I have a weight advantage due to the numbers of empanadas (Little pasties) I have eaten recently.

When we did get to the town we did our shopping had some lunch in a bus stop, these building are very useful on hot days and you can watch the world go by in great comfort. We then cycled the last 100 metres of smooth surface. On with the suspension and that's how it’s to be for some time. The only relief from the surface are the stunning views you get along the way and we enjoyed stopping and taking many photos for the next part.

It was starting to get late so the priority changed to finding a campsite. It was on a bridge where we had stopped to look at the river, that such a place presented its self. It was along side the river with beautiful views, plenty of water for washing and cooking. I would also like to say peaceful, but the river we stopped to look at had a great waterfall high above us, which we could not see at first, but could hear. It sounded just like a jet engine it was so loud! It was a perfect tent pitch.