PowerCycle

11/09 It’s all desert! Talk about not knowing anything about a country. OK, I know it’s not all desert but it sure seems like it. I even started seeing oil pumps today. Argentina doesn’t have huge oil reserves but they are finding new deposits all the time (they rank 32nd in terms of proven oil reserves). In Patagonia they recently discovered 741 million barrels of shale oil that they can extract using fracking. Good stuff. The open pits will look nice next to the dry rivers courtesy of the dams they are building in Chile.

Huge wind storm last night. Trees were down all over the place and the streets were littered with fallen branches. Power went out for about 6 hours.

Took route 15 out of the city. It was a bit busy for the first 20 km and then traffic settled down. Eventually it merged with route 40 which was great for a while until it narrowed to 2 lanes. Then it was a mess with no shoulder and lot’s of traffic. Luck was on my side however. They are widening the road which worked out great because for 3/4 of the way I had the empty under construction part to myself.

Staying at the Hospedaje San Jose. 120 pesos. Not sure why it’s more than the place in Mendoza considering this town is 1/3 the size. No AC, horrible shower, stupid barking dogs, no fan and the wifi is out all the time. It was the cheapest place in town (by a lot). Wild camping is out around here. All fenced in. There was a private campground heading into town but it was right next to the road and I couldn’t see a place close by to get beer.

I had all kinds of coordination problems today. Riding through some sand to get back onto the highway I tipped. No damage done and it wasn’t all that dramatic. Little embarrassing though. At lunch I reached over to fix something on my bike and knocked over my drink breaking the glass. The guy did hook me up with 1/2 kg of sugar which was great because I can only find 1 kg bags and those are heavy. While I was out shopping later I bought him a new glass. Sure surprised him.

GPX track