Day 1,612
“I’ve lost 3 teeth on this trip so far!”
After the last post's cliff hanger ending (thanks for the messages checking in on us) I'll let the rest of you know why we paid for a hotel but didn't stay! Well, if I mention wisdom teeth and Tom, you'll get the idea. Last year Tom had a horrendous experience, two teeth out, weeks of pain, resulting in health-impacting infection. Who knew toothache could end up affecting your heart? We've learnt the hard way to pay attention to our bodies. Around 6pm, we'd just finished eating when Tom mentioned that actually his mild toothache wasn't mild anymore, also he was pretty certain that his wisdom tooth was cutting his gum in a failed attempt to join the rest of his teeth, and this was definitely causing an infection. I went into full on let's get this sorted mode. We were about 10 days cycling from a decent sized town which was about 10 days too far, but no transport links either. So, with the help of our hosts we came up with a plan. A lift from a man with a van they knew to the nearest town with overnight bus links to take us to Mendoza. We expected the friend to take us in the morning which would mean a long day hanging about in a bus station, he had a better idea and said let's go now and you can catch the 12.45am bus and be in Mendoza by 8am. So that's what we did. The bus company had big signs saying ‘No Bikes’ but our new best friend talked them into taking our bikes, bags and us. I handed out £5 tips as thank yous to various staff and we were off. Lovely lovely people. Tom found a dentist and within days he had his tooth out. It was reluctant to leave but after 90 minutes of cutting and digging, it was out. I took advantage of being in a dentist's to get my teeth checked and now have a smile I'm happy with. Result!
What was left of Tom’s tooth when it eventually came out
We spent the recovery time planning our upcoming route into Chile. I met up with Storm and Clare and shared our thoughts and they whizzed off, reporting back that the first section not only avoided 70 miles of dirt road but rewarded them with some of the best riding of the trip, but, yes there's always a but, the route Komoot then came up with after that really didn't exist, so we'd have to take the motorway, then climb a mountain. Storm and Clare, carrying a sack of porridge and their bikes did that yesterday, but they're 25 and when not touring do Ironman events in their spare time!
So it was back to the drawing board for us, and it's looking like we'll be staying in Argentina a while longer. Our plan is to reach the start of the Carterera Austral in Chile by Christmas. 1,000 miles of remote cycling, with a lot of nothing most of the way. Our first challenge is to get to the 70 miles of dirt road. Why the Ruta 40, which runs the length of Argentina does this no one knows! So we planned each stage. We would need to get food and water as we go, and find somewhere to stop overnight out of the wind. The wind is a major factor for us, a tail wind can half the journey time. With the aid of a fellow tourer’s blog, iOverlander and good old Google we planned our first 200 miles.
Day 1 wasn't too bad, there were obvious food stops and a town at the end, all went to plan, we hadn't set off til 11am as Tom was having his stitches out, but still did 65 miles by 6pm. The wind and hills were gentle. My muscles ached so much after the week off the bikes which wasn't much fun, and Tom was struggling to eat.
Day 2, after a sleepless night (it was party time where we were staying) we hit the road, 50 miles uphill, headwind, hot, and after 12 miles where we filled up on food and water, nothing for another 100 miles. The only shelter was to camp under a bridge. We reached there by 5pm, hot, thirsty and exhausted. Fortunately just before we stopped a lovely couple pulled over and handed Tom two small bottles of cold water, heaven.
Home for the night
Day 3, we had managed to sleep just fine and didn't feel too bad. Low on water we decided to eat fruit and biscuits for breakfast. We had 40 miles to a cafe, starting with 16 miles uphill. The weather forecast had promised a tail wind and we got one, yeh! Unfortunately after 2 hours it swung round into a headwind and would remain that way for the rest of the day. Fortunately another couple stopped and supplied us with 2 large bottles of cold water just as we were about out, phew! Our cafe stop was at the 3,000 mile point on the Ruta 40, which luckily has become a tourist attraction, hence the cafe in the middle of nowhere. Refreshed, we returned to the road for the final 30 miles of what should have been pretty easy cycling, but that wind made it tough, 70 plus miles in the bag!
The views along the way were probably not the most interesting of the trip, but we had the Andes mountain range to our right, the snow capped peaks glistening in the sun. We spotted 3 or 4 flocks of the Burrowing Parrot, we'd thought we'd seen them a few days back, but these were the real thing. They took to the air as we passed, their blue wings and colourful bodies enchanting to watch.
Day 4, we are in the ski resort town of Malargűe. The plan to head out to the dirt road was delayed by a furious headwind and our aching bodies. So today we're resting, looking at the route again and ditching kit to save weight, as we will need to carry more and more water the further south we go. Sometimes I wonder just what we're doing!
