Day 96/164: Bush camp in Taipa to La Quiaia – 117km

1,560 climbing and 1,313 down

It was really cold in the night. When I went to bed it was quite warm, but at 4:30 am my sleeping bag was so cold it felt like it was wet. However, once the sun came up it was quite warm. Once again beautiful skies.

There was a little dog hanging around the camp last night that was fed left over steak by Adrian and me, so it was no surprise to see him this morning. He has the most tangled hair I have ever seen. There are great big knots and the hair is so matted and tangled it is restricting his walking, plus he has thorns matted around his ears. So April the chef and I give him a haircut, not all the matted hair just enough to give him full movement and remove the thorns around his ears. He is a really good natured dog, and tolerated it quite well. Afterwards he raced around seeming pleased with his increased range of movement.

A picture of the dog with tangled hair

Cutting some of the really big hair tags off the dog

The first 25 kilometres was dirt, thankfully not all of it corrugated! There was some beautiful scenery.

First half of the day was a gravel track (Photo credit: Sue’s blog)

Amazing scenery today

I had bad asthma, the worst I have ever had riding, and have to stop a few times to use the reliever. Plus coughing a lot. I am looking forward to continuing to drop in altitude.

The ride to lunch at 70 kilometres was quite scenic. We had a big climb to lunch and I had to get off my bike a couple of times due to wheezing. After lunch we headed into a head and side wind which was really strong and I nearly got blown across the road a couple of times. I was riding on the gravel at the side so was hoping if I got blown it wouldn’t be onto the road. The last 25 kilometres were unpleasant, a lot of uphill with dust and dirt blowing into your face, plus wind (like being back in Wellington with a strong southerly).

Good news however, we are staying in a hotel tonight, just across the border so yay a shower.  The hotel was about 3 kilometres from the border.

Hello Argentina – Ushuaia is 9 weeks away (Photo credit: Sue’s blog)

There was a problem with getting the trucks into Argentina, it turns out they don’t have the right insurance and it took until mid evening to sort it. Given there was no dinner truck to cook a meal we got taken out for a meal instead. It was a set menu with either chicken or steak schnitzel with ham and cheese. I had the steak, it was quite nice.

On the road today