1,055 climbing, 470 down
It was a long hard ride today. First 20 kilometres were nice views of vineyards, after that it was desert and a 20 kilometre stretch of gravel (dirt, gravel, some corrugated service).
Cafayate vineyard
We’re in wine country here (Photo credit: Sue’s blog)
No big hills but a constant up gradient most of the day. Wind, but thankfully not to strong before getting to camp.
We are staying in a bush camp again tonight. Camp is a bleak desolate patch of desert. No cover from the wind that picked up and turned into a gale about 10 minutes after I got to camp. The riders who came in after me had to battle with a full on head wind some of them took two hours to follow the last 15 kilometres.
Desert camp again tonight – very windy and sandy (Photo credit: Sue’s blog)
There is a small shop over the road which sells fizzy drinks and cold beer. The vendors in Peru and now also in Argentina don’t want to sell you beer in bottles unless you have bottles to swap or are going to drink it there. It took a while to understand why we weren’t able to buy beer in some places but we could buy wine.
Putting up the tent was a battle, and sand was blown into the tent. By morning there was sand over everything.
The wind blew at full gust until about midnight and thankfully settled down. It was hard to sleep with the tent moving back and forward, shaking and flapping with the wind.
No cell phone service which is unexpected.
On the road today (Photo credit: Sue’s blog)
