Climbing 835 meters, and down 752. No gravel.
Today got to met the Patagonia wind. This wind will accompany us for the rest of the trip to Ushuaia. We were lucky that the first 90 kilometres we had a tail wind. It was fantastic spinning along at 55 kilometres without hardly trying.
Hey, tail wind!!
The view of the mountains Cerros Torre and Fitzroy were fantastic.
Leaving El Chalten, Cerro Torre in the distance (Photo credit: Jo’s Facebook page)
Jo with mountains in the back ground (Photo credit: Jo’s Facebook page)
However at 90 kilometres we turned hard right, and we were into full on headwind. It was hard going at times, down to 7 kilometres an hour. At times I felt like I was going to be blown off my bike. By the time we got to camp my left hand was aching from clutching onto the handle bar.
Where we were staying was a road house and we were camped out the back of it. Putting up the tent was difficult as the pegs would not go into the ground. I moved the tent around a number of times to try and get them well in. I ended up getting a number of boulders from the nearest river that I tied the tent stays to.
My efforts where also hampered by the very large dog who lived there, who decided I was either digging up or burying bones, so came over to help. Everywhere I put my hand, he either had his snout there or his paws would be in there digging. When I turned around to tell him off he nearly managed to land a big slurpy lick onto my face.
The roadhouse restaurant prices were outrageous. I guess they work on the premise that they are the only roadhouse for 100 kilometres each way, so are the only option and their market is tourists who mostly would only visit this area once.
A couple of the riders commented that they had heard that the prices are putting Argentinians off holidaying in this area. The story of the killing off the golden goose springs to mind.
There was a hotel four kilometres up the road renting out rooms for $200 USD a night. Very expensive for a place really in the middle of nowhere, the only selling point was that some of the rooms had a great view of the mountains. As the roadhouse was warm and open till 9:30pm it did manage to part quite a bit of money from the riders, whose other option was to sit in a cold and windy tent.
Camp, the most expensive hotel in the world!
Kaye's Awesome Adventures 