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Arriving in San Sebastian -on the Argentine/Chilean border

 

Well, it’s the 8^th June, allegedly, but I have spent the last few days in a state of pain and frustration, with no idea what day it is. It’s the wind you see.....not my wind....thee wind! It is hell. Now if this is what they call less severe winds, all I can say is, to these people that do this during the season of strong winds, which, in Patagonia and Tierra de Fuego, is about every season except winter, you have my total respect.

 

Try as might to take in the things of beauty, it just wasn’t possible. The wind got tough on the morning I left Estancia Viamonte and other than during the day’s rest in Rio Grande, it never let up, including the whole night I spent in the tent, which was ,this time, a night of constant wind battering the tent.....saying, no doubt, you shouldn’t be here!

 

Let me tell you what it’s like in a tent overnight in the land of fire (and darkness)! The sun sets at 5.30 and rises at 9.30. That means you have to spend 16 hours in darkness, unless you decide to use what limited power you have in a torch, a headtorch which I bought to preserve the front light on my bike, but which only lasted five minutes before dying. It did cost less than £3, so it’s my own fault. Anyway, get up I did, at about 8.30, though I’d been awake “enjoying” the howling wind for most of the night! So it was a very disjointed sleep, which was fairly obvious by the state of my eyes when I got up.

 

I started the stove and rolled up the sleeping bag mattress and liner. Having failed to clean my pot of magi soup and pasta from the night before, that was my next task....wished I’d done it the night before! Anyway, I had my porridge, dismantled the tent and started to pack the bike.... Now for my next problem! A slightly more challenging one. As I tried to clip the pannier on to the bike, the clip snapped. Not good! Definitely not good. I looked at how I might be able to use one clip and connect the handle to a bungy clip. The result; both clips snapped. I tried to do the next one and it snapped also. Now it couldn’t be weight, as I had transferred most of the heavy stuff to the trailer. I reached the conclusion that the plastic, like me, didn’t like the sub- zero temperatures. I won’t go on and on about me and the misphaps, because they are after all part of the journey, but between the wind and the panniers, it was the first time I felt that sitting down and throwing in the towel. Instead, I tried to rectify the situation by placing one on the pannier rack, the other on top of the trailer with a bungy clip! The result was a few miles before the wind blew the tent and the pannier bag off the pannier rack. I ended up with both panniers on top of the trailer and the tent on my back! It became a battle of wits then to find someway of getting the bike to my next stop, with panniers and trailer.

 

But I think I won the battle ( in the short term at least), helped not by music, but by birdsong. For a large part of the trip I had a set of finches singing as they performed a similar routine to the condors a couple of days previous. I wasn’t sure whether it was motivational or just a group birds, like the wind, saying you shouldn’t be here! So far I haven’t seen one other cyclist!!

 

I arrived at San Sebastian considerably later than I expect to arrive and found a petrol station, a couple of houses, a border gate, not the Hostel San Sebastian, but a somewhat decprepid Hospidadje de Automovil club Argentino. I took a room at 120 pesos, enjoyed a good shower, a dinner of salad and steak and sat down to type up the BLOG.