El Leoncito National Park a million miles from anyone, well nearly

Seriously cold morning.  So cold I couldn't bring myself to move from sleeping bad, which turns out to be a pretty good buy actually.  After sticking my head out from the tent I could see there were some pretty good views, so forced myself to crawl out and take a ride to one of the viewpoints to see if I could see a decent sunrise.

Sun rising from my camping site

It was an eerie ride in dark silence through the park and upon reaching the top I cut the engine, which left no noise other than my breathing and footsteps on the loose rocks.  The wind was a fraction of the day before so there were no dust clouds and as the sun rose behind me I could properly see the Andes and the huge dried up lake bed in front of the mountains for the first time since arriving.  Without wanting to sound like a complete hippy, it was pretty special and I was glad not to have made it to Barreal yesterday.

I also took a quick video too:

 

And played with my shadow like the sad bastard I am

Up high the cold was really getting to me, so as soon as the sun came up I rode back to the campsite and as it warmed up I ate the rest of my food from yesterday.  Luckily for me it still had a layer of dust from the "Zonda" dust storms - Just as I was beginning to forget how it tasted too.  With that done I packed up camp and took the 250km ride through Barreal and onto San Juan.

Riding north into the Cuyo Region it definitely felt warmer and as I moved inland the scenary began to change from the mountainous landscape with the fast moving streams I was used to, and begin to open out into wide grassy plateaus and slower moving rivers.  It also mean it will probably be the last time I see the Andes for a while.

I hardly had time to notice this, as soon after I hit a massively fun section of Ruta 412, which contained literally hundreds of sweeping winding bends through a canyon created by a river that ran through it.  I tried to take a film of this using my SLR tied around my neck, which you won't be surpried to hear is not the easiest thing.  I'll post a video below when I find a place with good internet, but I can definitely say I am getting better at leaning into the corners. After messing round on this road I took it steady again and rode into San Juan on a sunny warm afternoon and checked into San Juan Hostel.

The original plan was to stay for one night then head of to Valle de la Luna.  But after washing the bike I noticed a spoke on the rear wheel had snapped clean off.  I knew would happen since reading about the weakness of the wheels before buying the bike, but didnt expect it to be so hard to find spare spokes that fit.  I couldn't find any in Santiago and again it took an afternoon of riding around San Juan before I found some.  I replaced the spoke only to notice another one had broken in the meantime leaving me with not much confidence in the wheels.  The Dakar route around Uspallata must have weakened them a lot.  After fixing the second with the help of a mechanic I sat up till late tightening all the spokes on both wheels and decided to stay an extra night in San Juan.  Weirdly my compact camera busted in the dust storms began working after I "gently" tapped it a couple of times too.  So am back to one handed shaky videos again.  I'm sure you can't wait for them.

Pissing in the wind

No useless GPS used today, or a even map, having said that today was an easy route all in about 230kms and I already know some of the route having been to Uspallata after the Andes crossing.  For some reason though as soon as I left Mendoza all my stuff on the back of the bike just would not balance properly.  Plus the petrol can on the top kept falling either into my back or towards the back.  The route via Potrerillo on Ruta 7 was not so cold as last time, and no police to stop me too, but my god it was windy, I could hardly keep control of the bike and had to slow down so many times.  Passing Potrerillo, Ruta 7 follows the Mendoza river.  Its fast moving with lots of rapids and at times I saw rafting groups riding the rapids below.  Although I shouldn’t, I am getting blasé about the landscape.  Every now and then I glace up and realise I'm always around these huge mountains.  Truly spectacular, but I am now ready to move north and see something different.  

After an hour the petrol can digging into my back was becoming seriously annoying, I kept trying to elbow it into place but it was no good so every 20 mins or so I had to stop and adjust it.  On one of these stops I had just pulled over when a gust of wind caught me off balance and I dropped the bike whilst I was sitting on it.  It caught me by surprise, and I just stood there staring at the bike, but I was not too concerned until I tried to pick it up.  The most ridicous thing, but there was no way I could do it, it hadn’t even come into my mind before today, but how do you pick up a dropped bike.  I tried to lift it up, but because the wheels were off the ground I couldn’t get them to grip on anything and I couldn't lift it straight up.  I was beginning to think I was going to have to unpack everything and lift it on its own, when 2 guys in a pickup truck drove past and stopped to help, lucky really I wasn’t anywhere remote.  I’m going to have to work out something in case I do this again later in the middle of nowhere.  Never thought it would be so hard.

Later when I got to Uspallata I stopped for lunch and to check the bike out.  There was a bit of cracked plastic, but nowhere that you can see, but the rope holding the luggage had snapped and part of it had melted to the exhaust.  The exhaust had also melted my saddle bad and my waterproof trousers inside as well, just one of these days.  I still have the elastic straps so readjusted the bags and put some petrol in the tank to make it lighter at the back and set off again.

Uspallata Town Centre

Various routes past Uspalllata have been used for the Dakar rally and for good reason, there are long sections of corregated gravel.   I’m beginning to love this surface now, am getting more experienced and can easily cruise along at normal road speeds.  I took Ruta 39, which is mostly gravel apart the first few kms and ignoring the wind it was fine.  

 
Sometimes the gusts of wind were so bad that dust clouds would billow up and cross the road.  Visibily was bad and I could hardly see where I was going.  I wanted to take a picture of it but I just didn’t want to stop in case I was blown over again.  Although one time I did have to stop for the call of nature….Have you ever tried to piss in a gale?  Well its not easy!  But I can now add this skill to my highly competent skills list. Later Ruta 39 hits San Juan Province and the road is renamed to Ruta 412.  This is a new road that is being paved, so in places I could ride on the asphalt.  The trouble is the road is raised above the flat landscape so I was even more exposed to to the wind.  This time though I took pictures with my compact whist riding, you get an idea how bad it was, zero visability in places.

Soon after I could see a large flat area over to the left of the road, but couldn't really see what it was but it was creating the largest dust clouds yet that I could see were crossing the road ahead.  A few kms later I could see this area was a dried out, cracked lake bed (I now know called Pampa El Leoncito).  The clouds of dust were becoming bigger and higher in the sky and so fine it was getting into my helmet even though I'd blocked the air vents.  I decided to ride on the lake for a bit, no reason really, just because I could! and then started to take pics, unfortunately the dust immediately jammed the lens up, so that’s another thing broken today, although I still have my SLR.  I’m glad I didn’t drop the bike out here as there was noone to help.  Man it was windy, I later found out it is popular for land sailing.  But today it was too windy for that - the wind is known locally as The Zonda and can reach 200km/h.

Later about 4pm I reached El Leoncito National Park.  I was only going to have a quick look around and move onto Barreal, where I planned to stay the night, but when I got to the info office I was really impressed.  The park ranger was beyond helpful, even had a full on US style Park Ranger uniform haha, told me a few places to see and when he said camping is free, and there is hot water, showers, and even wifi at the office.  I decided to not go to a hostel in Barreal and stay here and test out my tent for the first time.  Not bad for a remote location. 

The park here is famous for having 300 or so clear days a year so because of this there are 2 telescope observatories here.  Apparantly the clear skies and altitude make it the perfect location.  I set up camp and after took a a ride around the park and when it was dark I went up to one of the observatories.  There were about 15 people there to do the same, god knows where they came from as I there is only one other couple camping in the park, the must be staying in Barreal.  Anyway a guy came out to say they will not be open tonight, it was too cloudy apparantly.  Although sitting here now in the campsite I can see every star in the southern hemisphere and the milky way too.  Thinking about it the guy did have a lot of friends in his house up there so maybe he just couldn’t be bothered tonight it is after all another long public holiday this weekend.  Incidently, I found out this week that Argentina has 19 public holidays a year!

Night sky with the Milky Way

After this I came back to eat and shower but, for some reason though there are no showers here and the only water I could find in the toilet block trickles out water so cold that defies conventional science…at this temp it should be frozen, ah well no problems, it can wait, although I am covered in dust.  Dinner tasted of dust, my water tastes of dust and all I can smell is dust.

Long day tomorrow, I'd like to make it to Valle de la Luna but that’s a good 500+ kms.  Too much I think on this bike.  So a back up is San Juan.