Patagonia, Pt.vi

Dec. 27, 2017

Hola, amigos en internet!

Today did not require the use of an AK, thus making it a good day. Today was also a rest day. My initial plan was to be lazy today. I even nearly missed breakfast because I slept in.

Then I did some reading and waffled about exploring or laying in bed all day. Then a 20 minute nap just to be sure. Exploring won out in the end, though. At about noon. Which meant a slightly later start than would have been prudent, but it’s a rest day, dammit!

Parque Patagonia is about an hour away and I really wanted to see that, anyhow. I knew I’d regret not at least trying. There was something there I was excited to see.

No luggage to strap to the bike made for a quicker start. After gearing up I realized I’d have to ride down the footpath because of how they’d asked me to park. No way was I backing the pig up a grassy hill. Being a rebel, I rode the path. Yeah!

Then I smelled burning oil. Surely can’t be from me, right? I stopped near the office of the lodge and now I could see a little cloud wafting away. Crap.

Bike off. Off bike. Inspect. Sure enough, right side valve cover has a drip. Nothing on my pants, and it wasn’t there yesterday so… I can tell it’s been pulled off and repaired once. I guarantee the gasket was reused and the rough roads yesterday caused some issues.

Luckily there is a gas station (that’s being generous as it’s a pump and a shack) near so I bought some oil, checked the levels, made sure the bolts were all snug, and went exploring anyhow. Nothing to be done about it now.

The roads were good heading south on the Carretera Austral today. Had a blast riding along when I noticed a white KIA minivan ahead of me. Just like the family that helped me yesterday. Could it be? Yes, it could be! So neat. Many smiles, waves, and thumbs ups exchanged. Awesome!

Another thing I wasn’t prepared for was seeing another insanely blue body of water. This one a river. Rio Baker it’s called and just look! There has to be a dye source upstream. Has to be!

After that I overshot my turnoff by about 20km (oops) and had to turn around when I figured it out. I got the road number wrong. Whatever, it’s a rest day.

The bad part about that is I was dipping towards half a tank of fuel, in the middle of nowhere and I wasn’t keen on being out too late. It certainly influenced my decision to head back when I did.

Certainly not before finding what I came to see – guanacos! So awesome to see this cousin of the lama in the wild. Took a ton of pics of what I assumed was a solitary dude chillin’ before I looked at the other side of the road. They’re everywhere. So neat. I watched them a while and decided it was time to head back. Sadly did not make it far enough to see the flamingos. Next time.

The ride back was uneventful, but fun. A bit of “mud” to make my boots look cool. A stop for fuel. A stop for fruit and bottled water. Back to the hotel.