Bariloche to Hugo & Estel's House (Sun 2/7)

Stats:
- 51 miles
- 3100 feet of climbing (on a road with a downhill bias)
- roadkill: 3 birds
- 1 kitten found crying
- 1 camera  discovered (ours) with a dead battery

Many years ago, Arn and I attended a three day golf camp.  I know, what does this have to do with a bike trip?  Well, you´ll have to trust me on this one.  After three very frustrating days in the golf camp, we played nine holes of golf.  I saw no redeeming quality to the game and declared that returning the computer industry and haggling with the sale force managers over quota setting would be less frustrating.  And then, on the 9th hole, I ended up with a bogie.  I don´t even know what that means now, but I remember how it felt.  It was the moment of "ahhh, now I see the possibility in this game".  Well, our bike trip is starting to feel like that golf camp --- very frustrating.  And our day ended with the "ahhh, now I see the possibility".  The title of this post should tell you something..."Hugo & Estel´s House".  But let´s start at the beginning.

With high hopes, we left Bariloche under broken clouds.  It was unclear if things would improve or deteriorate.  The ride out from town featured a short, granny gear, lung busting hill.  It was a quick warm up on a cool morning.  We finally reached our right hand turn onto the highway and expected to find a tail wind and a downhill bias.  What we found instead was a massive headwind and the need to pedal on everything (no free downhill riding).  Several miles in the distance, we could see the road bend to the south.  It also appeared that the valley would narrow.  Our hopes grew for a change in the wind.  No luck.  We turned south only to find the wind had changed --- directly out of the south.  So, now we were facing a constant headwind out of the south when the dominate direction is for the wind to come out of the north.

After more than an hour and having traveled 11-ish miles, we heard the sound of a kitten crying.  We looked into the pull out on our side of the road and discovered what looked like an 8 week old kitten.  With a soft spot in our hearts for kitties, we pulled out and offered the kitten the only assistance we could --- a granola bar.  She quickly starting gobbling it up while Arn pulled out the camera.  Our batteries: DEAD!  So, I thought this could be a good sign...the weather will imporve and then we will be kicking ourselves about a dead battery.  Our scenery was pretty sweet.  The mountains were stunning -- jagged, wild, remote, dominating and snow levels that looked too low for this time of year.

We continued to push a headwind until somewhere around mile 22.  Once the wind backed off, the silence was a welcomed treat.  The winds were incredibly loud and we couldn´t hear each other screaming.  However, silence was not meant to be ours.  By now, the traffic had increased dramatically.  We never expected to find so much traffic on this road.  While most people were friendly (waved, honked, or gave up a thumbs up), there were just enough assholes to ruin the beauty of an otherwise stunning location.  Now, perhaps "assholes" might seem like a strong statement to you.  I think not. Beyond the white line, there was no paved shoulder.  At times, there was a descent dirt shoulder, but at others there was not.  The trucks were usually very respectful and gave us a wide margin.  The local buses were the worst.  I was run off the road by a bus during this ride.  They suck.  We tried to just dip off into the ripio to avoid two things passing us at the same time.  After my experience with the bus, we hit the ripio to avoid every bus --- even during the long straight aways when they had plenty of room to slide over for us.

At some point, it started to rain.  I don't know at what point, I was in survival mode and don´t really remember.  Perhaps it was around mile 25.  In my mind, I was expecting to ride the full distance from Bariloche to El Bolson.  Knowing our tolerance for misery, I figured we would gut out 80 miles fully loaded instead of spending the night camping with the weather growing more ugly.  And it grew ugly. The winds returned.  The temps felt like they were dropping or perhaps it was just the cold working it´s way in on the descents.
 
After 40 miles, we arrived at the turn off to the Manso River Valley.  Earlier, we had agreed to assess our situation once we reached the Manso River.  I felt that I already knew the answer -- we were going to gut it out to El Bolson.  Well, once we reached the Manso (in the rain, the cold and the wind), we had a view down valley toward El Bolson.  It was like something out of a freaking horror movie.  We could see walls of rain, dropping clouds, increasingly darker and thicker clouds.  The wind seemed violent.  There was no discussion, it was time to call it a day and to get out of the weather.  It was just before 1pm. We agreed, let´s see what we can find and anything to get us inside is better than our tent.

After about 1 mile on the Manso River dirt road, we found a small store.  It said they served food.  We quickly left the bikes and walked inside looking wet and haggered.  Arn inquired about food and they offered a hot lunch of mashed potatoes and a version of fried chicken.  We said yes. And then came this question that I will never forget. It was in Spanish and I understood it completely. This man asked, "What else do you need?" Arn explained that we really needed warm food and to be inside. He also explained that after eating, we needed to find someplace to try and get inside for the night and to get clean; that while we had camping gear, the skies looked dreadful. Without skipping a beat, he offered us a room in his house for the night. And thus began the "ahhh" in our day. We had met Hugo and Estel and they felt like heroes.  

After a warm lunch, the rain stopped. We unloaded our gear and decided to ride the Manso River road for a while. We found a place in the campground to get a drink along the way. While enjoying our drink, we talked with a family from Buenos Aires. The husband cycled much of our route in January. Soon, we had out our maps and he helped us to understand what services we would find where and he described the conditions. He said he rode with a group of all guys -- "you must be a very tough woman to ride down here". He has that right. 

We returned to Hugo and Estel's. We drank mate together and ate tortas fritas.  Think of it as fried dough. Combined with dulce de leche, it makes a great donut!  We took showers and got ourselves settled. Our room for the night was a bedroom reachable only by walking through Hugo and Estel's bedroom. It was probably 10x10. We set up a twin bed next to two twin mattresses stacked on the floor, drapped a sheet on top, and threw down our sleeping bags. It was guaranteed to be warmer and drier than a night in the tent.  The house was heated by a wood stove two rooms away from ours, but it was still much warmer than outside.   

We drank wine and ate dinner with our hosts. We talked about the government in Argentina and the US. We talked about engineering jobs and job prospects for young people. We heard about their children. We learned that they had only moved to the Manso River Valley eight months. They talked about the class system in Argentina and Chile. We learned that Hugo is from Argentina and Estel is from Chile. This explained why we had a harder time understanding Estel and she laughed when we said the Chileans eat their words.  We talked about their ideas for growing their business and their budding relationship with a local rafting group.  Hugo asked us to explain the American dream. While I could understand a lot of what was said, our experience this night is a testament to how well Arn has developed his Spanish skills. Like I said before, it was the "ahhh" in the day and it is an experience that will stay with us for a long, long time. I will remember the generousity and kindness of Hugo who asked, "what do you need".