Hugo & Estel's House to El Bolson (Mon 2/8)

Stats:
- 35 miles
- 1800 feet of climbing
- roadkill: 6 birds and 1 very large mammal that looks like it was roasted on the side of the road. 

Well, we woke to cloudy and dark skies. While it seemed to have rained much of the night, for now it was dry -- for now. After a breakfast of homemade bread, we loaded up. Hugo and Estel's kitten seemed determined to go with us and repeatably climbed onto my rear tire. 

With 35 miles to cover, we planned to arrive in El Bolson for lunch. Our ride started with two long climbs.  After two hours, we covered 14 miles.  Of course, there was one stop to put on rain jackets and shoes covers. Around mile 16, the road turned downhill and the wind arrived -- at our backs!  Wahoo!  It was a quick 20 miles into El Bolson. 

We had two nasty car encounters. One guy passed us in the lane (with room to move over) and he was traveling in excess of 80mph. The second was a pickup truck that refused to let me ride through the rockfall on the road before he passed me. He drove through a pile of huge rocks. Several smashed his car and I could hear the sound of rocks slamming into metal. His car shot one rock, the size of my loaded pannier, sideways almost as a missle. Arn said it missed my back by two feet. A direct hit would have ended the trip with me seriously injurred or worse. The traffic today and yesterday has been serious class 5.  If you asked the key question --- are we enjoying the riding, the answer is no. While the scenery is stunning and the road surface is nice, the traffic, the lack of a shoulder and the weather has sucked the joy out of it.  Things must improve. 

On our way into town, we found two touring cyclists. We stopped to talk. They are Canadians from Lake Louise. After checking into a very nice hosteria and taking showers, we enjoyed lunch and met the Canadians for a beer. We are headed the same way and hope to see them again.  They've been riding south from Peru and Bolivia and the last week was their worst traffic and weather of the entire trip. It was actually very good to talk with other riders that share our feelings --- things must improve.  If not, they are talking about a beach spot to crash and we are talking about backpacks.