Chile Chico to Los Antiglos (Thurs 3/4)

Stats:
- 13 miles
- 300 feet of climbing
- fastest border crossing in history
- roadkill: 1 dog/cat/fox....we couldn't decide

Okay, I am done with it. Breakfast was another horrible piece of stiff, dry, cold bread with butter and peach jam.  And the coffee --- come on you know this --- it was instant. Until now, I have spared you my rants on juice. But not anymore. Unless you can find "jugo naturaleza" that someone has actually made in their kitchen, none of the juice is real. It is 90% some concoction of concentrate, sugar, fructose, etc. The max is 10% juice. I am sick of it. The fruit sucks and juice is worse. Okay, you now know what kind of orange "juice" I had this morning.

We loaded up and headed to the grocery store. Since we are leaving Chile, this was our last shot at another jar of peanut butter as the stuff cannot be found in Argentina.  Lucky for me, Arn scammed the last jar on the shelf --- it is creamy and not crunchy, but I can add peanuts and create crunchy. So, we headed off for Argentina.   It was a super short ride.

We passed not a single car, truck, cow, sheep or horse. It was almost spooky. We did pass San Sebastian. He is the saint for drivers.  We have seen shrines all along the Carretera built to honor San Sebastian.  You say a pray in his name and hope he blesses you as a driver.  In our case, we said prayers for the drivers that were going to pass us. From the number of shrines, I might vote for some driving lessons and a few less shrines, but then I am not Catholic and I don't fully get the whole saint thing. 

The Chilean border patrol basically said,  "You're free to go".  The Argentinian border patrol basically said, "Hola."  It was all low key. The locals cross the border back and forth to shop for shoes, so it is not a big deal. In fact, it is said the the town of Chile Chico has better relations with Argentina than Chile.  This is not surprising. 

We rode into Los Antiguos and we saw what looked like more services than we had seen since Coyhaique.  Our first goal was to sort out the bus. We stopped at the information center and the woman sent us to the bus terminal. Our bus company doesn't work from the terminal. Turns out, tickets and info are dispensed from a woman's house and she also runs a campground and hostel. So, we made a side stop to drop off our laundry with a different woman that does laundry out of her house. We returned to the search for bus details. We found the right woman and she was very helpful. Our bus to El Chaltén leaves on Saturday. We bought tickets for two people and two bikes. It is a 12 hour ride!  At her place, we met another touring cyclist.  He was a young guy from Colorado. He is traveling northbound. He has not seen many riders.  He is hoping to ride to Chile Chico and catch the boat across the lake. He was pretty bummed when we told him the boat does not run until Saturday or Sunday and it is a big if as to when. For someone so young and fit, he actually seemed worn down, weary and perhaps a bit lonely. He also seemed to feel time pressure as he needs to be in Bariloche by the 29th to catch a flight. While Arn bought bus tickets, I reviewed the map with him highlighting all the places he can buy food supplies. 

With bus tickets in hand, we headed to our lodge. Of course, we were early and no one was there.  We headed back to town and suffered more Internet through a straw (this time WiFi) and another truly bad meal. This lunch was "pollo milenesa" --- chicken pounded as thin as paper, breaded, and fried. It just proves --- with enough ketchup and mustard, anything is possible. We returned to the lodge and the woman was home.  It is a beautiful place and lovely room. Okay, CNN and FOX News (all in English) are a nice diversion, but they are not the best part. The best part is a king sized bed, nice linens, and NO roaches. 

After showers and handwashing the clothes we were wearing, we enjoyed just hanging....reading, television, cold Diet Coke that Arn rode down the road to buy.  We ventured back out on bike late in the afternoon. We went in search of hiking shoes for Arn as he is traveling with cycling shoes and his Chaco sandals. The best suggestion we got was to ride back across the border to Chile Chico. We looked there the day we arrived in Chile Chico.  They had a few things that might work. However, by South American standards, Arn has boats for feet. So, we are not going to find his size until we get to someplace that sells to tourists.  During our ride around town, we stumbled upon a "chacra" -- a small farm stand selling fruits, vegtables, homemade jams and liquiors. Our eyes grew wide when we saw bushels of strawberries. As a smart sales woman, the girl handed us two berries to try. We bought two pounds for three bucks and a jar of cherry jam. The tomatoes were stunning. They reminded me of the tomatoes from my parents' garden.

On the way to pick up our laundry and eat dinner, we watched kids playing in a huge communication dish. It was a very antiquated piece of technology. The dish was probably 20 feet across with large sections of metal torn, twisted and curled. The kids were climbing in, on and around it like a jungle gym thing in a playground. I wondered, 'Are their tetnus shots up-to-date?'   

Dinner...well, we were hopeful. We ordered a steak and chicken dish to share with a salad and French fries. The salad had the worst tomatoes of the whole trip.  Arn asked, "Are you actually going to leave tomatoes on the table?" You bet I was. It was too much to see beautiful farmstand tomatoes and eat something worse than grocery store tomatoes in Chicago in the dead of winter in the 1970's.  Trust me, tomatoes are my favorite food and I still remember the difference between summertime and wintertime tomatoes growing up  Arn claimed the steak was okay, but overcooked. I'll leave it at that. Now, let's talk chicken. I suppose on this one I broke my own food rule. Along the Carretera, I told Arn, "If you see chickens in town, order the chicken". I failed to think about the corallary to this -- if you don't see chickens, then don't order the chicken. In this case, the steak, salad and fries arrived. We shared everything and figured the chicken was on it's way. When Arn asked it, the guy seemed shocked. It was something like this (I have translated it for you)...."Chicken? What chicken? We don't have chicken!" Okay, this information would have been useful about 30 minutes ago!!!  It was enough. The remainder of dinner would be elsewhere. We paid the bill and walked out in search of ice cream. The only place we found it kept the lids on the ice cream, so we couldn't see anything. Given our streak in food, NO ice cream is going to be selected sight unseen. I know, we are getting picky but you have not eaten what we have eaten and craved what we have craved.  So, we walked in darkness back to our lodge. I was hopeful for the stars, but there was too much cloud cover. Once inside, we cracked open another package of dry, crunchy cookies.  The flavor was orange. I broke our the cherry jam. It was actually a good combination. Paired with fresh strawberries, it was the food highlight of my day.  The best highlight may be the bed we are laying in!