Day 212 – La Herreria to El Calafate, Argentina
March 23, 2011 9 Comments
Day 212 – La Herreria to El Calafate, Argentina 03/21/11 Mileage: 293
The wind…it hounded me all night and was blowing so hard I can’t believe my tent is still in one piece…score one for Mountain Hardware. So while it did not cave the tent in, it did however fill the inside of it..and cover me with a fine powdery dirt that was able to get by the fine tent mesh. My sleeping bag, helmet…everything had a layer of dirt on it…and my boots were filled with it…just f–king grand. So with the wind still howling out of the west, I broke camp and continued south on Ruta 40. The road surface was loose gravel….which by itself can be slippery, but it’s fine. But when combined with a 40 mph cross wind…it royally sucks. The loose gravel offers little traction, so the wind essentially has it’s way with you, blowing you and the bike several feet left or right at will….whether that’s off the road, into an oncoming truck or into the 6-12 inch deep gravel berms that will throw you down in heap. This goes on for hour upon nerve racking hour of desolate road…and might be the only time on this entire trip where I actually would have preferred to be at work…that’s how much it sucked!
In the misery I wasn’t compelled to stop and take pictures…but I did take these two token shots….
The misery ended with the beginning of the pavement as the wind is then much more manageable. I rolled into and through El Calafate on my way to see the Perito Moreno Glacier….one of the first places I knew I wanted to see when planning this trip. It cost $25 to get in, but the sight before you does not disappoint.
To give you a sense of scale…look at the people at the bottom of the pictures…incredable!
The glacier was calving off into the lake and the sound of 5 story tall ice blocks tumbling into the water sounded like canons firing…it was unbelievable! I stood there and watched (and listened) in awe at what was one of the most amazing natural wonders I’ve ever seen. Afterwards I headed back to El Calafate and found a room, some dinner and a few beers. Tomorrow it’s back on the road south…