As we awoke in pitch black in our bedroom at the Ranch we all heard a sound that resembled a boatful of cats being strangled - was our crazy Argentinian Butcher from the night before practicing his dark arts? No - that was just the wind - gusts over 120Km per hour promising to rip the building from its foundations. Great - over 400km today with more than half on gravel and a crosswind that could blow over the Empire State Building! Oh well at least it was not raining....
After our usual Argentinian Breakfast delights we headed off on the bikes into more deep gravel - at times it felt like the Argentinian Rugby team was crash tackling the bike from the tire tracks into deep gravel and stones - hard work!
After 50K we hit Bitumen which made must of us pull over and thank God for our survival. Over 250Km of highway and crosswinds - at times our bikes we at more than 30 degrees leaned over just to keep going straight.
Finally after a fuel stop and a lunch (see above) we hit the mountain ranges - awesome - no wind. This was the best gravel roads we had seen in days - it was truely beautiful and great riding.
We arrived in Perito Moreno - our town for the night exhausted after over 11 hours on the bike - only to be met with the Town that God Forgot. This town had an air of depression that was palpable! It was like 8 Mile after contracting terminal cancer. Most of the buildings we deserted, the shopfronts had stones and bullet marks through them and the only people we saw were driving around in cars that looked like they were about to fall apart.
At least we were staying in the "best hotel in town" - wow! This place felt like a prison with three of us crammed into a room the size of a small cupboard. The town was so bad that the window of our room had been boarded up with shutters. We were later to find out this was to stop rocks being thrown through our windows by bored local kids!
To avoid the oncoming depression we set out to find WiFi to contact home. After being told by the surly hotel manager that all WiFi was down in the town due to wind we set off down the main street to find what was the only pub in town - and they had WiFi! To get the password we ordered drinks - I manned up and took on a Quilmes and Jeff and Dad decided on the safe option - a wine! Bad mistake! The lady at the bar had brewed her own and tasted like off apple juice with gasoline added! I had a good laugh as Quilmes was for once the better option.
After a hour to download 6 emails we gave up and headed back to the hotel for dinner. This was the highlight of the day - Chicken and Chips! Awesome and a good break from Red Meat.
As we settled down in the prison cell for the night we drifted off to sleep with the sounds of the local lads doing laps of the Town that God forgot!
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