February 6, 2024
Day 19 - Doña Dora to Puerto Rio Tranquilo
A great send off. Dora (assuming the last part of the campground was her name) made us a great breakfast, fresh eggs, pan ( aka buns) home made jam. Remember these peoples homes are smaller than most 3 car garages. They are so nice and courteous, a humbling experience.
She wanted our picture before we left. She was so proud showing off the pictures of her 4 sons and grandkids. This was one time I was proficient in Spanish to hear her stories. She explained in Spanish where they lived knowing we only caught every 4th word.
Tip stay in a cabana like this. By the picture of the kitchen they have the typical old fashioned stove. Our dinner was cooked in a wood fire stove, and the leftovers were tossed in to burn. You won’t see that in Collingwood.
After pictures and goodbyes, our 45km ride started. No ride is easy, as David said. Ripio is ripio, dust and stones, toss in the odd soft section. A new type of ripio today. Yesterday was a taste of it, so this is between medium and the gross stuff. Medium with washboard. Wack a Mole won’t work since the washboard is so sporadic. I know now how a newbie horseback rider feels. You are not in sync with the saddle and horse. I know why my butt was so sore last night. When you are cycling up hill at a slower pace, not too bad, when down hill and you are bouncing off and on the seat it really is a pain in the ass. You learn very quickly to ride slightly off the seat when going downhill. I was wondering why after 800km why my butt was sore. Tip, find the worst gravel, hahah if that even exists and practice for 20km.
We did find a great coffee shop that served real coffee not the Nescafé stuff. Yes we are coffee snobs.
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The Black Forest of course was paved !
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Notice the mandibles (heavy biting mouthparts)
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/202105-Pterostichinae/browse_photos?place_id=7182
No long, thin antennae
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/82232-Blattidae/browse_photos?place_id=7182
3 months ago
The tourist were saying, cockroach. Yuck !
The rain was behind us so we wanted to make it to Puerto Rio Tranquilo before it started. The washboard ripio made it slower than we expected and with every bounce I was looking forward to getting off my bike seat.
A few decent ascends and nice ( bumpy) down hills and we arrived in town. This town is a “tourist town”. Buses come in and people go kayaking to the Marble - grotto’s. We rode around found our cabana for 2 nights, tomorrow Tuesday was forecasted for rain so butt rest and dry day were in order. No sooner did we get unpacked and settled the skies opened up and the wind and rains came. We have to be so thankful so far no riding in the rain, no jinxing so I’m sure one day we will have to. We decide on an early dinner, like the retired people in Florida that have a buffet dinner at 5pm. We skipped lunch to make time, so we’re getting “hangry”. It’s becoming a pattern David with his steak and me with my salmon or local fish.
We did go for a walk after dinner however the weather just got nasty. So a few groceries for breakfast and lunch the next few days and back to our room. It was nice to have hydro! David worked on the video and I was working on the journal. The time is worth it, in 15 years when I’m not cycling (NOT - just not a 1400 km tour) we can read this and reminisce. Tip, find any way to take notes, pictures etc and put them together. I’m using Day One on my IPhone then cut and paste to CycleBlaze. I need to figure out a way when some software becomes obsolete or the cloud crashes and burns I have this in a hard copy with pictures intact.
David is doing an awesome job of making the videos and posting them via YouTube, hope that social media will stay around forever.
The wind started howling and the rains got even worse, so we climbed in bed to warm up. I am soooooooo glad no camping tonight!
Today's ride: 45 km (28 miles)
Total: 1,054 km (655 miles)
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