October 17, 2010
Route 30: A Sunday ride.
I had been awake for a while before finally moving. I felt tired and my musceles were stiff from yesterday. As I lay there I heard birds singing, lambs bleating and cows mooing. The cattle in the field behind the grove where I'd camped were all over by the fence breathing over my tent. If I moved or twitched they took a sudden fright and I would hear a thundering galop away, then back to the fence they'd come and breath over my tent again. I at last got out of the sleeping bag at 7.30 as the sun's horizontal rays began to reach the spot I'd camped. There wasn't a cloud in the sky and the tent was wet with dew. As I ate breakfast of porridge and raisons the cows were all looking on curriously. They'd never seen such as me before. 'What one of those humans living in a tent and a bicycle if we're right for transport'.
I had only cycled 13km when the road came to a T-junction. To turn left, the road went to Bella Union, right, was my way, or straight on as the road I'd come met the other road at a sweeping bend. This new road was ash-felt. Nevertheless it was old ash-felt that had not been re-surfaced in decades. Therefore it was full of potholes and covered with rough attemps to patch them. Progress was slow and it was further hampered by the same South West wind that brew yesterday evening.
I wanted to stop for lunch at twelve but there wasn't any trees to take shelter so I'd to keep pressing on until 12.40 when I reached a clump of scrubs by the roadside. I didn't have much food, it was polenta for the third day running. As I write it's another 75km to Artigas and no other village indicated on my map enroute. So this evening I hope to be within 35km of Artigas and it'll be porridge and rasions again for supper. While I's eating a man on a scooter stopped to talk but it was hard to make out what he was saying. I's glad when he got up and left as I like to read a little as well as have peace at lunch time. Oh there was a gaucho that rode past a little earlier but apart from that it's very remote here.
The polenta today wasn't too bad nutritionally speaking as I still had a carrot, a stoke of brocoli and some onion left which I cooked in with the usual tomatoe pure but I crave sugar, bread and cheese but mainly sugar. I could eat a whole pack of biscuits now though there isn't much chance of getting them as the road ahead is a long long riband through green pampa, treeless but for a grove on the horizon.
After a half hour that grove of trees is near and I can see houses. So there is a village eventhough it's not marked on the map. There was a dozen or so houses and a police station with the Uruguayan flag outside but no shop. Though, a kilometre further there was yet another cluster of houses and here there was a shop. I parked the bike and entered. It was dark inside and it took my eyes a few moments to get used to it after the strong sunlight outdoors. There were fruit and veg. I took four oranges and by that time the woman of the establisment had come out behind the counter. She could see I's hungery as she said 'buenos tardes' while I stepped forward to put the oranges on the scales. 'Que mas' (what else) she said as I put something else on the counter. I came away with a 2 litre bottle of coke, two ham and cheese sandswiches, the oranges and two cabury moose things which the locals call alfarjores even though they're not but they satified my craving for sugar as I ate them on the veranda and drank coke. I rode away happy while two young men sitting on the grass looking on were flabbergasted. I paused briefly to take a photo of the school and rode on before one of the flabbergasted reached me as I didn't want to be asked the same old questions again.
This evening I rode to 6 pm finding a place to camp in what at first looked to be another plantation but within was a paddock, the trees being a windbreak round the boundry. I can only think it's used for the cattle during the cold months, June to September. As I write I see the cattle have access and will soon be up checking me out. There's cattle everywhere here and it's hard to avoid them when you camp.
Today's ride: 84 km (52 miles)
Total: 4,020 km (2,496 miles)
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