May 3, 2016
Time I Believe: km317 to km403.
The first thing I do this morning is put my watch back an hour, from 08.18 to 07.18. I believe this makes good sense here, as the sun hasn't yet risen. I could be wrong, but I believe the time has anyway gone back to winter daylight saving. Whatever, it feels better that I'm awake and out of the sleeping-bag and the watch only shows seven something, as eight o'clock seems very late, and, I can proudly say I'm on the road shortly before nine.
The morning clear blue sky and sunshine for a change and, although I'd camped by the road on a loop of old road in a deep canyon with the regular roar of passing trucks, birdsong wasn't drowned out.
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From the word go, the road is a beast, dropping down from my campsite, with a scattering of houses at the bottom of the canyon on either side, followed by an extremely steep climb out of the canyon up upon a plateau, the long brow of hills ahead lined with wind-turbines.
I am sweating and debate whether to stop and remove some of the warm cloths I usually start the day wearing, but am glad I don't, as not far ahead come a long descent, much of it in the cold shade of deep cutting and headed down to the coast there's the addition of a cool sea breeze increasing the chill. At the bottom the road crosses a viaduct over a deep canyon opening out to the coast. Then, the road goes straight up.
All morning I'm looking forward to reaching a "Copec" service station, with its big sign a good way back telling me it is there, about fifty kilometres ahead of where I start, so perfectly located for lunch. Though when I get there, there's a private roadside restaurant, where I've a chicken lunch, and only a coffee and fast food shop at the petrol station itself, where I go for coffee after eating. Its a machine coffee and not very satisfying. I don't understand why they can't install a proper espresso machine like at other Copec places, or does this being a remote location mean espresso machines don't work. Then there's no wifi signal, even though there's "WiFi Zone" on the door and the receipt for the coffee has a password.
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Bad coffee notwithstanding I linger for quite a while at the Copec coffee shop. My legs burning with fatigue after all the climbing all morning.
Going again, the wind which hitherto had been on my back from the south, is headwind. Not sure exactly where from, but most likely from the west, the road perhaps having veered that direction. Could have been south, for all I know. Anyway, the first part of the afternoon is a bit of a struggle in the wind, with more steep inclines, until levelling out upon a plateau, where the wind seemed to drop, or it could've been the road is pointing north again.
It is a bit far to make it to La Serena before nightfall and so I plan on stopping with a short day's distance remaining to the city tomorrow, but something which is so common in Chile, is six strand barbwire fences along the roadside everywhere. There is a good many kilometres of olive vine plantation, then desert scrubland, which is still fenced in.
Though eventually, I come to a track off to mobile phone masks on a hilltop to the right, where the gate at the road is open. So I push my bike in and find a good tent pitch hidden from the road behind bushes.
Today's ride: 86 km (53 miles)
Total: 8,994 km (5,585 miles)
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