Albardón - The seventeenth step ... one step beyond! - CycleBlaze

July 11, 2025 to July 12, 2025

Albardón

Friday the 11th of July 2025

We slept well next to the comedor with very little traffic noise through the night.  We breakfasted on media lunas at the comedor and used their toilets before hitting the road at about ten o'clock. 

Ruta Cuarenta once again had a poor surface for much of the way and was quite busy with a lot of holiday heading north.   Unfortunately there were a few impatient idiots on the road and once we had to quickly take refuge on the gravel shoulder when one driver wasn't prepared to lose five seconds of his holiday by waiting for us to pass before overtaking the car in front of him.

Mostly flat for the first half, then a climb of about 200 meters followed by a good descent to the end.
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We have an unassuming cabaña a kilometer or so away from Ruta Cuarenta for the next two nights where we will rest and recover from our longest week of this trip.  After a night of wild(ish) camping,  a shower and getting our laundry done is high on the agenda. 

The property on which our cabaña is located is mostly vineyards. Alejandra, the helpful dueña, gave us a bottle of their Moscato.
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Saturday the 12th of July 2025

This weekend is the second week of the mid year international rugby window with a number of games we wanted to watch.  Belatedly we discovered that England were playing Argentina in San Juan, just a bit further down Ruta Cuarenta.  I had thought they were playing in Buenos Aires and if we had known the match was in San Juan we would have done our best to be there in person.  For the record,  England scored a late try to win the match.  Earlier the Springboks nulled Italy in what was still far short of a decent performance. 

In between matches I spent a bit of time in the vineyard taking in the birds.

As we have traveled southwards the common parrot species has changed. Now we are encountering Monk Parakeets (Myiopsitta monachus).
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Great Kiskadee (Pitangus sulphuratus)
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Guira Cuckoos (Guira guira), like some other New World Cuckoos, are very different to Old World Cuckoos in that they are gregarious and are not brood parasites.
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Bill ShaneyfeltFunny how they look like a bad hair day
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2 weeks ago
Scott AndersonI was so surprised by this because it looks so different than the ones I'm familiar with. I see I needed to go up the family tree another level. It's the first time I realized that our roadrunner is a new world cuckoo too, and bears a real family resemblance to this guy.
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2 weeks ago
Jean-Marc StrydomTo Scott AndersonHi Scott. Only about a third of the Cuckoos cuckold and there are other groups of birds that are also obligate brood parasites, such as the Viduidae (small finch-like seed eating birds) and the Honeyguides (which eat beeswax and larvae, not honey). Brood parasitism has also been observed in sone duck species although here the unfortunate recipient of an extra egg is usually of the same species.
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1 week ago

Tomorrow we plan to head to somewhere just south of San Juan,  hoping to do some wine tasting if we can find any bodegas open on a Sunday. 

Today's ride: 46 km (29 miles)
Total: 2,625 km (1,630 miles)

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