A day of rain is enough and I feel like quitting again....constant up and down. Like a manic/depressive person - bipolar. The road has a washboard pattern since we hit the dirt again, the wind has changed to headwinds for a while and the hills got steep. The drivers have become mad and mean and the whole world is pissy!
We quit after 30km today. This morning we hung out in the tent, hoping the rain would stop, but - after 2 hours- decided to pack it all up and ride in the rain. I was humming to myself: everything is temporary and this rain will stop sometime
But when it did, it was only for a short time. Hours of riding in the rain and in the dirt! The rain covered panniers gave up on themselves and started to leak. This is the ultimate expedition gear proving! My rain cape is leaking, the rain prove socks are far from rain prove anymore. My new rain jacket (surprise Christmas present from James - the only thing that still can be called rain prove) is still excellent and so new, but the hood keeps falling over my face and I am riding blind, fast on the down hills - not a good thing when one needs to avoid potholes in the street and oncoming traffic with mad and sometimes even angry drivers. There must be a lot of cyclists on this road (we have seen a few - funny part is that we meet a lot of french people on bicycles.....the German seem to choose the four wheel drive campers) that the drivers are so pissed off to have to navigate around them. Everybody on this road is looking for the "sweet spot" between potholes, rocks, mud and deep gravel, but the motorized vehicles- often with four - wheel -drive definitely have an advantage but choose to get irritated and insist on their lane, honking and even gesturing for us to get out of the way. It simply is shocking to me and as silly as it sounds: I am getting my feelings hurt! I don't need to be the attraction and I don't need to be stared at and glorified, but gosh darn it, give me some respect for riding this road to the end, will ya?
O'Higgins marks the end of the C. Austral and then we get to go on a ferry again - this time an $80 ferry, so, call it a cruise! From there we have to push, pull and lug our bikes and gear up and down some 7km long path to get to Argentina and to the next gravel road - back to ruta 40. Who's idea was this, anyways?
