July 22nd
Hot Springs! Yeah! Not only do we get to be clean, but also relaxed...floating around in these nice minerals must be doing something good for us, if not only for the soul..the mind...well, is there a difference? This is what I read on the web: They both come from the inner part of a human being, particularly her brain and maybe her heart. The soul is the spiritual nature of humankind. It is the incorporeal essence of humankind, and it is thought to be separable from the body at death. ... The mind is women's faculty of thinking, reasoning, and applying knowledge.
Anyhow...it’s been more than pleasant riding our bikes again in Argentina, though we had to tear ourselves away from our wonderful hosts Marisa and her beautiful twins in Buenos Aires! They snuck into our hearts and we are still remembering daily about events, gestures, songs ...walking. Estefi took her first few steps:
https://vimeo.com/349571456
...and get that funny soft look on our faces..... you could call pathetic. It doesn’t matter, because it really was THAT SWEET! And we did, we left anyways..heading into the wild unknown - north towards Brasil..north to the Iguazu Falls to catch a glimpse of the most beautiful, impressive waterfalls of this earth. I am excited and curious, but we have a ways to go!
By now we covered about 800km, still 640km to go.
Yesterday we experienced the 3rd day of strong headwinds and it got SO BAD, that it was just about impossible to keep a straight line to pedal forward with no shoulder and lots of cars. At 3pm we were done (even though we finally found some real nice dark chocolate at a gas station and tried to get some energy for the next 40km where there would be a hotel we can hang out while a storm is washing over us). With most of the chocolate in our bellies, we tried to ride about 2km and just gave up...meaning we gonna hitch a ride to the hotel. I liked that!
Back at the gas station I had asked if there was a hotel near by...no, was the answer...the guy had a pitiful look on his face. One could tell he was not comfortable giving me the bad news. Camping wasn’t on the menu that night, because a storm was brewing and we weren’t really up for that. Yes, we are too old to suffer! Which also includes not riding in this ridiculous headwind! We stood about 45 minutes with our thumbs sticking out, when a motorcycle seemed to be slowing down and stoping right in front of us: it was the guy from the chocolate store....gas station. The one I asked about the hotel!! He took his helmet off and made sure we remembered - of course!!! In our broken Spanish we did manage to understand that he was inviting us to his big, huge, grande house across the street from the service station to spend the night and get out of this f.....ing wind! Twist my arm is what I was thinking and the two miles, which took us about 25 minutes, took us less than 8 minutes in the other direction....besides that we were “fired up” the tail wind also helped!
He was waiting for us - open arms and open garage door. The house was big, yes, and we set up camp in the garage....really, one of the nicest garages..with a barbecue inside it!
Shower, laundry, a pet calve named Sofie in the back yard (geez, I forgot to take pictures!) and then the man served us grilled meat - all different kinds!!! lots of it!!! Yep, he grilled it in “our” bedroom and he also served us his home made sauce ..some awesome moonshine liquor, bread, beer and vino.....ALL OF IT! A good time was had while we - ever so thankful - filled our bellies and our savior was as pleased as us...at least I could tell by his smile and his big hugs when we said our good byes the next day. He handed us a “doggy bag” for lunch
with more goodies and then we set off in a TAIL WIND. The storm had washed over us and the wind had changed direction while we slumbered.
