You would think with all of this toughness training I should be getting super tough. Apparently that’s not true as Argentina beat me up today. 

It all started okay. In fact the first 200 miles was nothing but fun. The abundant farmlands, orchards and vineyards eventually turned to open range land. Snow covered peaks perforated the eastern horizon to my right and boundless prairie occupied the other 270 degrees. 

I stopped in a little town to fill up with gas and have a snack. The temperatures which had been a pleasant 70ish all morning were now approaching the mid 90s. It looked like I was going to arrive early to my intended camping site. I thought that would get me out of the worst of the heat today. I thought wrong. 

Soon after that stop the terrain turned more rugged. The roadway started to climb significantly with red rock bluffs and volcanic formations filling the open space. 

My GPS indicated that I should take a right at the next intersection but when I got there I could see that the bridge had collapsed. My map did not show any other routes but about a half mile down the road I saw a detour sign. The pavement ended and my day began to get a little harder. At first it was just gravel road which I could still ride at a decent speed but I still had 100 miles to go and I was hoping it wouldn’t be like this the whole way. It wasn’t, it got harder. 

After about an hour the roadway narrowed and was two inches deep in loose river stones. The problem with this surface is that the stones are rounded and don’t interlock. The bike did not want to roll over the stones rather it wanted to plow through them. This made my heavy bike feel very unstable and slowed my pace dramatically. I looked at the temperature and it was 104. I tried to find some shade but at 3:00 in the afternoon Tiggrr didn’t even cast a shadow. 

Negative thoughts of impending heat exhaustion started to creep into my concentration so I pulled over to collect myself. There was a muddy, fast moving river so I soaked my t-shirt and scarf. I drank a lot of water and took inventory. 

“You are in the middle of nowhere so you can camp anywhere that you like. You have five liters of water onboard and plenty of food. Some shade would be nice but you could rig a tarp if need be. I think you are okay. Do you want to ride some more or should we camp here?”

“Who’s talking?” 

That awful river rock lasted another hour and then gave way to 50 miles of washboard. I thought I was going to rattle the bike apart. At least I could ride a little faster which helped me ventilate better. I could never really figure out the best way to ride that washboard surface. I tried it faster and then slower. Standing and then seated. No matter what I did it made my head bobble. 

It took nearly 5 hours from the time I left the pavement but I toughed it out and eventually hit tarmac again. Yippee!

I found a place to camp outside of a very, very small town that only had dirt road for a main street. I’m at what looks to be a rodeo grounds and I’m the only one here. It was listed as a municipal camping site on iOverlander so unless someone shows up to tell me otherwise, this is home for the night. 

The sun is just setting and I have a beautiful view of a snowcapped volcano. The temperature has settled to a more livable 88 degrees.