Day 673 24th May 2018
44 miles (Gobernador Virasoro to Santo Tome) Average speed 11.3 mph Top speed 26mph
I was awake at 5 with a lorry left ticking over for an hour next to my tent, joined by 6 large ducks quacking. Then the workmen decided to use their strimmers to cut the grass verge on the other side of the tent at 7, so I got up and lit a fire to make tea and ham and egg rolls. I packed up and left at 10.30. I went into town to buy a drink as there were no towns for the next 40 miles. My knee was a bit sore, back and shoulders were aching too from the tension of the single lane carriageway with lorries and buses.
I considered staying in town but the wind was almost behind me so chose to go for it. At the turn off just past the camping to the left I avoided the chance to get off the main road, as the alternate route was sand and stone with lorries and lots of dust. The main road wasn’t too busy to start with and I was making good progress with a tailwind as I went around the bends.
My first roadside stop was at a bend sign which a transit van had ignored some time before and ended up in a farmers field.
The sign is fairly obvious!
I stopped after 25 miles at the only place available, a garage that only had 2 litre bottles of drink, which I refused to carry due to the extra weight. So I continued and had leftover pasta sauce in hamburger rolls, which reminded me of sloppy joes I had in Chicago when I was 12, but cold and nowhere near as good. I ate 3 of these standing at the entrance to a pine forest but couldn’t face a fourth as the bread was so dry without water, before getting back on the road amidst the trucks. Two trucks and an oncoming car forced me off the road in the next section. With lots of strange thoughts of my past going through my mind I eventually made it to the town by turning directly into the wind for the last couple of miles, which made me realise how lucky I’d been to have it behind me for the rest of the day.
The campsite was down by the river separating Brazil from Argentina and as the road to it was sand and rocks, I chose the hotel Brasil in town instead. I have a very small single room with very dated fixtures and fittings but I do have a bathroom with a shower over the toilet and a comfy bed and tv, which beats my recent camping experiences. I showered and had a siesta before taking a long walk looking for food and ended up ordering steak and Roquefort which arrived with just bread, so I ordered some fries to accompany it with a much deserved beer. There really is a big difference between Argentina and Brazil as it’s very difficult to find a bar anywhere here, as opposed to Brazil, where there is one on every street corner. The fact that everything closes during siesta can also be problematic but I am trying to adjust!
Hotel Brasil 350 pesos.