It’s 10:30pm and I’m too tired to write all that happened today… it felt like 5 days in one… so in point form a reminder of today:

• frustrating leaky tube all day, stopped to pump five or six times before it became too much… v frustrating flat tire to change… knew it befor I started and it was as expected… bled everywhere
• Ride with the wind was so grateful… so many climbs I wouldn’t have made it without the wind
• Albergue, I’m the only one here, it’s a bit awkward to be the only one here but so it is
• Riding by the ocean today… as imagined… love it
• Little off-road today, was a good balance between road and dirt
• Asked someone to take my picture, something I couldn’t do yesterday… growth…
• Accidentally spent $100 downloading music… atleast I have music for the rest of the trip now…
• Cold and windy, it is going to rain tomorrow
• Big dinner, was nice… played with dog, was nice…

Notes from 2 years later: I wish I had written more about this places. The Albergue is a converted house (as most of them are), with the attic stacked with bunk beds. There is a couple that lives here, they had a lot of fun making fun of me. They also have a girl who stays with them and helps run the place. Her name is Flo… she is from France, and she is very nice, in a playful way, in a way that suggest that she is searching for a life irregular, maybe not irregular, maybe unconventional. She has a dog named Patch. Patch ran off from the house so we went to find him at the neighbour’s. Flo and I and Patch went for a walk in the evening. The weather was terrible, windy and cold and I’ve never seen a dog poo so much in my life haha… Flo wanted to show me a hidden spot on the ridge that she liked to come to, to be more alone than she was already in this town. What are you hiding from Flo!

I Was keen to get on the road this morning, and the ride out of town was awesome! The day started with quiet country roads, there was a trail through a walking park for like 3 kms, then more country roads, one lane wide… a little bit of climbing, and then the first sight of the Ocean!

I could smell it before I could see it, and the temperature dipped, and even though it wasn’t a milestone at the beginning of the trip, I was really looking forward to seeing a coast and water… it felt great… I took the more difficult hiking trail to stay closer to the coast for a while, before I met some hikers that said I should get on the road for the next bit… lucky that they did because I bumped into a couple of people waiting outside an Albergue, I was tired and I stopped to chat with them and decided to stay here for the night, 15 euros and some people to hang about with… another Canadian amongst them as well!

Almost forgot to write today… well because I’m still here at my warm showers hosts house in Lugones… It’s my first day off on the trip and it feels very strange… I remember this feeling from my other bike trip of being angsty about not moving forward… jolted to a stop, feeling pent up energy and not having anything to do in the day. Getting on the bike and riding is an easy choice… once you’re on, it’s a thing that you are doing and that occupies you, physically, mentally and you don’t have time to worry about anything else. I’ve mentioned this before about just sitting with myself on the bike, I guess that there’s practice to be done to be just sitting with myself off the bike as well…

Was happy to wake up knowing that today was the descent out of the pass, I had till 6pm to get to my destination about 65kms away so I was ambling about in the morning, had 2 coffees, oats and peanut butter blah blah… chit chat with the other hikers getting ready to depart… then on the road!

The descent was pretty awesome, but also a bit scary! I covered the first ten kilometres in about seventeen minutes… made my first stop just under an hour after starting, at a fancy grocery store where I got a hot sandwich and a cold coffee… weather was great again today… it’s back to being pretty hot now, should’ve realized that mountains have a pretty strong influence on weather conditions… or maybe it’s just a hot day…. Anyway it suits me and hope for it to continue to be hot so that I can camp for the next week on the coastline