Mud Adventure

It was day number 68, 10th of January, We started the day in Cochrane (Chile) after a longer stay to rest my wrist to head east over the Paso Roballos to cross the border to Argentina. At least we wanted to go to Lago Posadas, or even to Bajo Caracoles which was 220 km away from our starting point. As you are probably already imagining; it went differently as can bee seen in the video:

There was no source of water, no shower and obviously no restaurant nearby so after an improvised dinner (a bag of potato chips, an energy bar and water) we fall asleep quickly as exhausted and sweaty as we where.

But the view was beautiful.

I was a little bit afraid we might face problems due to wild camping being forbidden in Argentina. But we had no alternative and at the end there was only on one person passing by us between 18:00 and 10:00, and he was only greeting us friendly.

The next day the conditions were far from good, but better and somewhat manageable. It had stopped raining and the ground started to dry slowly. So we struck the tent, tried to get as much mud off the bikes as possible, got our luggage back on the bikes and maneuvered them very slowly and carefully the last 12 km to the next town.

The remaining way with "better" conditions the next day

We were so relieved when finally our tires touched asphalt again, you cannot imagine.

In Lago Posadas we refilled the bikes and had sandwiches and Fanta. Our bodies were craving for food and sugar. I think we looked quite dirty after falling in the mud more than once and as a consequence the lovely owner of the gas station immediately offered us his water hose on the lawn next to the gas pump for cleaning. I think he was referring to the bikes, but taking advantage of the opportunity we hosed us as well.

After the stop at the gas station we headed to Gobernador Gregores for one night and then towards the camping site in El Chaltén without further issues. The 70km gravel on the Ruta Nacional 40 between Gobernador Gregores and El Chaltén were unpleasant but a piece of cake after the mud adventure.

Time for checking the bikes and fix what is broken, which I wrote about here --> LINK