Day 5 – 26th November . Creepy Crawlies!

San Carlos de Bolivar to Casa de Piedra (Pampas) – 670 kms

Total Distance So Far: 1,010 kms

I rode a lot further than planned today. The next two days I had planned to cross the most remote 800kms of the Pampas, but I ended up doing the majority of it today. I had been told of a hotel at a National Park in the Pampas about 500 kms from San Carlos de Bolivar. Fantastic I thought, the tent can stay in its wrapper. I was actually planning to camp at about 400 kms until ‘my knowledgeable friend’ Juan, told me in the bar last night of this oasis in the middle of the Pampas. Apparently the rooms were good, with views over the Parque National Lihuel Calel, famous as it’s still the one place in Argentina where pumas roam freely in the wild. At 7pm and after 490kms in the sadle I arrived at the park entrance where the lone ranger (no pun intended) on duty informs me of no such hotel. I said a pretty stupid thing, and told him he must be mistaken! He tells me he informs lots of ‘stupid’ people who arrive at the park wanting to stay in this non-existent 5-star super-pad! I wonder why. (Juan if you are reading this blog I have some advice for you – “1) Don’t give advice, and 2) Buy more beers!” I said no problem to the ranger I’ll just set up my tent. He tells me it is not a good idea as there are too many pit vipers about at the moment. He says don’t worry there is a ‘real hotel’ just down the road in Casa de Piedra. Excellent I thought and asked him to give me directions. Just down the road turned out to be another 180 kms down the road. What the hell, the days riding had been fantastic, another couple of hours and I’ll get there just after sunset. I really got into the zone. Only bikers out there will really appreciate this. I was cruising through all this ‘space’, being blasted by U2, and thinking how marvelous this was. There was no where else I’d rather be.

It was a fantastic extra leg, with an awesome setting sun. Plenty of photo opportunities, which made the leg take an extra hour. There were vultures and eagles all about, and literally hundreds of tarantulas crossing the road, plus the odd snake. At one point I had to swerve to miss them. It was something like one of Michael Caine’s 1970’s B-movies – ‘Revenge of the Giant Spiders’. I stopped and there must have been half a dozen tarantulas all crossing the road at the same time. I cornered one big fella (about 7 inches across) and took a few shots until it got a bit aggressive rearing up on it’s hind legs and doing little hops towards me. I laid down and tried to get an arty ‘spider with setting sun’ shot but noticed another bugger getting a bit close to my boots, so I let it go and pushed on.

The green Pampas was full of cowboys (gaucho’s) looking after cows. It turned into dessert desolate scrub after about 400 kms today, and very few vehicles were crossing through. Casa de Piedra, is a little one street town in the middle of nowhere with a big dam. Sure enough it had a little hotel and they had space just as the ranger predicted. That was lucky as I was not going to camp with so many hairy friends about, let alone the pit vipers!

Anyway the ride tested both me and the bike. I had not ridden for a couple of months, and it was testament to the bike that after 700 kms I felt fine, just a little wind-beaten, even with about 50 kms of riding on the pegs over some broken pot-holey roads. The most important bit (backside) stayed in good shape!