A twenty minute bus ride and we´re there, Avi and Liza bottled it or rather were sensible and canned it in favour of more sleep, but the rest of us are here. Mostly in one piece and mostly excited about the next 6 hours on bikes 🙂
The guys in the bike shop (Danny and Diego at http://www.cordillerabike.com/) are great and without question add a handlebar extension to Alanna´s bike so she can reach (she was born with her lower arm missing, not that you´d notice, she´s a very independent lady and not one to miss out on a good day out)
Our hangovers last about an hour, by then the gravel roads and steep hills have cured us all.
The scenery is spectacular even if we do have to work hard to see it (well all of us except Huw that is, he finds it pretty easy) We´ve had directions to a lakeside beach for our picnic lunch and although that’s a hike down an unmade road it’s well worth it for the 2nd best restaurant in the world (the best restaurant in the world was the location of our picnic on the Valdez Peninsular back at Puerto Madryn) On the home run we stop at our next recommendation: Gilbert. It´s a brewery, good that it´s on route, bad that it´s not actually at the end and we still have 7km to do afterwards. Oh did we say, the whole circuit – with the detour to the beach for lunch – is 33km and there are lots of big hills! (yes Bernice is writing this bit!!) which means a very sore bum is on it´s way!
We all have a great day and are really really glad we dragged our backsides out of bed and made it. On return to the bike hire shop we reward ourselves with a beer while we wait for a bus. Then back in town we have a few admin chores to do – hire a sleeping bag for Fi to take on the hike and buy a OS equivalent map of the area we plan to walk. V offered to cook us all a curry as they are heading south tomorrow. We all have a much needed early night – the others catch their bus is at 630am!