Villa Angostura

What a difference a day makes yesterday we woke up to gorgeous sunshine and today we woke up to the sound of rain on our roofs. It was coming down in buckets, as we had to load our bikes and make the 140 km move to Villa Angostura. Our tires are now six weeks old have squared off a lot and have very little tread left, and today we were carrying the new ties on the back of our bikes together with all of our usual gear. Which weighed down the back of the bike significantly and lifted a front wheel, which already did not have much grip a little higher off the road.

It was a fairly gingerly start to our ride. The bikes would not turn in the corners , And we did not want to go so fast, so we then had to deal with every other Argentinian driver who does like to go fast desperate to get past us. We rode into Barchiloche topped up with fuel and headed off again around the lake and onto the final 80 km to Villa Angostura. Because we are riding directly there we would be there far too soon to be able to check into our hotel, so we decided to visit Moto rent Patagonia. , Which was a motorcycle rental shop that I had used seven years ago as a place to change my tires whilst on my Original trip around South America, run by a lovely man called Juan Suarez, Zapata, an X Dakar Rally racer, and now owner of his own bike rental shop. He came to see us, took our tires from us and let us store them in his shop until Monday morning, which enabled us to head into town to find some lunch.

We found a local café that served hot coffee in the most amazing barbecued lamb empanadas. That we had ever tasted so good in fact, we went back for seconds after this we took the chance that the hotel would have our rooms ready and drove the 6 km to La Balas hotel. This was one of our special hotels, and after the hotel in Escale and two nights at the camping, we were more than ready for some fine linen, fine wise and spectacular dining.. Having said that, we would not have changed the previous two nights.

Both of us are beginning to feel quite tired now we’ve been on the road for six weeks with very little breaks and have covered close on 8000 kg. Tomorrow is a day off, and I don’t think either of us will leave the hotel.