The bikes survived the flight to el calafate. A few nervous moments waiting by the carousel until a nice Argentinian man popped his head past the curtains. "¿Chicos, esperan para las bicicletas?", "Si,Si,Si!" He passed them through and relief swept over us.
Just a short 22km to El chalten town. Now..... we had learnt two things about the westerly wind of Patagonia. One, it's bad. Two, it gets worse throughout the day. We would class ourselves as decent cyclists but steaks, wine and resting were not good prep for a cold night time cycle into a strong head wind.
The enormity of our task echoed in our minds as we silently plodded into this wind. Cold, hungry, moving at a snail like pace, why did we fly our bikes to South America?
Regardless, we arrived in El Calafate late and bedded down. Today we tackle our first sleeping in the wild. 220km to el Chalten. Two days, maybe more. Hopefully we'll find some water along the way.
Go Royal Marsden
You go guys!!! Wind is very bad indeed in patagonia, good luck!
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