Heh. I know I mentioned previously that this last trip to South America was not a biking trip — but of course we found a way to sneak in a little bit of bike time.
(his-n-hers rented mountain bikes)
From the sweet little city of El Chaltén in Argentina, we found a hostel that offered rental bikes and a shuttle up to a lake, Lago del Desierto, 37km away. Basically, they picked us up in the morning, drove us and our rented bikes up to the lake, and then left us to our own devices to bike back to town with the prevailing (and intensely strong) winds at our backs. The vibe was basically “eh, have fun, and, yknow, bring the bikes back at some point, please.”
So we spent a lovely day biking around, hiking at a few spots along the way, stopping at places that seemed cool, and making a lovely jaunt out of riding back to town.
(and damn, was it some scenic biking:)
We even managed to find El Chaltén’s only “bicisenda” (“sendero” = trail; bicisenda = bike trail) a funny little 2km-ish singletrack, the only exclusively bike path in the area.
(we missed it on our first pass, which meant we had to turn around and actually bike into the wind — a little more difficult for sure;)
I was actually fairly often glad, on this trip in general, that we were hiking rather than biking — simply because the wind was so crazy. Anything that’s hard to walk in is not, I imagine, super pleasant to spend a day biking into. Though we did see several bike tourists, and they seemed like they were having a good enough time, so maybe it’s one of those things that seems worse when you’re anticipating it than it actually is when you’re living it.
Anyway. We’re back safe and sound with a fantastic adventure to both close out 2017 and start off 2018. Happy belated new year and stay tuned for more adventure! :)
“Bicisenda” — me gusta! :-)