november 15 - november 20

we left villa angostura very late after finishing a miguel-served breakfast at akerman cabanas with warm rolls and excellent coffee. filled up with enough energy, we were heading to san carlos de bariloche, or just bariloche, 90 kilometers to go. the road was paved and we had good backwind, so we did a bit of distance between our rests. weather was chilly, especially when not cycling, so it was a lot of dressing and undressing. we came closer to bariloche and the wind became stronger, pushing us up the mountains. after reaching the top of a long ramp, the landscape suddently changed completely. no more trees, only pampa was stretching in front of us. we did a fullspeed downhill, hard to concentrate on the road, cos the landscape was amazing. we entered the outskirts of bariloche and had to struggle 10 kilometers against the wind. not only wind, remember, we are in patagonia now! a policecar stopped us and the officer wanted us to drive the unpaved shoulders. we obeyed a bit and finally reached bariloche. we went to a restaurant and had a really good steak again...but evas was better.
next day, we canceled our plan to do the los lagos-boat trip back to chile, instead we decided to stay longer in argentina, going south via futaleufu. we had a restday from biking, what means a stressday for shopping. we went in every outdoor shop, searching for new gloves and a hat for eva, cos patagonia has no tropical weather conditions in summer. the average temperature in november is about 7 degrees celsius, brrrrrrr!
bariloche is an absolute chocolate paradise. one shop after the other and the chocolate is fantastic and cheap, so we bought a lot. the icecream-pro eva said, that this icecream is the best she ever had, even better than "death by chocolate". and that was good, yummy!

leaving bariloche meant pushing our bikes out of town. we had a bad hill for breakfast and it was cool again. we rode our bikes through an unbelievable landscape and didn´t care about ups and downs. patagonian backwind helped a bit. an amazing 10 kilometer downhill ended up at a checkpoint of the argentinean national police. heavy rain started and we had a shelter in a small bus station. the rain didn´t suppose to stop and the 10 kilometers down meant, unfortunately, 10 kilometers up, cos the whatever for policestation was exactly in a valley, between about 600m high mountains. the next dry accomodation is 20 kilometers away, up, said the policeman, grinning. we were not to proud to ask for a hitchhike in a pickup truck, so we had a nice ride on the back of a 40 years old toyota to el bolson.
andrea got problems with her back and the next day we just did a 40 kilometer-ride to epuyen, cos she could not cycle anymore. we rented a cabana in time before a heavy rain started again. we made a fire in the fireplace to cure andreas back, but it did not worked. she decided to take the bus back to bariloche on sunday. we had a last day with swiss company, staying in our little house and had a nice walk to lago epuyen. andrea cooked a polenta-pizza and i was writing this page. tomorrow we will go further on our own. another day to say good-bye.

and it was a bad day. we had our last breakfast together and another breakfast-hill to the busstation. we were waiting for the "don otto" semicama-coach, which arrived at 9:30 and after some biketransportationdiscussions, andrea found her seat in the bus, leaving back to bariloche. two weeks of biking with her, a long time for getting close to somebody.

so the hasinos were on their own and had a little break, cos heavy rainclouds brought bad weather again. we had coffee and "milka con dulce de leche" in a gas station, were we saw the "deutsche welle" tv-program. to watch german television was some kind of strange, after a long time of travelling. the patagonian wind blew strong and after some kilometers, we were back on a gravel-road, leading directly into the argentinean pampa. the sky became darker and the rain was pouring. we were wet and looked for room for the night, to dry out. a lonely hospedaje offered a stinking room for 100 pesos and we denied. no way, josé! after 20 more kilometers in the pouring rain, we finally found a place at villa lago rivadavia.too bad, that argentina got more expensive in this special region, so we are completly busted now. the next tellermachine is about 100 kilometers away, oops!

and one special experience was missing on our trip til now. cycling a dirt road is bad, but cycling a muddy, wet dirt road is real shit, and you are looking like a hog!
but we were dry now, had a hot-toddy-tea and heard sentimental music on mtv... .