Villa Cañas

28th JUNE 2019, TIME TO LEAVE. Quick breakfast around the corner at Latino Sandwich to kick off with. Cheap and convenient and conveniently accepted card payments.

Back at Portal del Sur, my UK SIM had arrived in the nick of time and was waiting for me at reception. I packed away and stacked my luggage inside the door of the hostel while I went across the road to retrieve my bike from the basement of the estacionamiento. My advanced preparation had backfired as I couldn’t find the receipt for yesterday’s Garage payment and, of course, the office didn’t hold a record and regarded me with suspicion of attempting to pull a fast one.

I thumbed through my stack of receipts for every nik-nak and morsel of food, dug out of the depths of every pocket and pouch. I’d sort through them later in the Pampas and use them for kindling. Here was one for the Hostel, dammit. I’d paid through until tomorrow and forgotten all about it. At £6 a night it wasn’t worth hauling the bags back up for effectively a ‘free’ night – or even the ball-ache of haggling for a refund: they had treated me nicely so I mentally labelled it a tip and carried on. Finally, the Garage receipt surfaced out of the leafy stack and I trotted down the stairs to the basement to emerge up the ramp out of the darkness and into the light and parked just inside their entrance directly opposite the hostel door – I pressed the intercom and propped open the self-closing door and stacked everything on the pavement before carting everything across the busy street.

My throat was already parched and I hadn’t started on strapping up the luggage on the racks yet. I’d dressed for the ride so generating a fair trickle of sweat down my back. I had no camp to pack away but the ferrying of the luggage and watching out for the bags in a busy city more than made up for that energy saving. I input the destination on the maps.me app and slipped the phone under the bungee that secures my sleeping mat to the front rack.

What a luxury having GPS back. I don’t mind so much being without in the countryside, but city navigation was always an intense and labyrinthine trial, Looking out for hazards was a full-time job so following a blue line on the screen freed up my mental resources to focus on survival.

Imagine the North Circular in London on a drizzly grey day. Escaping Buenos Aires this day was a bit like that except for riding on the other side of the road. Toll gates meant I had to pay for the pleasure to leave.

The fine drizzle condensed itself over my visor as I ploughed on through the thick atmosphere. It could be worse and I prayed it wouldn’t be. The forecast on the weather app promised lighter skies further west so it was almost a case of just sitting it out with the little 125 motor humming along Ruta 7 following the blue line on Maps.me

Flat, boring Pampa bisected by featureless Dual carriageway made for a forgettable ride. Nothing to see here, move along… I’m trying but it takes so long. Nothing to do but watch my mirrors for approaching danger from behind and count down each of the 270km to Junin. Ruta 7 is fast but my bike isn’t – built for scenic routes and for picking it back up easily if I ever fell off. I’d only done that 5 times, all on the same day in Paraguay between Concepción and Asuncion.

The damp air sapped away my body heat. Maybe the extra night in Portal del Sur would have been a better choice after all.

Leaden skies brightened to luminescent silver as the drizzle faded. There had been no more Toll gates once I’d escaped the city suburbs. Things were looking up as the afternoon ground on.

Dusk had begun to fall as I approached Junin. A much-needed petrol station presented itself, although on the wrong side of the dual carriageway. The fuel gauge needle was rooted in the red segment but I was keen to turn in. The blue line on my GPS told me only 8km to go so I decided I’d fill up on the way back and turned left across the highway towards Balneario Laguna de Gómez.

At the Balneario, my fuel needle now fully impaled the E on the gauge and I wondered whether I had 10km of fuel left to get me back to the Fuel station. We’d see – camping used no fuel so there was no benefit in making a special trip right now.

Darkness had fallen noticeably over the last 8 km and, in the evening gloom, the Municipal Campsite looked abandoned and exposed, possessing a foreboding ambience so I opted for Camping Chapay, next door, a fortress of tall chain link fencing and sturdy looking entrance pillars shielding a mature eucalyptus glade Through the fence, I saw scattered barbecue parillas and electric sockets. In the depths of the off-season, the site looked deserted except for the standard-issue stray dog and the office window aglow with warm electric yellow indicated the first sign of life here yet.

Two men chatted over the desk in the office but spoke no English apart from Manchester United and Chelsea I hacked away at Español in order to book in. we always get there in the end.

I was the only customer, outnumbered by the 2 or 3 staff milling about.

I was happy to be here. I was ahead of schedule for the eclipse. My destination was only 160km away and I still had three days to go. No rush.

The shop next door was still open and I took the opportunity to buy some

Firewood, food and wine and a dubious treat of a pack of Doritos. I’m not that fond of Doritos but with the only alternative of Pringles, it was the lesser of two evils. Nobody at the counter, so I performed the customary clap three times. The shopkeeper appeared as if by magic just like the one in the old Mister Ben TV show.

The wood wasn’t damp exactly but failed to catch light relying on my full stack of receipts but I discovered Doritos make excellent kindling and soon got my stove fire spitting and crackling. That had been a Youtube tip to be fair – my online university of life, Youtube.

I felt happy to be away from the city again. Always good to arrive and always good to leave. A life of contrasts is the happiest, I think.

The morning dawned brighter but still overcast. The worst of the weather had been left behind me in Buenos Aires. I savoured the quiet and booked another night here at Camping Chapay. Top value at £3 a night. I wandered out to the lake, not a soul in sight. Graphite water under a silver sky and a cutting wind shaving the ripples off the ruffled water.

The grey afternoon morphed into the dark chill of dusk and I returned to the shop to indulge in more guilty snacks. Lighting the fire for dinner, I went to collect some water from the shower block for cooking the pasta, returning to find the bag of snacks missing. No telling if it were the experienced and devious dog, or the enthusiastic janitor justifying his salary by trash collection. But it necessitated a second visit to the shop to buy the exact same items from the bemused shopkeeper. “Gringos, que loco!” I imagined him thinking.

30th June: Sun through the trees brought colour without warmth but the air felt drier as I packed away and loaded up. I rode away gently, rationing out the precious petrol fumes to the motor for coaxing us (my dear moto and me) as far as possible. Each kilometre was a small win as it meant a corresponding shorter push to the fuel station should I run out of fuel.

At the Ruta 7 junction, the Gas station on the wrong side of the dual carriageway was in full view but an Axion was indicated only 500 metres to the left in the right direction. I’d pushed my luck this far and decided to push it a bit further to the Axion. It was my lucky day.

Ruta 65 branched away off Ruta 7 here at Junin and I was happier on the quieter single carriageway. Long straight stretches of pale asphalt between huge fenced off fields and sparsely scattered shrubs. Flat with a vast skyscape like you experience in East Texas, East Anglia or Kansas. If you could find any beauty, it was obscured by its agricultural sparseness.

The bright southern sun, pinned high in an azul sky, painted the two-dimensional landscape with splashes of yellow and green. Whatever warmth was radiated from above was snatched away by the cool winter airstream. The lower humidity meant that I didn’t feel quite as cold as when leaving Buenos Aires, skin deep rather than bone-deep.

Ticking off a km a minute would mean about two and half hours to Venado Tuerto.

Two hours later… Hello? “Balneario Municipal 5km” boasted a large sign next to a side road just off the approach to Villa Cañas. The narrow gravel track hinted at the kind of silent solitude I cherish. Worth a look, at least, and my tyres crunched their way toward tranquility.

5km of gravel, laser-straight without a bend terminating at a laguna shoreline of giant eucalyptus with what sounded like the shrillness of a thousand parakeets founding an aerial city above the deserted looking campsite. Bingo! Paradise found. Only 20km away but I wouldn’t be continuing to Venado Tuerto any time soon since Villa Cañas also sits dead-centre of the path of the eclipse. The bonus? no dog, unusual for South American campsites.

I knocked on the door at the sole house next to the gate to see if they were open, and a friendly young lady pointed up and down the site saying “puedes acampar en cualquier lugar aquí. Todo bien.” or something like that. I took the tone of the phrase to be in the affirmative and agreeable and responded with “Muchas gracias.”

I rode up and down the site, a straight and relatively narrow stretch of shoreline, probably the width and length of about four football pitches laid end to end There was a fair wind hacking across the lake so I sought shelter behind whatever I could find.

There stood a detached cafe that felt a bit of a conspicuous area so ironically I returned near the entrance to pitch there. Visitors would pass me by to settle at the end of the site and only return to use the toilets just 30 metres away. Here I had some protection from the eucalyptus trees Picnic table and a barbecue parilla plus a handy powerpoint.

The shower block sported solar water panels fully exposed to the sky. Oh yes, this would do nicely.