Today was a long day to Monte Quemado. I went 193 km in a little over 8 hours. It rained today, but not too bad. It started and stopped a few times. There was little traffic on the road and a several times there were no cars in either direction as far as I could see. The road is incredibly straight around here, not even the slightest change for 50 km at a time. I saw a few people on the side of the road today and on a few occations they yelled out "yeeewww!". This is like whistling loudly or yelling "yeehaa!" in the US and is really common around here. For long stretches of road it was like biking down a tunnel. There were 10 ft. high shrubs like a wall in either side of the road. It came right up to the side of the road, no band of grass or anything.
Today was really interesting in the wildlife department. I saw a dead ant eater in the side of the road. Later on I saw a dead cow covered by about 50 vultures. I saw some ferral sheep today as well. They looked so funny, covered from head to toe a thick blanket of burrs tangled in their fur. However the most interesting animals saw today were a couple of wild boars. I had stopped for some water and I looked up the road and saw a large black animal. I biked towards it and eventually realized what it was. It was maybe 400 lbs. and had little tusks. I stopped to take a picture while I was a few hundred feet away. Boars can be dangerous so I tried to be careful. After a picture I biked towards the boar while yelling loudly to try and scare it off, but it didn't work. I quickly bike by it passing within about 20 ft. of it.
After arriving at my destination I got settled in my hotel and then were out for some dinner. I ended up picking up a pizza, and while I waited for it to cook I started to chat it up with some two cute gypses. They lived in a tent at the edge of town they told me. When I asked them what they did for a living, they said that the job of all gypse women was to bring luck. I love that answer! When my food was ready they wished me good luck on my trip.
My right knee is acting up a bit. I took some ibuprofen and that helped. This has happened a few times after my longer days.
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