Day 4: Biking through a hurricane

I biked through a hurricae today. 90 kph head winds! It was so windy the boarder guards told me the Argentine flag had been ripped. I was on the road for 9 hours straight and averaged 6.5 mph. This was by far the most difficult day of this or any other trip I have done. I was in my 3rd gear out of 27 for nearly the entire time. The town I was planning to stay in turned out to be just a boarder crossing. There was also nothing to buy to eat, and after 9 hours of strenous exercise that was the first thing on my mind. I had a small supply of crackers, but that wasn´t enough to recharge my body. I asked a man living next to the boarder crossing if he could spare anything and he came back with a bowl of hearty tripe soup. Now I enjoy eating pig intestine soup as much as the next guy, but after 9 hours of biking I was ready to eat the bowl too. I stayed in a heated waiting area for travelers for the night. It was sort of like an enclosed bus stop. I put down my sleeping bag and made myself at home. Two motorcyclists from Romania shared the waiting room with me that night.

If it wasn´t for the wind, it would be a great and scenic trip. I didn´t see a single tree today, just rolling planes along the ocean. I ran into another biker at the end of the day too. He had started in Buenos Aires 4 months ago and was on his way to Ushuaia. The boarder guards told me a Japanese biker had passed by last week as well.