Puerto San Julian

Day 160, Dec 9, 2013, 667km

Left Rio Mayo nice and early to continue down Ruta 40 but fond that on the other side of town there was more road work and after yesterdays shake and bake taking the forced roads seemed not the way to go again, so lets take option #2 and head back to the coast that's only 250 km (155 mi) away and hopefully it has better roads than this. Headed down R26 towards Comondoro Rivadavia and I was hoping that it would turn into a paved road (it did after 140km), even though the hard packed gravel is very drivable so long as you stay in the tire tracks. The only problems you encounter are usually in the curves where everyone just doesn’t know how to stay in a track and so there is none, most of the time you zig and zag a little but get through, then of course if your doing 100 km/h you get something like this, (wipe-out).

Was time for a little siesta anyway, and my left knee had been spared all the previous attempts for a nap, so now were done, bandaged it up and now were back to limping a little again. The bike did take another beating today though. The fall broke my hwy peg off, the luggage lock is busted and a bolt is ripped out of the bracket, luckily a trucker did drive by and helped me set the bike back up and I went back to riding at 100 but did take the curves way slower this time.

The scenery has changed again to a more stretched out desert look.

Made it to Puerto San Julian and staying at Hotel Sada for $22.