2. Stuck In The Wet Desert
Day 158
I had a very restless night. One reason was probably the altitude. Since mid morning yesterday I've been above 4000 m. In the last 10 km I descended to 3700 m where I am right now. But the main reason I couldn't sleep last night was the rain. It was raining hard the whole night. And once that got into my head that was it. The sleep was over. My next few days involve mostly riding on dirt roads in the mountains. If that wasn't challenging enough, you can add some rainstorm to it. I was going through many “what if” scenarios and alternate routings. The thing is that I could get on the paved road and get nicely and comfortably around this weather. But that's not why I'm here. So I have decided to stay here one more day and wait out the weather. It suppose to be better today and sunny from tomorrow onwards.
I met two Germans I have dinner with last night for breakfast and they were all ready to go. A lot of bikers I meet on the strip are on a schedule. Same with these guys. They have rented bikes, tickets back home so they have hard schedule. They suited up after the breakfast and off they went into the driving rain. Not my idea of fun when you are cold, wet and don't see anything around you.
There is one issue with my extra night over here because they don't have any room available. But there is available room in another building. Not as good as the main building, but it is dry. It has bed and a shower. Good enough for me.
Now I have to kill one day. There's no internet here and the phone reception is very weak. A bunch of rainstorms damaged the internet lines so there is only a very spotty reception once in a while. I guess I'm back to paper maps again..
I have talked to the hotels owner and he told me that for 25 years there was no rain here at all. Five years ago it started to rain. This is a full on desert, so there shouldn't be too much train throughout the year. But it was raining pretty hard yesterday.
I have my route planned for tomorrow with several “get out of the Dodge” option routes. Bike’s tank is full so I have a minimum 500 km range in the dirt. I don't know what the road looks like so I have no idea where I am going to end up tomorrow. There's one more settlement before I hit the serious stuff. Hopefully I will get some more information there. The route tomorrow includes an excursion to 5000 m. I should be able to get a nationality as half Sherpa by now.
The place where I'm staying now is in the middle of nowhere but has a gas station. This is the last gas station on Argentinian side. It is 150 km to the border and there is another 160 km to San Pedro to the next gas station. Everybody is stopping here and filling up their bikes in cars. The clientele here are almost exclusively from Brazil. I have never seen so many big motorcycles anywhere and they are 95% BMW.
It is raining hard again. I haven't seen rain for six weeks until now but I'm already sick of it. I got a message from a friend of mine today who is at Iguazu Falls. It's on the border of Argentina and Brazil, one of the biggest waterfalls in the world. All the trails there and viewpoints are closed due to flooding and unusual amount of high water. I guess I'm not the only one who has to deal with this wet stuff.
It got much worse late afternoon. Lightning, thunders and tons of water. The hotel’s manager told me that a guy crashed about 1 km from here on the road I want to take. He is in the hospital, but OK. At this point, I think that road is too risky for me. I will take the paved road to Salta.
The plan is one thing, the reality another …