25.0 mi / 8.9 mph / 233 ft. climbing
Home: Poqui’s AirBNB

As we were heading out, our friendly and curious host (technically the father of the person running the AirBNB listing) stopped by to see us off. He even gave us (well, me) some bananas for the road! As always, we wish we spoke better Spanish so that we could properly communicate, but it’s also satisfying when the person we’re talking to is interested enough to work together with us to overcome the language barrier as best we can.

Today we were crossing from the eastern end of the Bariloche “metropolis” to the western end. Despite a population of less than 150,000, the low-density spread of that population meant that we would be riding through “a city” for essentially the entire 25-mile day. We have been in much more-populated cities in South America (Cusco, Valparaiso, etc.), where the rural outskirts on either end were separated by less than an hour of riding, so this “spending the whole day crossing a city-and-suburbs”, while common in the sprawling car-centric United States, was something new in South America.

For most of the route on the eastern side, we took bike paths or gravel roads that ran on either side of the narrow main highway, to better sight-see and relax rather than focusing all of our attention on the road ahead and the cars behind. As predicted, the winds were much lighter than they had been yesterday, and since they were still coming from the west, they were direct headwinds which meant they weren’t tossing us from side to side.

As is often the case with a city/suburbs setup in the US, crossing central Bariloche was actually the easiest part of the ride, since the road-capacity-to-vehicles ratio is higher, and speeds are lower. In this case, the main road widened into two lanes (we essentially took the whole right lane), and drivers were chill, perhaps enjoying the views from the lakefront promenade as much as we were. It’s a bit sad we didn’t have time to stop to see any of the city itself, since it was immediately clear why it’s the center of this tourist-heavy region.

Once we exited the city-proper, I knew that the road would return to its 2-lane, shoulderless form. Given what a nightmare this setup had been on our entry to San Martin, I suggested that maybe we try riding in the wide gravel shoulder, since it might be more-relaxing than long lines of cars backing up behind us and then squeezing past. But it was rougher than it had appeared on StreetView, so it was pretty slow-going and not without its own stresses. In practice we would move in and out depending on traffic, but just making the transitions was a challenge, so there was really no way to make it a pleasant ride.

Rett was really mad at the drivers who passed us too closely, and there was definitely an asshole or two, but most drivers waited behind until they could see that it was reasonably-safe, and then passed slowly and carefully. She was attributing the close-passes to the low character of the drivers, but my feeling (aided by what I could see in my rearview mirror) was that these drivers were remarkably patient and safe. The problem is really the infrastructure: with traffic this heavy on a narrow road, I think even in Baja (which we still associate with the world’s most-patient drivers), the Mexican drivers would have been behaving the same way as the Argentines. The frustrating thing is that there is a super-easy solution here: pave the shoulder! In a place this touristy, with this many outdoor activities, making it comfortable to bike this route (and allow the cars to pass easily) seems like a no-brainer! Maybe it will happen someday?

Except for the traffic I had thought that we’d have a fairly-relaxed day with plenty of time to make stops, but our AirBNB host wasn’t available to receive us during the mid-afternoon hours (perhaps in observation of siesta), so we ended up rushing a bit to make it there before 1:30pm. The push up the super-steep gravel road was a beast, but worth it to reach the neighborhood of wooded, self-built houses. Poqui lived on a hilly section of land where the dense jungle of plants and trees were competing with her several dogs for dominance, and she had built several ramshackle treehouse-like accommodations around her larger main house. It was an absolutely magical place.

We used an outdoor shower for the first time in far too long, and it was amazing. I’m not exactly sure what makes an outdoor shower special, but it might have something to do with the knowledge that it’s currently freezing at “home”, so the ability to do something as crazy as “take a shower outside” highlights the comfortable environment we’re in. But I probably wouldn’t have felt the same in yesterday’s wind!

The good hot water, super-cute wooden enclosure, shower supplies, and included towels surely helped the experience too. Poqui’s English skills were approximately equal to our Spanish skills, so she had demonstrated the somewhat-complex procedure to operate it: walk 10 yards down the path to the outdoor sink, turn on the faucet (presumably to prime a pump or something), then return to shower, turn on the water there, and turn it off back at the sink, and it will remain running at the shower. Later on, she asked for my help with a set of instructions (in English) that she had written down, because she’d had guests misunderstanding (like leaving the water at the sink running all day long). The instructions had some very minor errors (like “turn on the faucet” is more natural to English speakers than “open the tap”), but really, they were fine. The problem was that most Western vacationers just aren’t used to such complex systems. I told her that the reason I had no problem with it is because I’ve been in South America for a long time, but if I had just arrived a week ago, I might have screwed it up too!

Another fun bit in our trading of knowledge: while installing a new hot plate in the outdoor kitchen, she asked the word for the thing you plug it into. When I told her, she repeated “outlet?” in disbelief, because she knows that word, but that’s like a mall where you buy clothes and stuff. I laughed, because she was absolutely right, and I’d never considered that the two completely different things use the same English word. But it’s also funny because “outlet” (the mall version) is one of those English words we’ve seen frequently in South America, without understanding why it isn’t translated to Spanish!