All downhill from here....

But the road is gravel, and we have a headwind. Well, not really. Sometimes the Carretera Austral felt that way. It was challenging, but very rewarding. Some mechanical problems, but not many. No physical problems, which is a real blessing. Even when problems seemed to loom, there was always something that solved them easily. No ATM for 500 km? Well, I happened to have $80 in dollars that helped us along. That is running out? Well, the Swiss cyclists are willing to buy our otherwise useless Argentine pesos. Bottom brackets dying? The awesome bike shop guys will stay open till 8pm on a saturday to fix it cheaply. And so on. The weather and the road weren´t always our friends, but they were never our enemies, either. There was always a bright side of it- we used way less sunscreen than we may have otherwise, and didn´t sweat nearly as much as we would have had it been warmer.
Mostly the miles passed easily, with us engaged in conversation, commenting ad nauseum on how beautiful the scenery was, how many incredible waterfalls there were, etc. We stopped frequently for coffee breaks, lunch breaks, water filtering breaks. We felt no time constraints, since we always had plenty of time to reach our destination, and with 16 hours of daylight no matter how late we left we still could go quite a ways before dusk. With only one road to follow for most of our trip, getting lost was never a problem- if we were actually on a road, it was always the right road. Considering the pounding of the washboarded gravel roads, only three flat tires and a worn-out drivetrain was getting off very easily.
Everywhere we went, the people were great, both locals and tourists. Comparing this trip to my tours in Thailand, it is remarkable how much richer an experience it is when we can speak the language. I could really go for some Thai food right now, though.
Well, I´m off to have my afternoon coffee & pastry break (a thing they call a donut, but it isn´t, but still tasty), then time to fix the spare inner tubes and rotate the tires. Our Swiss friends, Tom and Janine, are heading out today, so we may not see them again, since we ride around the same speed and they will have a 1.5 day headstart. It has been great riding with them for most of the Carretera, we´ve had some excellent conversations over coffee at weird roadside campsites, or sheltering up at bus stops against the wind and rain while having food breaks. They quit their jobs and are riding until their savings run out, in maybe two years. That brings up a funny thing about vacations: while two months is amazingly long by American standards, it is a relatively short trip compared to the many bicycle tourists we´ve run into on the road. Many of them are cycling six months, nine months, a year, three years. Funny that. Two months feels just about right to us, we´ll finish while we are still having fun, but won´t feel like we missed out or rushed back.