Day 24 - Big Miles, Big Trucks, Big Food and Big Bikes!

 Today was billed as the largest mile trip of the whole expedition of 100 days, being 675km and so it was.

We took the scenic route out of Port Madryn and headed up the highway north towards Buenos Aires in perfect weather, with little wind and warming sunshine. So the speeds improved to an average of about 140km per hour. And still cars were passing us! However the challenge at this speed is that the vehicles coming the other direction are also "moving" so that a lot more space is required to pass safely. Luckily the road is almost dead straight, enabling very good visibility and plenty of time for decision making. In a few places there were double lanes where the road became more sinuous through a river valley for example. 

We scooted along to pre arranged stops, being at 140km and another 230km - the gasolina stations are well apart here, so many vehicles including motos, were carrying extra red fuel drums. We had a coffee at the second stop and lunch at the third in an Argentinian meat restaurant  - very traditional and very good, with lots of salad and pleny of water. 

At the last stop about 20km before Bahia Blanca (the city of White Bay) there was a group of about 10 veteran cars, all restored and all being raced off-road (in other words very well used) which gave us some real delight, as had a 1962 Renaut 4, at the previous station. The latter had been all fitted out as a camping van for one person and was covered in stickers of locations he had been, and in keeping with the theme and time had some period pieces such as an old leather clip suitcase on the roof!

As we came to end of our days journey, the road traffic increased considerably with larger trucks, making passing a chore, but it included one car overtaking in the opposite direction to me, continuing on the right side of the road as if I didnt exists! So I pulled into the tiny verge lane and let him barrell by - some people simply dont care and that means that I need to think very carefully about my "Plan B" if this should happen again. Luckily a motorcycle is a fairly narrow vehicle.

Here, we are in the middle of the Bahia city, fairly industrial in a regular average hotel, fine for one night. The evening entertainment was to change both of JC's bike's tyres in the parking lot, to which we all pitched in, mostly with comments rather than practical help! To break the bead and get the tyre to sit correctly in the rim, so that the pump could actually get it started. Oh joy!