It had to happen at some stage and it did with all our calculations we still managed to underestimate how much water we would need on our ride into San Rafael. We were in the middle of a desert plain (we did not know was there) with nothing in every direction as far as the eye could see except for the hazed outline of the Andes on our left.
At the 90km mark of what was to be a 205km ride we estimated we would run out of water at about 110km. We were riding in 30 deg so not incredible heat, but the tired black/orange road scared by the sun was searing hot and baked us like an oven. The sheer thought of running out of water made us feel sick and weak. We were cycling along in silence thinking of ice baths and how to ration the last half a drink bottle of hot water.
After staring at the sandy road for another 20km with our dry mouths gaped open and only another mouthful of hot water between us we heard a noise. A few moments later I saw the most fierce fork lightning hit or miss by meters a house up ahead. The air started to cool and it began not to rain but hail on us! Huge hail stones were stinging our parched legs. Thunder and lightning was all around and a car stopped to give us a poncho to protect us from the stones. Within half an hour we had left the desert and we eventually came to a gas station to fill up with much needed water which we had actually totally forgotten we had run out of. We were now soaking wet and it had started to snow! Unbelievable!
At the moment we came out of the gas station bewildered by what had happened the weather turned into a blue sky perfect day and the real miracle happened. A dream I have had for the entire trip finally came into fruition. I do have a small competitive side to my nature. Often cycling along for hours on end I have said to myself, “if only a bunch of competitive cyclists would pull up along side us”, I would love to race them to pass the time. Well my dream came true – 9 full-on roadies pulled into the same gas station on flash bikes to fill up with water and said they were cycling 50km back into San Rafael. Suddenly I came to life and as they pulled out with us I smiled, Angela rolled her eyes and laughed and we were off! At first they took it easy thinking we would drop straight off the back ha ha. Then when Angela started saying whee this is fun they got a tad annoyed and it was all on. They were lapping it out at full pace. Angela stayed on for 20km averaging 40-41km p/h then dropped off and said “see you in town”. I held on until a big climb then got dropped on half way up. I was so happy to have had a race I was grinning for days. We rode the last few km into San Rafael talking about nearly flaking out from heat stroke in a desert, nearly being hit by lightning, hail, snow the kindness of the car that stopped and having a bunch ride into town. When we got to San Rafael we celebrated the 205km with a glass of beer each then went to bed with the alarm set for 7:30am and slept through it until mid day.
We are now in Mendoza were we have hired an apartment and are studying Spanish for 2 weeks as we are so far ahead of schedule. For a nice apartment in the center of town you pay 10 pounds between us a night including a 1h Spanish lesson every morning. We are well under our 10 pound (each) a day budget for the trip so far which is also great.
The study is going primo and we have managed to see both All Black games – nice one! Naturally we head out of Mendoza next Sunday after England receive a record thrashing on Sat. We are planning to go to Salta then just a thousand or so kilometers to Bolivia and a new challenge.
I hope this finds you all very well, keep checking the web sight for updates and keep in touch.
Silas