The northern Argentinian weather

The countryside is dramatic, and the roads are generally smooth, except for the odd stupendous failure. The weather is on the hot side of comfortable and the wind is constantly strong from the south. Except for my day off today in Belen when it has been blowing from the north! The beautiful views make it all worthwhile though. I looked out of my tent the other morning with 5,000m snowy peaks in front of me and what I think was a cayote scarpering off into the thorn bushes when I got out to take a photo.

There are a few solitary big red insects around which, from a google search, I think may be a type of wasp called a velvet ant, or cow killer. It seems that  someone who got stung by one said that it could kill a cow and that description stuck. The web site indicates that they hurt but don´t kill, cows or people. There are also lots of these tiny white insects that sound like ducks, which had me wondering where they were hiding at first.

I did 60km yesterday, downhill all the way, and pedalled hard to do a few km per hour. The headwind whistled in my ears and my panniers acted like big air breaks on the back. Three days back with no wind blowing, I did 150km and with a lot less effort. I do hope that the wind dies down! It´s been blowing with differing strength for two weeks and I had to pedal hard the whole way on the 2.5km vertical descent over 200km from the altiplano, which seemed rather like my reward for the work done in the ascent was stolen from me.

I cycled through thunder and lightening two days ago and it looks like there is more to come tomorrow. I´ve got a 100km route planned, so I´ll need to stock up with plenty of water to keep me cool. Gortex jackets are not good when it´s hot as well as wet. The dry river beds that I´ve been camping in to get out of the wind may be a bit more wet in the days to come, so a drop in the wind would be ideal.