We started the day with another nice breakfast with a view of the surrounding mountains and some unique and interesting art displayed in the hotel. Then I went shopping for our next camping stop. This time I was asked to provide my passport number when paying with credit card and of course I did not have the passport with me or remember my number – had to leave the groceries behind and get the passport number.

We decided to go East. It was a very long day riding (349km) through arid Steppe like valleys and our first encounter of Rhea birds and Guanacos. We also saw at least one condor soaring above. We stopped at a museum and toilet (2000 pesos) at Los Tamariscos where I placed our second sticker of the trip 👍😉We made it to the outskirts of Facundo to the campground, a little oasis on a flowing river. The lady who you had to pay the camping fee to, only spoke Spanish and we had trouble working out what she was asking but with our little Latin American phrase book we eventually got there- we only paid and stayed for one night. My eSIM worked but Andrew’s did not really. We ended up having the entire campground to ourselves and went for a late evening swim in the river which was very refreshing after the long hot ride. Sections of the Ruta 40 were very deteriorated and we had to dodge potholes for a total of 40kms. We enjoyed a pasta dinner cooked on our gas camp cooker and admired the Milky Way right above us before falling asleep to the sound of the sheep in the nearby paddock. No 5 star hotel beats a night in the tent under a million stars.