We had not covered our bikes because of the strong wind even in the courtyard where the bikes were parked. In the early morning hours we woke to rain which was not in the forecast. The wind was still incredibly strong and after the rain stopped it was cloudy and we decided to head to the water front and wait until lunch when the wind was supposed to reduce slightly. There was a plaza de immigration commemorating immigrants from many countries. We left shortly after midday with the wind still very strong and riding was difficult to say the least. I had a complete melt down not knowing how to manhandle the bike against the string cross wind as I tried to lean it and steer it into the wind which was exhausting and I could not have done that for the entire way. Andrew showed me how to keep the bike upright but lean the body into the wind sitting way off the bike on the windy side and that worked a lot better and required less strengths. We had put extra layers on after the very cold previous evening but it warmed up quickly and temperature rose to 26 degrees. There are very few spots to stop anywhere along the road and the shoulder is very lose and deep sand or gravel and cambered making it hard to pull off the road – we eventually found a nice spot on Isla Pavon overlooking Rio Santa Cruz only 24 km before Puerti Santa Cruz where we stopped for a snack and took our rain jackets off.

We rode into town in the afternoon- all towns have nice monuments and the town name displayed in large colourful letters. We fuelled up and have a video of the fuelling – each station had attendants who do the filling for you and most places you pay at the pump with credit card. This one I had to go inside to pay by card. We also realised that Argentina’s petrol has 12% ethanol added to all fuel – we are filling up with 95. We arrived by 4pm at the very nice hotel and after being shown everything, we were offered to use the laundry to wash and dry our clothes. We walked into town to a small supermercado and stocked up on a few items before heading back to the hotel for dinner. Andrew ate his first Schnitzel and I had grilled sea bass which was amazingly tender and nice. The staff had put our washing in the dryer for us and after dinner when we went to get it they had already folded it all for us – we seem to be the only guests here.