After learning many things about equipment and our bike, last week was our second opportunity to spent a couple of days in Buenos Aires. We planned to top up supplies and arrange things. We learned again something about our way of travelling: Many things take more time than expected in the beginning.
It starts with the search for acommodation. As we knew that we would arrive with a ferry from Colonia (Uruguay) we booked something in advance. After arrival at the place, people were surprised about the fact that we had booked a room, and even more about the previously advertised price. After some delay, a room was found, however the price remained only valid for one night.
Puerto Madero - Old harbor buildings became hip neighbourhood
Therefore we spent the next day searching for a new place to stay. Already the first place on our search was a cool hostel, hence we choose that as our new temporary home. Let’s start our shopping tour now. After some city cycling, we arrived at a shop: “Closed today, public holiday.” The same on the next, and many others. Now we understood why it was so quiet in the whole town…
Roof top breakfast
Some days later, we had a way more succesful shopping experience at time we did not plan it. On our way to do some sightseeing we found most things we wanted, e.g. red lentils, tent nails, peanut butter… Suddenly, the right shops just appeared in front of us.
Planning the exit of the citt also took tome. We wanted to skip a first part, avoiding unknown suburbs and the many traffic lights. Undortunately, all bus companies told us to pack our bikes, and the long distance trains only ran on fridays.
Lunchbreak on the road
Eventually, we took an urban train for a short distance to Alejandro Korn. A brandnew train, that even had a proper bicycle compartment! We than cycled to Cañuelas. Originally, our plan was a different city, but the Ruta Provincial shown on our map was an un-bikable mud road on that rainy day.
At our arrival in Cañuelas, we got stopped by a car, driver waving: “Una pregunta, una pregunta!”. Also im the car were 2 hitchhikers, like us looking for a place to stay. We actually had now idea where to go eother. Luckily, the hitchhilers driver knew friends in the city, so we found rhe nice small hotel “5 hermanos”.
While it is nice to slleep in ahotel, there is one obstacle: The key. Very quickly, we lost it in our 8 square meter room filled with two people and 10 cycling bags and wet rain gear. We had to start a search: Empty the beds, than put everything on the beds to be able to see the floor. No key, nothing. Again. The only possibility was that the key dropped in one of the (open) bags, at least that was ourthought. 2.5 hours later we had repacked everything - still no ket. We went to sleep with a very bad mood.
After a refreshing night, the key simply dropped from a sleeve of one of our rain jackets. A good morning! We continued our trip to San Miguel del Monte. Instead of a short way, we took the more quiet, but longer route passing Lobos. After only two days of cycling, we decided for a new day of rest in San Migel: Nice campsite, and celebration of the first 1000 km.
