And after a one week deviation in Montreal to visit a friend living there and discover the zone, I came back in mid-july to BsAs to sell all my remaining stuffs - a really liberating moment I have to say, "What you own ends up owning you !" as would say Mr Durden - and prepare my departure.
Being foreseen to give back my flat's keys on monday 31st of august, this were six intensive weeks managing in parallel motorbike & baggages preparation, stuffs & furniture selling, last nights with locals, and flat restitution.
It didn't went out that bad with the bike fairly well prepared and the flat returned in time and in a correct state. The baggage selection on the contrary, as I found out at departure, asked for a bit more work...
Once given back the flat's keys, I knew in the very first meters riding, in the tight turning back and garage's climbing way out, that I would have to stay one day more in the zone for a second baggage lightening session more serious than half a wears bag !
Back to Carlos & Lucas's workshop, that once more saved my ass hosting me in the first floor of their garage, on the rio Luján's banks. I passed there all remaining day and early night selecting what seemed the more superfluous and re-working remaining luggage's distribution, striving to move downward the weight and thus the center of gravity...
What was kicked out, in disorder : a little dizain of books (yes, I know !), the 3/4th of maintenance products (cooling liquid / brake liquid / demineralized water for the battery & needle to fill it / fork oil / liquid chain spray to cover tyres in case of snow / oil filter & air filter picked up then in Córdoba), the scuba-diving kit (mask / diving handy computer / diving notes / nitrogen calculator) that I hoped I could use 2-3 times along the journey, some duplicated products (mosquito repellent & sun cream), 2 elastic straps, 1 accumulator's charger, the 2 bags of the Pacsafe steel nets for watertight bags, the handling straps of those bags, and a computer's bag. As an eye's evaluation, about a dizain kilos saved !
And after a good night resting on the office's sofa at the first floor, I've been waken up around 7h in the morning by strong wind and lapping noises at ground floor : "la sudestada is in the house" ! Effectively, this wind was coming from the south-east and was beginning to make the rio overflow at the point of covering yet half of the workshop's floor - highly exposed for being just next to the bank - at the moment I went down to check its progress... I moved the bike toward the workshop's output and carried up the baggages in the stairs, but water had already reached the street and it was too late to really get out without wading in a few dizains centimeters !
I had to wait for a few hours before water level decreases enough to load the bike for a test ride, to validate the brand new luggage's selection. Fortunately this test went out well, and I was able to close the last pre-departure obligations (WiFi box returning to local IAP & dropping of some excess money to my bank account) and eat a snack before to go and hit the road. TV was diffusing weather alerts and other flooding notices in the whole region, but there was no way to delay anymore departure !
After the good-byes to Carlos & Lucas (I would see Carlos again in Córdoba the 18th of september) and to some of their friends present, I could finally cast off around noon, heading to Gualeguaychú at the border between Argentina and Uruguay. A short 200kms route to start softly, but it's finally in average quite close to the distance I'll be covering then by riding day.
As you can imagine, despite the clearly reduced manoeuvrability and the cautious required not to fall flat at the very beginning of the trip, I rode the first tenths of kilometers with a fu***** banana in the helmet ! :)
Leaving from Tigre toward Zárate, my route started by the one I was taking since one year to go to work (before this I was living a bit more south), and it's with an enjoyed pleasure that I rode it one last time on the road-trip version's bike, passing in front of the Benavídez's ground station to go on for once further north by the Escobar's branch of ruta 9 - Alias "Panamericana", this same road that would later take me out of Argentina and enter Bolivia at La Quiaca & Villazón's border.
I didn't have any issue with floods and not even rain on this stretch, but a strong lateral wind and a felt temperature of 3˚C accompanied me until arrival in Gualeguaychú on late afternoon. No great surprise for a departure on the end of winter... Only a small backache hardly managed to slightly reduce my pleasure on this first day ride, due to the multiple heavy baggage's manipulations done these last days.
I didn't have yet the reflex to use the GPS while arriving in a new town and hadn't taken any reservation for sleeping, just for the pleasure to play it "jazz", but after a few random turns I quickly found downtown zone and a hotel with parking, of quite good standard I have to say, although at a fairly high price (500 AR$) that then motivated me to check the day before on internet the various options available.
This parking's entry has actually been the place of the journey's first flat fall (and until now the last, at least with me on the bike) : having stopped in front of the hotel after having seen this entry, I let the bike parked a few meters farther the time to check availability & prices. While trying then to turn back tight to enter the bike, I get surprised by the its weight at low velocity and couldn't retain it from falling when it started to... For my part I just stayed straight on my feet and the bike didn't suffer any damage thanks to the installed protections, but the receptionist and two other compassionate bystander's help was necessary to get it back up on its wheels !
I recovered from this first day tasting a "boga a la parrilla" (barbecue's cooked) in a restaurant on the "costanera" (street running along the river's banks) in absence of the famous "surubí" I was hoping to finally taste but wasn't available that day, and discovered with pleasure while opening my K2R the messages left 9 years earlier by the marmaillons... The first notes taken on its empty pages was preparing the opening of the blog, and Uruguay was awaiting me on the other bank !
On next day, after having filled my 4 jerrikans of argentinian's petrol in prevision of the price increase on the other side and taken a breakfast in terrasse consecrating my unrestrained tourist's status, I was entering easily in Uruguay as an argentinian's resident, forgetting about the passport's record stamp, heading to Colonia del Sacramento. A quiet 250kms route accompanied by a more clement weather, passing through Dolores, Nueva Palmira, & Carmelo.
I couldn't say if it still was the departure euphoria, but I immediately appreciated Uruguay and found its countryside quite nice on this portion, with slightly undulating roads in good state. I even had a good contact with traffic agents that noticed me a velocity excess by a simple warning and a fine conditioned to a next excess. I liked the way they treated the event - with professionalism and good mood - and then adapted my pace with a frank goodwill, from those inspired by mutual respect (and thus didn't have to pay the reprieved fine). Globally, I found uruguayans friendly and interesting, and appreciated some details like the locally bottled water preference, one sign among others of a population striving to get better future.
Having arrived at sunset (20h) in Colonia, I stayed next day to visit its historic center and enjoy this relaxed mood of low-season touristic places. Fortunately I got the lesson from previous night and found on booking.com a nice hostel with more reasonable price (35 US$/n).
The "chivitos" (ultra-proteinate meals served in sandwich or at the plate including apart from the classic vegetable's set and cheese a slice of beef "lomito" + a slice of ham + an egg) from the friendly Jorge (little stand on Avenida Flores, some interesting conversations on "Pepe" Mujica among others) and from the restaurant El Torrón satisfied my passing hungers and gave me the occasion to fill some more K2R pages.
The route from Colonia to Montevideo and this capital itself didn't seemed to me of great interest (historic center even quite disappointing), but I warmly recommend a restaurant named "Ruffino" (at the corner of San Jose & Héctor Gutiérrez Ruiz, just down the hotel where I stayed for the night) where I savoured a brilliant mango-passion fruit's catalan cream.
As you might have noticed, this journey's beginning was a pure restaurant's festival, and this will last a bit more before departure's euphoria and cooking laziness began to be temperated by my estimated budget explosion... :P
The one from Montevideo to Punta del Este on the contrary made me follow really nice beaches, making me multiplying stops to enjoy the sun that came warming this end of winter. I specially appreciated the ultra-thin sand and the tranquility in Piriápolis, and despite Punta del Este wasn't as good as I was told (kind of low-season Côte d'Azur actually), it's with a side smile that I went hanging around it at night and breakfast.
A detail nevertheless was regularly annoying me since beginning of the journey : the baggage's distribution that I never stopped re-working to optimize accessibility to most used items, and moreover the fact to be taking off the bike each evening the two watertight bags to reinstall it the next morning... A problem solved this day by relocating all wears from the trekking bag to the watertight bag containing it, allowing me to let this trek bag on top of the two others while riding with only rain & cold protection wears inside, and to use it at night to carry in one single shot all the daily essentials stored in the top-case : bath's necessary / shoes for night walks / computer's bag (containing MacBook + external hard disk + K2R) & cables (alims MacBook / phone / GoPro) / coffee-mate & snacks of soup/bread/cheese/dry-meat / thermos & flask).
After a new pleasant route despite the backache persisting since departure, and the discovery of a gargantuan brazilian sandwich named "Bauru" near La Paloma, the next stop was the small village of Aguas Dulces, close to Cabo Polonio where I had planned to go on next day. The place was unfortunately and desperately faded off this night, more than I expected for a low-season sunday, but the nice hostel where I stayed also received a group of three friendly brazilian girls with whom we hit it off (in "portuñol") and took date in their residence towns opportunely on my on-going route : Alice from Rio Grande and Camila & Karina from Pelotas. Prazer chicas :)
And this is clearly of second plan comparing to the pleasure to meet nice people, but what a pleasure also to have now one unique bag to get off the bike to the daily housing !
The natural reserve of Cabo Polonio, located a few kilometers south from Aguas Dulces, was originally a fishermen's village now more oriented toward tourism. No vehicle is authorized to enter it, and actually very few would be able to due to the sandy hills you have to go through for some kilometers to reach it... It's by special truck shuttle that tourists are brought from the terminal where they left their own vehicle. After having gathered in my providential "put-it-all" trek bag the stuffs for a day over there, I thus also got on one of these trucks for a nice half-an-hour tour through "medanos" until the beach followed for a few kilometers more before reaching the village. And clearly, there was no way I could come on my own with the bike, without even talking of the fully luggage-loaded version !
The arrival on site doesn't let place for any doubt : here it's "roots" ! :D
Many constructions are done with second-hand materials, most of them being topped by little solar panels and/or modest wind-turbines - the rest being powered with generator sets, tiny vegetable gardens & wild vegetation round colored small houses with no property delimitation, animals hanging around freely (horses / pigs / sheep / hens), and the mood here is clearly to live relaxed. :) And this quietness... No a single motor's noise, just the lapping of waves on the beach. A radical change compared to BsAs and its homemade exhausts !
After having dropped my stuffs at the Viejo Lobo hostel, I went out to discover the surroundings and actually first to have a bite on the seaside : a "gatuzo a la plancha", cradled by the in-and-out lapping of the waves at the terrasse's foot... A brilliant relaxation break !
The digestive walk was a pure pleasure also, between verdant hills and rocky beaches, hanging around at the 1880's lighthouse foot (access closed at the moment I came) and observing a sea-wolves's colony in its endless game of "Get out of here, I'm gonna squat your spot while it's still warmy !". Right or wrong, I recognized here a social behavior surprisingly similar to human's one, the tougher coming to impose its rights and letting the ejected one strive to relocate himself back to any acceptable spot by ejecting a weaker, until next expulsion... :P
Back to the hostel, I met my three friendly cohabitants of the day : Risa, a canadian traveling young woman, and Dimitri & Eleonora, respectively greek and italian, both taking some holidays after a six weeks activity in Montevideo on a project for the ONG Rights4water. Night passed fast with interesting discussions about each one's histories and the project on which Dimitri & Eleonora worked, international actuality, Syriza's adventure, and the hostel's owner (Vicky) told us a bit about the reserve : approximately 300 housings constructed and prohibition to build more (and to camp), the population's change from the 20-60 year-long inhabitants to the 2.500 tourists at high-season (a chance I came in low one !), and how locals manage to deal with the absence of water and electricity nets connexions. After a moonless walk on the beach playing with the phosphorescent plankton that enlightened below our steps (hydric stress due to water expulsion below our weight), we kept on chatting candlelit until mid of the night.
The K2R notes session on the beach at early morning was also just magic, quiet as it hadn't been since long, with only a few fishermen working at some maintenance on their out of the sea boats...
And icing of the cake, breakfast was brought in by a local inhabitant, Lucio, that was going from house to house proposing the nice-smelling breads & cakes prepared by him and its woman Edith. Not only did he delighted my taste buds, but he also then invited me to share a mate and know each other a bit at their home... Thanks to you Lucio & Edith for such a good vibe ! :)
With no hesitation, I recommend this little piece of heaven as one of the best spots of Uruguay so far, not to miss if coming in the zone !
Back to the terminal in mid-afternoon, and knowing that the route to Rio Grande - Brazil - would be of an appreciable distance for my relaxed rhythm, I settled on getting closer to the border with a last uruguayan night in Punta del Diablo, a tiny route of about 60kms.
Arrived on site just before sunset, I enjoyed a cazón (little shark) at the barbecue and installed in the superb "hostel de la viuda" where I met Christin, a friendly german girl hitting the road in the area. To end up this pleasant night softly, I took advantage of the local low light-contamination to stick marveling at the depth of the Milky Way from the mirador of the hostel, kind of woody homemade 2-floors tower next to the main building... Just magic !
On-coming program for the next day : Brazil ! :)
