Thursday 20th February 2025 Santa Maria to Júlio De Castilhos
Actually Santa Maria is quite a nice city, if you stay in the right part, lesson learnt don’t always go for the cheapest hotel, they may be not what they seem!

After a lovely meal and few beers, helped to relax and take in the ambiance of this quaint city of Germanic descent, obviously why the beer was good. That good we decided to cut short tomorrows ride and just do a little 40 mile ride to ease these tired bodies, it was nothing to do with too many beers, honestly.

Living the life of luxury, no porridge in the morning had breakfast in the hotel, nice start to the day, just a 40 mile ride into the little town of Júlio de Castilhos. Just needed to navigate out of the City and on to the infamous route 158, all good Bingo guided us expertly through the busy streets, me just following did not have a clue were I was, finally on the dreaded 158. With a 6 mile climb, first climb we had had for a while, so made a pleasant change, just get in the correct gear and pedal, what could be easier. Still a dodgy road though, with trucks edging past you only going a few mph faster that we are, most of them were pretty good to be honest, as always a few bad apples. The climb definitely got the lungs cleared as we edged our way up the tree lined climb, was nice as it was mostly in the shade. First 15 or so miles was all climbing, then hit a plateau, stopped in the shade, got a big bottle of soft drink and an Ice-cream and had 15 minutes in the shade.

Pushed on the road actually got better, with a nice hard shoulder to ride on, in no time at all we was on the outskirts of the small town, had another buffet lunch, with lots of pasta, nice meal, washed down with a cold one, well it was just passed midday and only had a few miles to go, nice stop.

Rolled onto the digs, right on the side of the road, both a bit weary now, but it was a proper hotel, all sorted in no time at all, time to do all the washing and hang the tents out to air them off. We did look like a couple of gypsies, but have to keep your gear good.