Tuesday 18th March 2025 near San Lorencito to Carmago
Both had a reasonable nights sleep, in the tents, not surprising really as we where both really tired, however sometimes the altitude can upset your sleep, as we are now over 11,000 ft (3500m), you can definitely feel the lack of oxygen, when you are putting the work in. It was also very chilly, coldest we had witnessed for a while, it rained last night not hard but, the tents were very damp.

Bingo sorted out the breakfast, cold porridge and chocolate, packed all the tents and stuff up, not good putting damp tents away, but did not have time to let them air out. Hit the road just before 7, with three layers on and gloves, with a morning of climbing then a few descents, heading for a little town El Puente around 20 odd miles away, find a cafe, have a coffee and plan the next part of the day, well lets see how that worked.

The layers started to come off as the sun started to rise, climbing was not so vicious as yesterday, but still tough, just grinding through them. Then started a fairly long descent into the little town El Puente, stopped in dusty little cafe, no coffee so just a soft drink and a chocolate bar, studied the maps and decided to head for the town Camargo about 45 miles away, maybe a tough ask, but plenty of places to stay.

Headed up the valley, looking out at the ragged landscape, rolling hills most of the way, with the odd really steep bit, that makes you work, just gently moving on no rush, trying to conserve what little energy we have (not a lot at the moment), we need to eat, but not much on this road, so just munched on so dry biscuits, until we came to a little village, still no cafe, so had a soft drink and chocolate in a bus shelter, checked the maps, just over 20 miles to go, tough going. Legs feel like jelly now, trying to get them going as we move on looking for anything remotely like they will serve food, with around 5 miles to go a little shack on the side of the road, had a chalkboard outside, lets try this. Happy days managed to get a plate of pasta and cheese, Bingo had the same with the meat sauce, made us feel so much better, celebrated with a cold beer, as we only had 5ish miles to go.

Gentle rolled the bikes into Camargo, found a quaint little hostel with grape vines in the courtyard and a very welcoming host, I asked for a beer, while Bingo was sorting the bikes out, next thing I know he is leading me down all these little streets to a shop, think it was his brothers, anyway got the beers, when we got back Bingo said where have you been, just smiled and gave him a beer. Did all the washing and hung the tents up to dry, away from the guys precious courtyard

Even more trouble with my bike, need a little bit of work down on the front derailleur, the nice host showed us where the bike shop was only 5 min walk, took my poorly bike down to the shop, he took the bike said come back tomorrow, we was expecting that as it was nearly 6 in the evening.

Little bite to eat the, then bed, plan some more routes in the morning before we pick my bike up again.