Los Toldes-Patagonia national park to Las Antiguos

January 11, 2026

Last night's dinner was great with two starters before a main coarse of roast chicken garnished with veg followed by desert, sitting with the hotel guests altogether along a long table so you get to chat to your neighbour. Mine a Dutchman and his German wife living in Southern Sweden on a short post Christmas break. My other neighbour sat at the table end-a Swissman asks the typical question: How many kilometres do I cycle a day? I answer 100 to a look of awe. But this figure overlooks the fact that I don't stop the moment I clock one hundred K, because I could still be nowhere. In essence its an average distance ruled by how far to a place to camp or to the next village.

Slept well and notice by progressing north that the sun rises significantly later leading to later waking up, but manage to get away at 07 with 4 kms of gravel road to reach the 40.

After a long climb up over a saddle followed by a sweeping descent into and across a hollow, climbing steeply back up the other side to pass through a range of hills, the road settles into gentle undulations on the way to Perito Moreno with the huge Lago Buenos Aires messeta to the left where streams emerge greening up large tracts of desert. I pass the first of two estancias on one green area set against the lower hills of the messeta in a block of tall popular trees called Estancia Las Palmas. About 10 kms further I pass Estancia Telken. In 2004 I camped on the lawn in front of the house. It was listed in the Lonely Planet guide. The couple who were getting on in years providing evening meals, bed and breakfast. Their son Harry ran excursions to Las Cuevas de Los Manos. That evening at dinner he got up to take a phone call on a landline from a tourist who'd arrived in the bus station in Perito Moreno asking him to go and collect them, a nighttime round trip of 70 kms on a gravel road.

From Telken its another 35 kilometre to town and the wind is beginning to be felt as the road swings more to the west.

Eventually the road descends to Perito Moreno

Perito Moreno, which I passed through on the way south in November, marks the end of the 40 for me as I turn west for Chile. But first I have an early lunch at the YPF service station: a milsnese sandwich with eggs and chips, followed by coffee and bottle of Sprite. A few days ago what I would've did for the likes of this, now suddenly famine to feast.

Oldest commercial building in town from 1914: Hotel Lago Buenos Aires until 1948, when it became a police station until 1980

Found this some kind of frog in my solar charger.

The sun was out and it was hot when I come out of the cafeteria, so I strap the solar panel upon the rucksack on the rear-rack, but soon after setting out the sky turns dishwater grey and its cold. And I've joined route 43 with horrendous Summer-holiday drivers in a mad rush to Los Antiguas. I'm in a constant state of fear because of the many close passung cars that mightn't make it between oncoming traffic and me. Suddenly I'll feel an incredible sharp pain of impact before going unconcious, dying, waking up sometime after paralized for life, or best: long recovery but both physically and psychologically damaged for life. And some drivers wonder why enmity exists between them and cyclists.

Shrine inside shed was appreciated for break sheltered from the wind

I stopped for a mate drinking break mid-afternoon inside a Catholic shrine and while there the wind got stronger so that when riding on, it was a hard struggle into headwind. The road which had ran level with Lago Buenos Aires earlier now was well inland undulating up a seemingly endless succession of rises; each summit revealing yet another long dip and rise ahead but still no sign of the village. I also ride on the gravel shoulder as I didn't trust the traffic.

I wish they would all give 1.5 m when passing

See another touring cyclist coming the other way. Wave and signal for them to crossover as speaking to a likeminded human will be good for my mental health. An awful lot of yellow and orange in the bike and bags. A tall man I'm guesting by accent from Washington or BC on a mustard yellow Salsa Timberjack, which I have one of at home, but in a more subtle blue. He said he really loved the bike and was escaping Chile because the forecast is for snow; planning to take a bus to Ushuaia, for a place on a cruise-ship to Antartica.

I eventually arrive in Los Antiguas at 19 hrs, passing the municipal campsite as it seemed a bit noisy and arrive at a private campsite a bit further on where the people were quiet.

This Sunday evening I've completed 720 kms since leaving Chalten Monday morning, so its an average of a hundred kms a day. Different days, different distances and a day off.

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