Ventisquero Perito Moreno

I visited the glacier. Sure, put a check mark next to that great destination for me. But, here´s the experience: I pedaled the eighty kilometers from El Calafate, a route that many cyclists prefer to rent a car for, or hop in a bus, because you go out and back on the same route. I, being stubborn, battled the fiercest winds I have ever encountered in order to enter the park at night, traveling in near silence under a full moon. It was spectacular. There was a trickle of rain as I entered the park, and so I wrapped my gear in the scraps of a torn poncho I got from the hostel in El Chalten. It was strangely warm, so I slept outside by one of the many streams without pitching a tent. I had to work very hard for the experience, but I arrived at the glacier near 8am, and was in the company of only a few other spectators.
The wind was really something. I never knew winds like this could ever exist, but with the adoption of a certain inward stare and indifference to the world around I managed to stay on my bicycle and keep crawling along until the road turned south. At one point, I walked. Yep, maybe the first time since Bariloche, I walked, because I could not handle the work to progress ratio, and I had come more than 100km already that day. I was beat, and so I walked.
As well as the strength of the wind, the sound is really unbearable. I say it as if I have faced it for days on end, but even for only a few hours, having to constantly hear the roar of passing wind is quite disruptive to the experience. Other than the wind, the land hardly speaks. I read it in a book somewhere, that traveling Argentine Patagonia is like chasing the horizon. It is flat and large. The horizon always seems to be uphill from where I am also. At times, people like me just have to see for ourselves, disregarding the conveyances of other people. Maybe it will be different for me, I think...
On the route back to town, where I´ve stayed two nights, I noticed that the roadway is littered with carcasses. Cows, sheep, birds, hedgehogs, maybe a guanaco, rabbits, a fox, all sorts of things. I found two more cow horns but threw them back. I have to carry everything, and they didn´t hold the same weight as the one that I, fortunately, still have with me.
Today I am heading south east, on a paved road towards Esperanza and then Rio Gallegos, a big industrial town from where I will hop on a bus and head a long way north. Change of plans, and maybe they will change again, but I am thinking I will take the bus all the way to Puerto Madryn, rather than cycle the route. I feeling a bit tired of this, wanting rather to be among friends, or making friends. And also, with the change of gear, I have to ride with a backpack on my back, and it´s not very comfortable. So, I´ll probobly get on a bus. Ciao.