Today was a down day in Jardín America. Went around town and got some needed supplies (beer) amongst other things.

The local supermarket provided us with the fixings for a few good meals and the swimming pool did right for cooling us down.

Some bike maintenance, cleaning road grime off the chain, etc.

Took a nap, and just relaxed.

Day 10: we’re traveling 3 days on and one off for now. The afternoon temps are very high, today reaching 41°C on the road. There’s no shade on the roads at this point so we try to leave early. Today we left at 0630 and made real good time until we got to San Ignacio where we relaxed for a bit in the shade and visited the largest restored Jesuit Mission – similar to the California Missions. Same story, the church basically enslaved the indigenous peoples and took their resources and shipped them off to Spain. Power grabs never change. We’re seeing it in the Middle East today.

By the time we were done at the mission, the temps had creeped up another 4° to 38°C. We only had about 16km to go to Santa Ana, but with the hills and the heat, it always takes longer than expected. We arrived sometime after noon-30 and split a watermelon, some rice and 8 hard boiled eggs between the two of us.

We were stopped several times on the road by people wanting a picture of Rocko (not us) as he is famous in the area on social media for being the Dog who travels by bicycle. We are now just hanging out in the air conditioned gas station waiting for a possible call from someone who is looking for a place for us to stay here in Santa Ana – after she got her picture with Rocko.

[UPDATE] Rocko just got us a place to shower and sleep for the night. WooT!!!

We have two more days of the heat and the hills, then we will just have to contend with the heat. We expect our distance to jump to 80-100km daily pretty soon. We have a couple of more places to stop with friends of Guille, and then we’re planning on going to Uruguay probably in two weeks – and a ferry to Buenos Aires – to mix it up a bit.