The cyle ride to La Merced was okay but the last hour or two was painful. I got too hot and we went through a lot of water. When we got to La Merced we saw a rather posh looking campsite. The guy on the gate was a surly bastard and said there was no camping - despite standing right by a sign with horario de camping written on it.
He said there was no camping in La Merced (our map said otherwise) and that the next place was Salta. We were so tired so I said: "pero es lejos" (but it's far) and he shrugged and said Si. He was obviously trained at the same customer service college as the people in Cafayate, where they just ignore you so you'll go away. He went to ignoring us so we left.
La Merced turned out to be a dump with unkempt streets. An ugly place. Our map claimed La Merced has municipal camping, and these are often at the edge of town, so we headed there.
We came across a tourist information signpost by a park with an enormous 20ft Jesus statue in one corner.
There was a set of three small buildings by it and an old man sat by one. We went to talk to him and he said we could camp in the field for 30 pesos. He pointed to a spot and insisted we put our tent there. We did and cooked up.
He kept fussing over us, checking whether we were okay and kept asking about our tent in the rain. We know how crappy Argentinians' tents are, so we assured him our tent was 'muy impermeable' and showed him the sewn in bathtub base. Our tent was very waterproof and assured him we were fine.
we had a cold shower from the basic shower room. It was a swivel garden tap on the wall with a hole in the tiles where the water poured from. Basic but effective.
We went to bed just as a thunderstorm neared. It was another spectacle wth strobe-lightning, thunder all around us and it was getting nearer. It was so close, I was very glad of the 20foot Jesus statue - that would cop any lightning, not us. The wind picked up and gave our tent a really thorough shaking. We hadn't fully pegged out the tent, so Al went out (in his pants) to peg out all the guy lines. It was such a downpour so he got soaked, as did his sleeping bag liner which had got tucked into his pants. I decided to put on my merino wool pyjamas so he could have my liner.
It's just as well I did that. As Al dried himself, I noticed the floor of the tent was like a waterbed. My full length thermarest and it was afloat!
Although the base of the tent has a hydrostatic of head of 10,000m, our body weight pushing down onto the base of tent would mean water gets through eventually. We decided to pack away our sleeping bags into their waterproof bags and I sealed the netbook's waterproof bag I sealed a bit better.
We lay there, hoping the flooding would subside and drain. However, my thermarest was getting nearer the ceiling of the tent and I could not push down on the floor of the tent and find solid ground, so we decided to carefully abandon tent, trying not to let water flood over the threshold.
When we stepped out of the tent, we got quite a shock - the water was halfway up our shins. Al's headtorch stopped working, so I was the only one with any light. The storm had knocked out power locally, so even the huts were dark. The old boy lived in one of these huts, which are built on higher ground with a concrete base, so we quickly moved our stuff onto this bit of dry ground, and the water was still rising.
it was now almost to my knees and the bikes' hubs were submerged. Water was higher than the doors of the tent and to stop th tent being washed away, we opened both doors to allow the water to flow freely through it.
We now had to wake the old chap, who we'd assured of our waterproofness of tent. He unlocked one of the huts and we slept on the floor.
Miraculously, our stuff stayed dry. My panniers I had closed up and they had kept the water out very well. All our clothes, raincoats, sleeping bags, first aid box had all remained dry. It's just as well we acted when we did. That base of our tent bought us time to get all the stuff out.
The biggests disaster was our document wallet (e-ticket, travellers cheques, driving licences and vaccination certificates) got wet, so we dried them out the next day.
So, Argentinians have kept us awake every night, so the one night we're camped along, the wether steps in.
dist 76.42km
ride time 4:52:00
average 15.6kph
max 38.5kph max
starting alti 1275
trip alti 509
max alti 1328
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