Day 21: Adventures with tire explosion, a garbage pile, wild horses, and nearly homeless

I cannot leave Day 21 undescribed. "WHAT a time", Ellie and I both kept exclaiming to each other, and the next morning we concluded we were even a bit emotionally hungover from it. Oh, the unknowns and bizarre experiences of travel. When you are so vulnerable and clueless and yet still are beset upon by intensely joyful experiences in amongst the mess. 

A little picture book below shall be the best way to tell our tale. 

Leaving the pleasing city of Cerritos, into a sunrise and a rather fractious headwind. Ellie's front tire has the hiccups: an unsightly lump has appeared from a worn spot in the tread. We continue riding, hiccups and all, as no bike shops are anywhere nearby and no where near open at this hour.  We are heading to a little town, Armadillo de los Infante, in the dry mountains. Armadillo has a rating of "Magic Town", meaning that it is especially picturesque and safe. We checked on Google and confirmed there was one hotel there. Perfect. 

Buzzing along, headwind and all, and I'm cracking a joke to Ellie about her hiccupping tire. And just at that moment, BLAMMO, and the thing explodes. Terrible and amazing timing. 

Thankfully we are not far from a main highway, so we pad flatly towards it to see what sort of help we can find. We speak our woes to the lady at a little tienda, and enquire if there is a bus heading to--yes, the big big city of San Luis, as that is the only place we could hope for a tire of the right size. Yes, there is a bus, but she has something better. She calls her son, and has him show up in his big fancy truck and drive us the hour into the city.  We tried offering him money, but he wouldn't take it. The ride started sullen and quiet; obviously he was begrudgingly doing his mom a favor. But Ellie, dear outgoing fearless Ellie, with her good Spanish and weird little short-short haircut, charmed him. By the end of the ride they were chatting away all comfortably. God bless Ellie. Sñr Truck dropped us at the edge of a huge bustling market at the outskirts of the city, where there was a bike shop. 

Mr Mechanic man got us a new tire for a fraction of the cost in the states. He bubbled with friendliness and happily showed off his English. He filled our water bottles too, and we were all set. 

Just not where we had planned to be for our day's route. It was 2pm. We sat on the sidewalk in that big bustling market, applying sunscreen and resurfacing into our day. "Let's just consider this an extended lunch break" said Ellie, and we decided to head towards Armadillo town anyway, just from a different direction now. 

The next little series of events charmed us immensely, and made us oddly grateful that the circumstances had brought us there. Sometimes when something goes wrong, you have to get off your normal track to fix it, and then all sorts of new and interesting things can occur. 

A man with a taco cart attached to a bicycle rolled over and Mr Mechanic fixed his seat. Mr Taco handed him a square styrofoam plate with tacos on it, apparently as a thank you. Mr Mechanic instead carried them over and handed the plate to us. The tortillas were tender, and inside was a hunk of pork bone, but fried and toothsome and somehow the most fun and complex to eat. Not long after, Mr Taco walked over himself and handed us directly two more tacos: these contained green chilies stuffed with meat and vegetables. So good! I would never have thought to order these myself, and here they were, gifts. 

As we sat there, involved with our tacos, an old woman walked by in a flowery dress, and bent down and peered at Ellie. "Gringa? Gringa-gringa?" she said. Like, are you real? Ellie responded in Spanish, "yeah! 100%!" and the woman smiled and walked away, apparently satisfied. A few minutes later she walked back the other direction, "adios gringitas!" she said in a delighted tone, using the diminutive "-ita" ending. We smiled to ourselves and giggled at the thought of being such pleasing oddities to another human. 

A shortcut was decided upon for our ride to Armadillo. We cut off the highway, into a small town with a narrow road. The houses abutted directly to the street, such that we were going through a tunnel of sorts. No people were about in this town, but the street was lined with dogs. Growling dogs. Packs of dogs. They were displeased to see us. We Protection Roared at them and rode through this terrible dog gauntlet.

Only to find the road leading out of  Dogtown was a dirt track. We considered our options: go back through the guantlet and all those grumpy creatures with us fresh in their mean littlel memories, or forge around Dogtown on one of the many little roads google maps seemed to suggest to us.

We chose the latter. Although this option was dog-free, the "road" apparent on Google maps was certifiably the worst conditions we have taken bikes across this whole trip. The path was little more than a lack of shrubbery. Hiking boots would have been ideal to navigate it. Huge rocks and sand and clunky cobbles. We had no chance of riding, and thus plunked along on foot. For many more kilometers than should be reasonable.  There wasn't much to say, so we forged ahead in the silence of the emptiness. 

"Roadside" cacti. We were completely in the middle of nowhere. 

Finally we heard the highway, our dog-free trek over. Never have I been so happy to hear trucks driving past as in that moment. Isn't it fascinating what one can become so grateful for?

But we weren't out of the mess yet: barbed wire barricaded us from that enticing real road and a pile of garbage was our on-ramp. We pulled our bags off our bikes, passed everything over the wire, and gingerly stepped over the garbage. Some days one gets so dirty with dust and sand that a little more is no matter.  

Finally, we found ourselves in the golden hour, on a real road, headed to our destination. I was so tired by this point I was lugging and panting like a rusty wheelbarrow. 

But there were wild horses in the hills. Whole groups of them, like sweet reminders of magic and freedom. 

A final delicious descent into Armadillo, flying for kilometers, what could be a better gift for such a long-suffering day. Tears in my eyes were from both wind and enormous emotions. Wow, the views! The sunset! The horses! The cacti! 

Arriving into Armadillo, and the adventure was not yet over. The one hotel we had found on the map was closed. And the whole sweet little stone-paved village seemed to be asleep. And the sun was setting. 

Goodness gracious. 

Ellie tenaciously headed to the one tienda that had lights, and explained our situation. The sweet woman there did know of one man who took guests into his guesthouse on weekends. It was not a weekend, but he was just now driving past, and out she ran to flag him down. 

He took us in, even though he had to bustle about cleaning a room for us, as he did not normally accept guests during the weekdays. He heated us up a huge allotment of food. We showered, fed, climbed into delicious welcome beds. 

The church in the town of Armadillo. Although a magic town, apparently it is only magic on weekends, when the majority of visitors come to enjoy the quietness and quaintness. For us, it was empty and even more peaceful. How fortunate we were to be cared for, given we didn't know about the weekend-only nature of the place. 

Magic town pinks and stone roads. 

Sometimes I feel I'm walking around in a National Geographic coffee table book of photography.