It smells like horse when we open the tent this morning. After a little more than 30km we arrive at Las Lajas, a small red brick village from where we can restore our food supplies. Once we're done, we find the good old road 40. It goes off into a desert landscape where only low shrubs and other tufts of dry golden grass survive. We cross small canyons dug by water in another season. The Neuquen River and its tributaries are a few hundred meters to our right, the only oasis of greenery around.
Our goal of the afternoon is to reach a rio that the road 40 crosses in order to find water for the night and the next day. We meet a German couple cycling from the north, who are not very optimistic about the presence of water in the river, nor about the road they find monotonous to Chos Malal, 120km ahead. After this "revigorating" conversation we start pedaling again, not very reassured.
A few tens of kilometers later, we're almost running out of water. It must be said that, under a cloudless sun at 40°C and without shade, we drink a lot. Luckily, a tree-lined house looms on the horizon by the road. Two very nice men fill our bottles with water from the stream next to the house they had boiled beforehand. We are now convinced that we can reach the rio.
At the end of the day, we reach the long-awaited rio. In this season it's nothing more than a small stream in the middle of a large riverbed. The water is really not clear, not very welcoming. We install the water filter that will filter all night. Flat and gray flies and other midges assail us. The flies sting both of us but Floriane doesn't react well to the bites that swell and itches to hurt. Floriane takes an allergy medicine to prevent the bites from getting worse. We'll install the second tent layer only after the sun hide itself behind the hills, for the moment it's too hot.
