at least the cops are on our side...

We are currently rocking out in Puerto Natales. We have just glided over 250 km of beautiful pavement since our last stop in Puenta Arenas. I suppose glided isn´t quite the right term as the winds were steady and strong for nearly the whole time, prompting us to take a rest day by the side of the road under the wind monument pictured below as winds climbed to a reported 90 km hr. Nevertheless we made the best of things by making a few prickly pear, pesco martinis, a drink traditionally served in a leaky canteen at room temperature. It is a cocktail famous for its availability when all you have is a flask of pesco and some prickly pear drink mix.
After such refreshing energy drinks we were more than ready to brave the winds and get our bottoms here. We knew things were really awesine when even the downhills felt like steep uphills, we were Sisyphus rolling our bikes up the hill, but I guess Sisyphus never got to gorge himself on empinadas at the end of the day.
15 km out of town we stopped at a border crossing where the head of police there, Miguel, chatted us up while we sat on his lawn and rested our legs. He told us that a decade ago it was much less windy and it never rained here, only snowed. They used to give the police long sleeve uniforms, but a couple of years ago they switched over to short sleeves. He blamed it on some crazy liberal theory called ´global warming´,but that seemed really unlikely to all of us. Incidentally he also invited us to stay at his house. We slept in his very nice shed last night, with a puma Miguel had shot hanging on the wall. Their family cat slept on the end of my sleeping bag and Matt and Thea talked up his garolous and kind wife. Its good the cops on our side, because the wind certainly isn
´t.

Hasta luego,

the cp crew