3-29-10 Cholo Malas, Argentina

So I'm in some little hostel in the town of Cholomatas or chotomalas, someting like that. I don't really know. We're in a bit of a predicament at the moment. 'No hay nafta'! Nafta es gasolina aqui en Argentina. So yeah, there is no gas at either station here in town and we are low on fuel. The next station a few hours south is dry as well. So here we wait on the truck to arrive. It *might* arrive tonight. Then again, it might not. This is kinda fun though, as it forces us to take a break that we usually wouldn't and see different stuff, even if it's just a typical small town in Argentina. No tourists here.
So yesterday we got a terribly late start, don't wake up till 10 am. I guess it's due to the time change but even still, we go to sleep at midnight and expect to wake up at 8 but we just don't. We walked about a mile in search of breakfast which was hard as the few restaurants that we found didn't serve 'desayuno' which seems to be par for down here. Breakfast is bread and coffee or mate, not enough to keep our American hearts a-pumpin.

We got out of town circa 1pm and rode for a while through a volcanic flow area, tons of black lumpy rock por todos lados and a huge river as that we crossed frequently. The road was dirt and rough and gravelly at times.

We were having some trouble with this gravel and I was getting tired of it surprising me and getting me all 'puckered up' which is kinda fun, but not always appreciated. I decided that I would learn how to beat the gravel and made a point to ride directly into the deep stuff, zig-zagging back and forth, mocking it. Yes, I faultered some an almost crashed a few times, but I learned quick too. Not a master of it yet but no longer a novice.

Riding dirt is rather counterintuitive to riding street. Let me explain...when riding a motorcycle, if you want to go to the left, turn the bars to the right. This then makes the bike lean to the left, and thus turn to the left, it's called 'countersteering'. It's the very same on a bicycle. At low speed, however, say 0-2 mph you can steer directly, meaning steer left, go left without leaning. So the problem with dirt is when you hit deep gravel or sand that turns your front tire into a rudder and pushes the bike wherever it wants essentially. The only remedy to fix this is to accelerate out of it and steer directly where you want to go. Steering directly on pavement would make you flip over on your side, but being that we're in gravel, the bike kinda slides around underneath and thankfully does not flip.  Countersteering causes the bike to 'lowside' or slide sideways, resulting in a crash. It's an unnerving feeling when hitting this gravel, though, as my initial instinct tells me to slow down and steer normal, but in reality, I should speed up and steer abnormally, or directly.