Villa La Angostura

There will be pictures of this place another day, but first I have to write about what we did today.

Ok. The reason we came to this town was to do this "charming" bike ride down the peninsula to this forest of trees which are supposed to be really rare and grow out at the tip of this little isthmus. Well, in the book it says to rent bikes, get to the park, then just start riding. The first part of the trail will be steep uphill where you will have to walk your bike, followed by a steep downhill where you will also have to walk your bike, but then the rest is a pleasant ride through a beautiful area, or some such nonsense. The truth is, it is a hellish climb then a plummet, followed by more of the the same over and over til the end. And the whole time, you are pushing, being pushed by, or carrying your bike up and down cliffs, steps or slopes. Then there are tree roots coming up everywhere so you are bumping along then all of a sudden have to dodge a log or a foot-high root that appears out of nowhere. It was dusty, and there were tons of people biking and walking so that not only was I dying, but I had to keep passing people, then letting them pass, then passing them again... And there are NO pictures of me, because if there were they would be of me sweating from every pore on my body, swearing at the bike, the town, the trail, the book and the world, or crying. I literally cried. Twice. Once on the way to the forest, then again on the way back. Did I mention it was 13 kilometers each way, 26 in all and only about 2 of those were actually flat? Oh I thought I was going to die. My wrists are to the point where I can't hold a pen due to my death-grip on the brake to keep me from flying down the trails and into some unsuspecting pedestrian, my knees are wobbly, my shoulders ache, and we missed our bus, so now we are here til 8:45 and won't get into the next town til 11, where we have a reservation in a place but we don't have the address, so we have no idea where we are going. And if you ask Levi, he will tell you this was the best day of the whole trip so far (except for the crying parts)!