Tour de San Luis: Día Cinco

Length: 17.4km ITT KOMs: n/a Sprints: n/a Weather: Blazing hot. Then it got cloudy. But seriously, when it was hot it was so hot, also even though got cloudy it was still hot. So yeah…….it was hot. Accommodations: Hotel Huarpes Rooms 128 & 132 Objectives: Sleep in, do as little as possible. Mental compression socks. Stay out of the heat. Recover. Avoid sunburn. Conceive of Manual for Speed Saints Project. San Luis Provincial Smell: Two-stroke. San Luis Provincial Sound: Reverberation. Overheard While Covering the Race Today: “Gringo!” “Alemán!”

Today’s High Point: MFS made plans with Ben King, and maybe Ted King?, to produce a Yerba Mate How To at some point this week. Manual for Speed needs to acquire a Yerba Mate kit: the wearable basket and it’s contents; the mate, a receptacle commonly referred to as a gourd, even if it isn’t an actual gourd, the bombilla (a metal straw with a filter), and the yerba, the tea-like herb itself.

Today’s Other High Point: At approximately 7:15 PM, Manual for Speed was directed to Crokante’s Panificadora Artesanal by one of the servers in the restaurant area at Vista Suites Spa & Golf. We asked if they (Vista Suites) served empanadas, preferably something in a carne or corn variety as this seemed like an excellent opportunity to avoid the HACU trap. That said, we would have very happily ordered a round of jamon y queso empanadas, just please, no more tostados. Anyway, she told us that while they did not serve empanadas, there is a bakery down the street (walking distance) that does. And do they ever. Crokante’s Panificadora Artesanal is a complete bakery, sweet and savory. Crokante’s is delicious. We ordered 12 empanadas carne, 2 cheese factura and one fruta factura. Side Note: carne empanadas come with seasoned ground beef, egg and olive. Maybe some onion mixed in with the ground beef. Second Side Note: You can tell—from the outside, which can be, in certain situations, crucial—what kind of empanada you’re dealing with based on the way it’s been crimped around the edges. If Manual for Speed had more time, it would research crimping style, crimping techniques, crimping tools, crimping competitions, etc.

Speaking of walking, today the average Manual For Speed correspondent walked 6,532 steps (2.98 miles). That’s down from this week’s high (10,339 steps) during yesterday’s Stage Four of the Tour San Luis. Our daily average this week is 8,828 steps.

Speaking of eating, with only one exception (sad! and unfortunate!), Manual for Speed has eaten dinner every night this week at Los Robles. Los Robles opens at 9:00 PM. The busiest time of night, when reservations are recommended, is 11:30 PM. Los Robles seats approximately 175 people. On Saturday night, Los Robles was at (possibly beyond) capacity. We are regulars there and we no longer require menus. Here is a typical meal;

1. Bread, breadsticks, olives and some kind of goat feta are brought to your table shortly after being seated.
2. They serve Villavicencio agua con gas, we order at least three bottles, one per person.
3. To start with we like a round of empanadas; carne and HACU. Emiliano likes to order one of several varieties of fried cheese—#quesofrito. Sometimes we also start with a radicchio and cheese salad.
4. Emilano’s main, bife de chorizo.
5. Daniel’s main, bife de chorizo.
6. Kieran’s main, bife de lomo.
7. More agua con gas.
8. A round of cortado grandes.
9. And that’s right, you guessed it, helado. Emilano’s favorite flavor, crema americana of course!

MFS Quote of the Day: “Now that’s whats I call a empanaaaaaada.”—Keiran Best.

MFS (Runner Up!) Quote of the Day: “Dude, I always get 18th at these things. I can’t stop getting 18th at Time Trials.”—Ben King. SIDE NOTE: Sorry Ben!, you kind of “broke the curse”, but you kinda didn’t! (Ben King finished 16th in the Time Trial today, putting him in 18th overall.)

What follows is an internal Manual for Speed document regarding the Magical Realism Walls in the Comechingones Mountain Range in/on which Stage 5 of the Tour of San Luis finished. The document details an argument about which contemporary artist is more relevant in regards to the true nature and meaning of the stone walls. The original document was a text exchange. It has been reproduced here without editing or reformatting.

Emiliano Granado: why did you guys change to Robert Smithson vs Andy Goldsworthy?
Kyle Von Hoetzendorff: Because Robert Smithson is known for the spiral getty and is a like the first BIG land art dude. Seemed like a better fit
Emiliano Granado: but andy did curvy wall thing
Emiliano Granado: and andy is like deeper knowledge. you know, show off a little
Kyle Von Hoetzendorff: I thought the other way around,, like andy is more pop and contemporary where as Smithson would be like you have to know dude. Goldworthy has a doc that was in netflix tops
Emiliano Granado: oh shit
Emiliano Granado: mind blowing. i thought everyone knew smithson
Emiliano Granado: apparently not. keiran doesn’t know, but she knows andy
Kevin Brown: goldsworthy def more mainstraem

IN HONOR OF THE TIME TRIAL ON AV. EVA PERON FOURTEEN NOTABLE FACTS BY KLAUS ABOUT EVA PERON

1. Avenida Eva Peron in San Luis was innaugarated on Friday, September 27, 2013. It cuts through the entire city, crossing twelve neighorhoods for a total length of 13.9 kilometers.
2. The innaguration ceremony was attended by the city council, Alfredo Lucero (winner of the 2009 Vuelta de San Luis), the boxer Marcos “El Flaco” Aumada, and featured a performance by the band Cumbia Cool.
3. The avenue is named after Eva Peron, the second wife of Argentine president Juan Peron (1895-1974), she was also the Minister of Labor and Social Welfare, head of the Argentine Ministry of Health and president of the Female Peronist Party. She bleached her hair for almost her entire adult life.
4. Eva Peron was the descendant of Basque immigrants, and she moved to Buenos Aires at the age of 15 to pursue a career in radio and film.
5. She likely used a forged birth certificate when she was married to Juan Peron, to appear older (26 instead of 22).
6. Evita often kissed the poor and the ill, also allowing them to kiss her, including the syphilitic.
7. She was the first Argentine to ever undergo chemotherapy.
8. It’s now believed that in the last months of her life, Evita Peron was given a prefrontal lobotomy.
9. Upon death, her body was embalmed. The procedure was performed by Dr. Pedro Ara, whose work is often referred to as “the art of death”, on account of how well the body was preserved (mostly by replacing the corpse’s blood with glycerine).
10. Her body was on display for two years while a monument for it was being built. Before the monument could be completed Juan Peron was ousted by a military coup. He fled, but was unable to make similar arrangements for Evita’s body. The body’s whereabouts were unknown for sixteen years. It was later revealed that her body was buried in Milan, and had suffered a great deal of damage during the move. Damage included “disfigurement to the feet as a result of being left in the upright position, and compressions to the face”.
11. In 1971 her body was exhumed and flown to Spain, where Juan Peron and his fourth wife kept it in their dinning room on a platform near the dinning table. It was eventually moved and buried again in 1974, this time in La Recoleta Cemetary in Buenos Aires. Great precautions were taken to ensure the body is not stolen again, including a trap door and decoy caskets behind which the actual body lies.
12. A musical about her life was written in 1976, with a film based on the production being planned as early as 1978. It was eventually made after a twenty-year production delay, and starred Madonna in the titular role.
13. The role required 39 hats, 45 pairs of shoes, and 56 pairs of earrings.
14. Patrick Swayze was originally set to play the role of Che Guevara in the movie.

Tour de San Luis: Etapa 5