Fiesta! Zapala to Mendoza

Continuing our journey, ever North, on the infamous Ruta 40, which stretches some 5000 kilometres from tip to tail of Argentina, we rack up some serious distances and finally get some maps for the road ahead!

The beard's are coming along nicely, but to be honest, they're each living on borrowed time. While they provide a low maintenance and permanent sunscreen, we're simply losing too much food in them and are at risk of starvation as a result. The only reason they're still adorning our ugly mugs is that we haven't found a barber who looks like he can handle the operation, but it can't be long now before a brave Argie steps up to the plate. The heat has turned us off Egg Day somewhat, but we're still committed to it so keep reading and give us your bets on total eggs down. Appetites in general are still going through the roof, and with a 1kg-of-dried-spaghetti-meal on the horizon, along with the absurdly low price of quality red meat, all the evidence points at them getting bigger rather than smaller. Maybe when the beards-come-food-filters are gone things will start to calm down. It's also the season for festivals and we've caught a few on our travels so we're hoping to get a chance to rope a calf or rodeo-ride a wild horse sometime soon...

Fame Academy, Day 63, Zapala to Las Lajas

Faced with the choice of making it to one of two towns, 59 and 227k away respectively, we wisely opt for the lazy option and make a late start to our day in Zapala. Even our best efforts to make a quick getaway are thwarted as we try to scoff a breakfast of 18 doughnuts down by the railway yard. Firstly, the only Pole in town, a nameless old lady who's still got a thing or two to say, latches on to us and tells us not only her life story, but that of every foreigner in town. She's rudely interrupted by the local television crew who descend on the scene and point a camera and microphone in our general direction. While the shy, retiring Montgomerys claim a very true inability to speak the relevant lingo for this operation, D.Middlemiss is only too happy to step up to give a rather lengthy interview on his thoughts on everything from the weather to South American politics. Whether Al and I should have told him that he had the larger half of a cream factura hanging from his beard all the while, is not up for discussion.

Finally rolling out of town in the early PM, we encounter a few unexpected showers, a minor climb, and a Belgian couple cycling into Zapala. Turns out that they've seen quite a bit of the continent, but rather than use their bikes in the conventional sense, it sounds like they're happy to use them as luggage only as they have hardly cycled at all. Watching them flinch at the side of the road every time a vehicle goes by makes what they're saying seem sensible: they're fleeing Argentina because of the bad drivers. Now far be it for me to suggest that they've made something of an error in deciding to cycle through South America but, hey... Anyway, they were a nice couple so I won't bag them too much. After all, they're not the only people we've met to give us bad advice on the road ahead...

With no further alarm we pile into the small town of Las Lajas and are quickly informed that it's the town festival this very night. Excited at the thought of candyfloss and fairground rides, we turn up at the allotted hour, in the field at the end of town, to be quite amazed by both the sheer number of people here and the lack of death-metal-talent on the big stage. The parents and grandparents seem quite unfazed by the kids on stage chanting destruction destruction destruction repeatedly, but we're much too prudish for this sort of thing so decide to comfort ourselves in a large bag of empanadas. The comforting is postponed by a few minutes as we rescue said empanadas from the ground when the bag breaks on the stroke of Dave exclaiming "quick, grab the bottom before the...". Checking out the outskirts of the feria, we find some childrens' go-karts and ponder how amusing it would be to do this same trip with all three of us on one of these babies. Some more traditional acts come on stage so we join the masses and enjoy the mood for a while before we need more comforting. Another Quilmes each, some Choripan, papas fritas and hamburguesas do the trick and we get to bed at a very respectable 3am or so to leave the rest of the town to their party.

The draw of a cold beer. Day 64, Las Lajas to Chos Malal

I wake, already knowing that I had one burger too many the previous night, and am confronted with a litre and a half of porridge for breakfast, lovingly prepared as usual by our AM Chef, D. Middlemiss. We have a choice today: a normal sized day or a record breaker. The late start is at odds with the latter, but with that much porridge and a good ol' tailwind behind us we fly past our first destination and onwards towards Chos Malal.

We're glad to meet Phil again on the road, the nicest motorcyclist from Nottingham since Michael Elphick's Boon, and he stops to share some stories and yet more good route advice with us. We share what we've been told with him: tonight is Chos Malal's festival. Phil tells us he'll have a cold beer waiting for us in Chos Malal and roars off into the distance muttering something about a couple of beautiful mountain passes he's planning.

Some long, but not too tough climbs are followed by a final 20k of downhill, during which hardly a pedal is turned. Even the expected climb into town doesn't materialise and we coast in truly knackered but satisfied by our trip record of 167k today. A quick spin around and we find the first bar which, for a change, isn't on the seemingly omnipotent Plaza San Martin. Before we can all dismount (a somewhat lengthy operation after such a long spell on a bike...) Motorcycle Phil strolls up and buys the beers - which are cold - just as he promised! Next stop campsite; tent goes up; showers had; back out and we frequent the only recommended restaurant where Motorcycle Phil has just got the first beer in. What a guy. A naive goat and a couple of innocent cattle are tonight's quarry, but they never stood a chance with the hunger we'd built up. I'm sure I saw Phil wretching as we polished off our food in 46 seconds flat. Apologies, Phil. Oh, and apologies, too, for passing on that dodgy advice about the town festival being tonight...

This is too easy. Day 65, Chos Malal to Buta Ranquil

Sore legs don't swamp our confidence, but a knowing raise of the eyebrow from Motorcycle Phil over breakfast brings us back down to size when he gives us brief details of the road ahead. He's not surprised we did a record day into Chos Malal, but when we hypothesize that it should be easy to do one hundred and something kilometres today, all he says is "you've got to get out of Chos Malal first...". Thankfully he wasn't inferring that he, himself, had some grisly plan for us, but we did soon find that 'missing climb' from yesterday.

37 kilometres were covered in searing heat and not-insignificant headwind, without so much as a hundred metres of appeasing flatness nor mollifying downhill. A good few kilometres of downhill followed, but we were only allowed to relax for mere seconds as the next major climb appeared at the bottom. The same happened at the top of this climb, and the next, and onwards, infinitum... Maybe Che Guevara had the right idea, after all.

On reaching the small town of Buta Ranquil, however, we were delighted to finally get our first taste of Andes cerveza - something Dave and I had been waiting patiently for over 4 years for! It turned out that we'd stumbled, yet again, on the town festival so we supped up and rode a couple more k's to the site of the festival. Unfortunately we'd missed the exciting rodeo events and such, and were instead subjected to some local girls who seemed to be in a bizarre competition to determine who could sing the most out of tune on the big stage. No matter; 3 more goats met their maker and we had a relatively early night before the staring gauchos took revenge for the goats...

The River Wild. Day 66, Buta Ranquil to almost Pasarela

We're now on a very, very dry section of our route (yes, I realise that's at odds with the title...), and despite upgrading our water-carrying capabilities, we're still woefully short most of the time. It's a tough, very hot day in the saddle and by the time the sun starts to set we're still well short of our only chance of any sort of civilisation. A quick meeting is held in the middle of the loose ripio road and we decide to stick our very limited lights on and try to make it the 15 or 20 kilometres to a rumoured kiosco just past Pasarela (just because a place is named on the map doesn't mean it has anything there!). After a couple of kilometres we realise it's virtually impossible on the loose surface and set up a hasty camp beside the road. We're almost out of water and need to cook, so in the complete darkness I head off to the river, which we can hear somewhere close by, with two bottles. In the almost complete darkness I thought I'd come across something akin to Niagara Falls, with a huge cliff leading down to a vicious rapid, so I decided to shelve the idea and return empty bottled. Our only 2 litres of water were used to cook a quick pasta meal and we hit our scratchers with thirst that could only be understood by the likes of M. Delaney and S. Forbes...

The Driest Campsite On Earth to Malargue, Day 67

'Waking' after a horrible night's sleep with our tongues stuck to our cheeks, due to thirst, we packed up and hit the road in record time - no water for porridge after all. I took a quick walk down to check out the massive cliff and rapids that had scuppered my chances of getting water the previous night. They had, somehow, morphed into a small hill and a trickling brook, but I'm sure it was different the night before...

Numerous cyclists had told us of the horrors awaiting us on, or rather in, the road to Malargue. The final 30k had assumed an almost mythical dread in our collective minds, but we consoled ourselves with the knowledge that we hadn't met a cyclist yet who had given us road advice which we would term as acceptable, never mind good or reliable.

For a couple of days Dave had been powering ahead on the smooth surfaced sections and Al and I were simply unable to keep up. We had no idea what had caused this amazing transformation into potential Tour-winning cyclist. Until we caught up with him in the small town of Bardas Blancas, that was. Turns out his, erm, toilet policy had left him with 2 full days to do on a full tank, so to speak, and hence his rush to get to civilisation!

We decided to do some hard drugs before the big climb, and so hit the coffee and Coca Cola in some style. The road wasn't great - classified as deteriorated pavement - but it was quite easy to cycle on if you kept your wits about you and tried hard to choose a good line while watching for traffic. Stopping after every 15 or 20k, we reached the bottom of what had been suggested to us would be a big, tough climb, and took onboard some food and water. About 20 mins later we were over the top of it and coasting down the long downhill. It really wasn't a climb at all worth talking about, but I guess we'd have been more upset had the advice and reality been in reverse.

Pint bottles of cold Andes awaited Al and I when we rolled into Malargue, and despite the town's name sounding like a disease colony it was actually quite nice and prompted us to stay for a day.

A rest day in Malargue, Day 68

Good job this was a rest day as we'd spent the entire night slapping ourselves, literally, every couple of minutes to attempt to kill the dreaded mozzies. A lot of lounging went on during the day and the only thing of note to happen was that we attempted the world's first suicide by manner of overeating mashed potato. Failing, we went to bed expecting to be eaten alive again by the mozzies but, amazingly, they left us alone. Maybe they don't like mashed tatties?! Quick, patent that someone!

Overcast, with Part Time Showers. Malargue to El Nihuil, Day 69

With an electrical storm closing in around us, we raced it to El Nihuil, won, and quickly found camping Club de los Pescadores. Faced with the non-choice of putting up the tent now or after a cold beer, we got 'stuck' in the bar as the rain poured down almost as fast as the Cerveza Andes. We sensibly shelved the idea of cooking and, after advising the staff that we were cyclists with huge appetites, asked them what their largest meal was. Chicken, came the confident replies, along with gestures of rubbing swollen stomachs and wiping sweating brows. Promptly delivered, promptly dispatched, were the said chicken dinners, along with an additional bowl of bread. The waiter looked scared as he wondered how we'd left such clean chicken skeletons on our plates (think of the movie, Predator...). After he'd consulted his friend, the chef, he came back with half a goat; we think partly by way of apology for getting the effective size of the chicken dinner so wrong, and partly to see how we would manage with the additional food. Two more bowls of bread please, and seconds later the half-goat was no-goat. G-l-oating in our success [sorry, that's awful...] at beating the chef, we left them in silence and put up the tent.

It was only then that we discovered that our questioning of the girl at the front desk should have been much more in depth and scrupulous in regard to the showers, and less so in regard to what she was doing tonight (it was Valentine's Day, she'd told us...). The showers were only open from 8pm to 10pm, and it was now gone midnight. Stinking. Unfortunately we were stinking, too, so a quick cowboy-wash by the dishwashing-sink was required before bed...

El Hihuil to San Rafael, Day 70

Cruising downhill into the Canon del Atuel in the morning proved just as beautiful as Motorcycle Phil had promised. Even the nasty climb out of it didn't dampen our spirits, about 40k later, and we hit the tarmac again towards San Rafael.

Passing the masses of stalls by the side of the road offering rafting and other white-water experiences, we narrowly avoided some nasty falls when the smarter operators pushed their bikini-clad hotties into the road to intercept us. Those obstacles overcome, the products on offer by the side of the road changed to homemade jams, cured hams, olives and locally produced wines. Somehow we avoided these also and eventually found the campsite, 6k out of town.

With various things to take care of each, we split up and arranged to meet at any bar by Plaza San Martin at 9pm. When Al and I reached town we were amazed to again find ourselves amidst the town festival. This time, though, it was a biggie. The harvest carnival was in full swing, with the most beautiful girls from each of the surrounding towns being towed, waving and blowing kisses, down the huge, wide streets behind tractors, on massive floats. Fantastic, we thought, as we ogled the girls who were, quite literally, on display. A short while later our thirst took over and we rode through the crowds to the town square. Which was closed for remodelling and didn't have a single bar within a 2 block radius of it. Hmm, best made plans and all that. A couple of hours of aimless looking amongst the crowds and we found Dave, who'd thankfully found more bars than we had been able to.

Next day the small Bodega of Iselin was visited and the resulting purchases were found to fit nicely into bike bottle holders. With the liquid taken care of, we decided to do our first asado (Argie BBQ) back at the campsite. Despite a huge electrical storm closing in around us again, we found a suitable butchers and went in. The absolute beast of a man behind the counter suggested what we should have and how much of it. He bellowed some joke about how he had sold the skinniest goat in the world to the the last Englishman through his door; we laughed and walked out with about 5kg of meat. The resulting asado was, and we don't say this easily, the largest meal of meat any of us had ever had. It was true carnage and probably lucky the sun had disappeared behind the massive storm clouds so no-one could see the animals feeding at the end of the campsite...

San Rafael to San Carlos, Day 71

Our day on the road started a brief spell of confusion after Al and I thought a couple of locals walking down the road were pointing and shouting to tell us that Dave had gone into a house by the side of the road. As Al checked out round the back of the private house and found a family enjoying their Sunday dinner, it finally dawned on me that the locals were actually telling us to get off the road and cycle on the cycle path!

The Romans have obviously been to this part of the world as the road to San Carlos is die-straight for the middle 100k or so. Once we'd hit the top of the hill, after climbing ever so slightly for a couple of hours, we were greeted by another electrical storm. A thorough soaking was only avoided due to the wind turning in our favour and we outran the storm into San Carlos. Finding the campsite wasn't too easy but once we had we were more than happy: it was basically the beautiful back-garden of a rich Argie with a huge house and a penchant for fast motorbikes. We pitched the tent under some trees and hung a large percentage of our clothes and equipment out to dry, cooked and went to bed.

About 30 mins later that electrical storm caught up with us and provided a light show which that-French-twat-of-a-musician-whose-name-I-can't-remember would be proud of. While no doubt amplified by being inside what amounts to a plastic bag, it was the heaviest rain and loudest thunder which we'd ever witnessed.

San Carlos to Mendoza, Day 72

Thankfully the sun was shining when we woke as all our gear was totally soaked and had to be stretched out over the tennis court to dry. When finally dry enough to pack the gear away, we hit the road for the final 110k into Mendoza, dreaming of a week off the bikes.

The first third was uneventful; the second quite beautiful as we rode past vineyard after vineyard, including the likes of Chandon and Norton; the final third somewhat scary. As we were forced back onto Ruta 40 to enter the city the road became a full-blown motorway with either non-existent or horribly potholed hard shoulder. The drivers refused to indicate when taking turn-offs, trucks flew by inches from our shoulders as streams of cars passed on the far side of them and every white-van-man in the vicinity seemed to want to hit his horn or shout at us from as close as possible. Dave and I hit the gas and stuck to the white line by the side of the road; Al took the seemingly safer route on the rough hard shoulder. We stopped to wait on Al and he soon appeared at the bottom of a small rise. Next time we looked around there was a build up of cars around the area where he had been so we got a touch worried, and this was made worse by a driver pulling up and telling us about some incident with our amigo back there. Sprinting down the hill (the wrong way on a motorway...) we seen Al emerge and were thankful as he seemed to be ok. What had happened was that two teenagers had stopped him and tried to steal his gear. While Al tried to slap one of them, who was holding an imaginary knife under his shirt, the other was trying to make off with the bike. Thankfully for all, imaginary knife boy decided to run off, leaving his mate alone and completely unable to manage the weight of the bike. With an angry bearded animal approaching rapidly, the guy chose to drop the bike and run off himself. By this stage some motorists had stopped, one of them being an off-duty cop, and the scene changed from attempted mugging to traffic chaos. No harm done, but we've been a touch on edge since getting to Mendoza.

Col