Now... where were we...? Mendoza to Salta

 

Well, we were in Mendoza, a long time ago and a long way away. If the writer were in a more charitable mood there would be an apology for the delay to the regular readership (hello mother) but, after enduring a painful 'Argentinean custom' (see below), charity is thinner on the ground than Colin's punctured back tyre was on our arrival tonight in Argentina's northernmost city of San Salvador de Jujuy. What events have unfolded in the last three weeks. We have had 'duckgate' that led, most unfortunately, to 'rackgate'. We managed all of the cliches in two weeks of epic cycling; mountains were magnificent, deserts eerie, towns sleepy, markets vibrant and ravines, uhm, ravenous... or was that just us? We invented a whole new style of cycling that involved floating. We broke all our previous records for distance travelled, heights reached, black pudding eaten and bike repairs realized. Then we broke the hard drive on the laptop and thus we arrive at the excuse for the lack of on-line activity. Happily nothing of great importance was lost, just my CV and the latest blog. What a shame: it was a marvelous, rambling work of fiction chronicling with shameless romanticism my recent activities with only a passing glance at the facts... NO! I'm too ashamed to insert the punch line to that one here. Luckily for every one concerned it means that the whole thing has to be rewritten in haste on our new, improved and most likely illegal laptop, meaning that, as with one of our Argentinean meat BBQs, all that will be left are the bare bones of the matter. In a few hours we continue up, in every sense, to Bolivia, with two wheels, five rear racks (?!) and three idiots on our wagons. So, if no apologies for the unavoidable delay, an advance 'sorry' for the unrevised content. Please read in conjunction with the photo album to get some vague idea of the plot. !Adelante!

Day 80. Mendoza - Villavicencio. Feb 25th. Dist: 53KM

We leave with confidence at an all time high, the result of a week off in Mendoza and having completely forgotten everything about cycling. So, now that we're hardened cyclists we'll ignore all local advice and cycle up the unpaved mountain road towards the Andes rather than the paved main one. Grrrrrr! Whoops: our knees no longer bend. Owwww! We got quite dispirited during the first part of the day as the road played performed an optical illusion by appearing flat but actually going up. No such problem when we rounded a corner to find it going straight up a cliff. Actually, the prospect was quite shocking and some hysteria set in. We talked up the idea of tackling the ascent and much coffee and chocolate cake was promptly consumed. Al then pointed out we'd got the time wrong (chilean watch...), the mountaineering was called off and we spent a fretful night camped at the foot of a hill even more improbable than the climb to the last pub on Dave Leslie's cycling stag-do.

Day 81. Villavicencio - Valle de Uspallata. Feb 26th. Dist: 97KM

The climb. Good grief it was a monster. We woke up and staggered round the tent with unbending cowboy legs trying to think of ways of putting it off. Nothing came to mind so up we went. 30KM up to 3100m. Very few funny things happened, though it was intensely beautiful and the Snickers bars sent by the good people at Merlin Bikes ensured we were over and down to Uspallata with energy to spare. We used it in trying to outrun thunderstorms as we turned north up the high valley under the gaze highest mountain outside of the Himalaya, Aconcagua. Well, that's a bit of a lie as, Fitz Roy style (the mountain of thoughtless analogy horror), it was hiding behind cloud. Not to worry, we miss the storms and camp in splendid isolation in the high pampa. Look, the isolation was splendid! This is a great leg of the journey for cliches... No, but it really was splendid...

Day 82. Valle de Uspallata - Calingasta. Feb 27th. Dist: 123KM

Barren splendour anyone? Lots of it about today. I could have been the only person in the world... oh, until a member of the Argentinean Honda Racing Team appears from out of a sand dune to tell me "I used to live in Melton Mowbray". Righto... Here on the sand flats filming an advert it appears. Solitude duly shattered, albeit by cool, friendly people, we cycled on, over dust and rock until reaching an unexpected green sliver of a valley leading to the small town of Calingasta. Here we cheer when the campsite has no showers, a textbook excuse for staying in a hospedaje. Good job we did have the first wash in three days as tonight we meet Cecilia and Marella who are hitchhiking the around the same route as us for the next few days. So starts a race between our two groups to isolated destinations in which we always lose but pick up the consolation prize of having places to eat arranged in advance by delightful company.

Day 83. Calingasta - the middle of nowhere. Feb 28th. Dist: 72KM

Complaints from one of our equipment suppliers regarding previous blogs make me hesitate to detail why we didn't leave Calingasta until the afternoon, I'll just note we did get to meet another creative mechanic who had just the sort of big bolt we needed to get Al's bike on the road again. It was the final touch to what is now the Frankenstein of the bike world. Eventual progress was slowed by a road exhibiting two nasty traits: it went uphill and was made of sand. We therefore camped in the middle of nowhere, the sun setting to set the Andes ablaze with crimson and Colin sitting to set the pan ablaze with spaghetti. Broken fingernails all round the next time we got round to the washing up which was in....

Day 84. Middle of nowhere - San Jose de Jachal. Feb 29th. Dist: 138KM

I've forgotten to mention everything was in the process of being astonishingly beautiful. Are you looking at the photos (the ones without us in)?! Well it was. Ah, apart from the road which was astonishingly atrocious as it was more or less a dry riverbed for 40KM and made us all pine for 'uphill and made of sand'. The following week we would meet a some real riverbeds and we would be pining for the 'dry' bit. Violent jarring of teeth preceded violent gnashing of the same as we saw on the map we'd swapped cycling off road for cycling on one called 'the hill of the wind'. Not a pleasant combination for cyclists. Happily it took place in staggering scenery, today featuring a canyon that we failed to take any photos off as we were all too busy trying not to fall into it. We spilled out into the town of Jachal where humiliation was waiting in the form of a local bike race which had brought the rather large population out in force to line the route. The tedium of watching real cyclists going round and round was alleviated by whistling and laughing at us negotiating the same route the wrong way round. Marella rescued us in the main square and after some rather demanding days we made a one-off exception and ate in a very nice restaurant....

Day 86. San Jose de Jachal - Villa Union. March 2nd. Dist: 152KM

Oh no we didn't! We were back in the same restaurant the next night! And why were we still in Jachal? Well, I really can't say (see day 83), but I did get to meet the town welder on our unscheduled rest day and, on day 86, we set off with my bike back one piece. Out of San Juan and into La Rioja. Red crags and, at last, a day mainly on tarmac as we find ruta 40 again. Cecilia and Marella look like they are going to lose this race to Villa Union until they pass us on the final leg in a mental health minbus, presumably supplied by La Rioja government on hearing how long they have had to spend in our company of late. All that hard work building the myth of hardened cycling explorers is now completely undone by another night in a restaurant. It looks like the only thing we're exploring are the possibilities of the local wines. Oh well... I'm getting figs Al, yes, figs, figs and vanilla!!!

Day 87. Villa Union - Chilecito. March 3rd. Dist: 117KM

A climb. A canyon. A thrilling descent. What? Again?! The days are merging into one as we make pleasing progress through these provinces of the pre-cordillera. But it's a really nice one. The earth has gone very red and we're in mining country, although Chilecito looks like no pit town I can think off having no cricket ground and there being some miners. In these out of the way places we appear really odd to the locals. Hold on, I've just checked the photos: we just appear really odd.

Day 88. Chilecito - Salicas. March 4th. Dist: 124KM

Great news for the writer and reader: absolutely nothing of interest happens today in La Rioja! We cycle and it is very good.

Day 89. Salicas - Belen. March 5th. Dist: 101KM

Colin can't bear the void created by the previous day's lack of incident and sets out on a single handed mission to provide loads of it today. He starts fast by being bitten on the backside by a beetle, which passes for incident in Salicas, and is distracted enough to miss the road to Belen, turning down the journey north into Catamarca to start another lap of La Rioja. Al sets off after the Mark Thatcher of Limavaddy to let him know but sails past Burns the Navigator who is now in a cemetery taking a photo. Al flies down the road chasing a man who is behind him and, when they finally get it together, resists the temptation to send him back to the scene of his photo shoot for a more permanent stay. It is possible that the junction to Belen was obscured at the time of his passing by the coach loads of tourists, here on excursions to see what many experts reckon to be THE-BIGGEST-ROAD-SIGN-IN-ARGENTINA-COLIN-MONTGOMERY. We are finally all reunited and find ourselves in Belen, Catamarca, home of a strangely large bag of crisps. Everything is still very pretty by the way.

Day 90. Belen - Santa Maria. March 6th. Dist: 183KM

We're all quite pleased about the effort today (look at the distance, look at the distance!!), not least as we managed in true yahoo-style: setting off absurdly late and finishing in the pitch black. I met a chap called Seba who was also on a bike and we had a conversation for over an hour, which he found a lot easier than me given we didn't stop our bikes and his had a motor. Then there was a tarantula I would say, roughly, ooh, the size of my bike wheel. I had a fit. We spent a lot of time going uphill on sand which was no fun, then a lot of time going down on tarmac which was. We crossed pampa below snowcapped mountains and found a large thunderstorm making it's way up the valley we wanted to descent into. Half an hour later we were congratulating ourselves on letting it rumble up the valley side before heading down. Half an hour after that we were cursing ourselves as the flood water was pouring across the road in spate rivers. Lots of spate rivers. Crossing these was more than a little bit exciting as they were quite wide and fast. Oh, and it was now pitch dark. A sort of 30m diagonal slide in the inky before hitting dry land was the result, and the locals peering out of doorways in the string of little villages we passed on the way down into Santa Maria looked genuinely shocked to see us emerging from the mountains. Our hospedaje had a sticker on the door saying 'catholics only' so we stick Gerry Adams beard up front and cross our way into some cheap digs, hoping St Peter is running an equally slack ship at his front gate.

Day 91. Santa Maria - Cafayate. March 7th. Dist: 91KM

Sand and wind, all of it moving the wrong way very fast. My sunglasses duly fall apart for the fourth time and I see nothing of our brief trip through Tucuman province, though there is nothing I couldn't tell you about the white line between Santa Maria and Cafayate, it being the only thing I did see. The only interesting thing about this line is that 5KM outside of Cafayate there is a tarantula sitting on it. Nnnnggg!! Lots of vines, very pretty still...

Day 92. Cafayate - Coronel Moldes. March 8th. Dist: 133KM

All the way to Salta today at last! Erm no, cos we're knackered and have to stop in Coronel Moldes! Today the canyon scenery reaches absurdly impressive proportions in the Quebrada de Cafayate which has even more old and weird rock than Col's CD collection. Rolling, green countryside awaits as we turn towards Salta and the appropriate cliche would be 'lush'. Coronel Moldes is one of our least likely stops yet but we are lucky to find the fantastic Casona de Moldes and it's charming owner, Maria Laura. A fiesta to celebrate International Women's Day takes place in the small town square and we al listen to lectures from prominent local feminists on the place of 'woman' in the post modern work place. Oh no, there is cowboy dancing and every girl gets a flower instead! Adelante!

 Day 93. Coronel Moldes - Salta. March 9th. Dist: 64KM

I haven't changed my cycling shirt since Calingasta, over 1100 KM away. It wakes up before me and tells me to get in and start cycling. The scenery has gone very English Summer, but like a good one from a film, not a real one sitting on a motorway. We reach Salta where we have a longer stay than planned as we wait for spare racks to arrive from Old Man Mountain, who have been excellent in their support of us. The delay is nothing to do with them, but rather the customs house in the city. I'm really running out of time to explain this... there was an argument concerning a small wooden duck, it turned out a couple of days later I had to deal with the same rubber stampers of toy ducks I had antagonised to get our racks out of a warehouse and it descended into a farce. Madrid negotiating tactics sort of got the job done, an armed guard helped out and, well, we thought we'd never leave pretty Salta at one point: a colonial city that hasn't sorted out the 'post' yet. Here we are though, back in the rhythm that saw us tick off nearly 1500KM in 13 days over 6 provinces. All a bit much to take in and make sense of perhaps, unless you were here and paying really close attention to the road, in case any more spiders appeared....

Midd

Mendoza - The Hit and Runs

It's two weeks since we left Mendoza so this blog is a little late in arrival, but better late than never. I hope. We rolled into our current destination, Salta, yesterday afternoon for another rest period of a few days after a couple of fairly tough weeks on the bikes. It was great to spend more than a couple of days in one spot and actually get a complete rest from cycling, if not bicycle maintenance and get a feel for a city.

As Col has already mentioned in his last post the approach to Mendoza became a little more eventful after we had passed the beautiful vineyards and associated Bodegas on the outskirts. As I cycled along the hard shoulder on the way in to Mendoza I thought I was being treated to yet more encouragement from the locals by the way of two kids waving me on - actually what I was being treated to was two kids waving me down so they could mug me!

As this was my first time being victim of an attempted mugging it took me a second or so to realise the little thugs weren't trying to help lighten the load on my rear rack to avoid any more damage to it but, rather, they were trying to half-inch my panniers. I tried to put in a bit of a kick to enable my escape but being in a high gear and almost at a stop from their initial grab this plan didn't exactly work.  Rather, they caught me again and made me fall off the bike. I got to my feet and I have to admit the first thought I had was to let them take the bike and all the gear, after all they could have had a knife. This thought didn't last long once I'd surveyed my attackers in more detail: two scrawny teenagers who looked less able to throw a punch than I do. Thug 1 attempted to delay me by sticking his clearly empty hand under his t-shirt  and pretending to have a weapon.  Despite this ingenious tactic I decided to slap him, or as it turned out give him a disappointing glancing blow to his chin, which he returned in kind before legging it. This was a result as, although I was pretty pissed off at this point and clearly wanted to batter him (not in a chip shop sort of way, obviously...), his accomplice was making off with my bike. I legged it after Thug 2 and again had a bit of a result - the eejit hadn't realised just how heavy the bike was, nor how feeble he was. He duly dropped the bike and legged it after his mate, leaving me with mixed emotions - I was unscathed and had my bike and all the gear on it, but was hugely disappointed I didn't get a decent opportunity to smash one of their faces in. By this point quite a few motorists had pulled in to lend their assistance and it was good to see the kind of friendly, helpful Argentine people we have been meeting right throughout the country.

Anyway, those young twats Behind us, we got to our chosen accommodation shortly after and settled in for the week. For us this means emptying everything from our panniers, creating a disaster zone in our room and creating a pile of laundry which includes every item of clothing we have except those we are currently wearing (which, in all honesty, could probably do with a wash as well).

Tuesday morning arrived and Col and myself set off for school. By that I mean we had enrolled for a crash course in Spanish, which after three months of struggling along with Spanglish and the help of Dave we thought it about time we made more of an effort. The nice folks down at the college seemed very relieved to see us: seems our vagueness in relation to when we would arrive was a bit too vague. As we set about our first class with our tutor Dario, it quickly became evident that he was an excellent teacher and we can only thank him and Lilo, our other tutor, for putting up with our Spanish mumblings and long, dumb looks all week. That said we both enjoyed the course (which surprised me due to my hatred of languages at school) and felt a little more confident dealing with questions the Argentine public frequently had for us. That said, due to the amount of cycling over the last two weeks, we haven't had much time to build on or practice what we did learn.

Other notable happenings during the week included Col and myself being stranded, by the way of flooding, on our way into town to meet Dave. Although Mendoza has a huge network of deep storm drains to deal with the severe rain that happens frequently, they simply couldn't cope with the deluge that night so we were left standing on a street corner until the torrent of water on the streets subsided enough for us to perform some form of long jump to clear the deep channels of water at the edge of the road - a jump that almost resulted in a broken ankle for myself as I was a bit optimistic about the distance I could clear.

Another night was spent on the rooftop terrace of a bar watching a Spanish film by the name of Volver. Fortunately there were subtitles for our benefit and it turned out to be quite an interesting (if not a little weird) film.

Another point I feel should be mentioned is our inability to actually stay out for a night and have a few beers. We've tried repeatedly since the start of the trip to have a big night out but we simply keep failing - once we get to about 1am we all fade and have to call it a night. The Saturday night before we left Mendoza was no exception but given the fact we had the bad news that our Grandmother had passed away the previous night it's hardly surprising that we weren't in the mood for a big night out. It's times like these which make it a bit hard being away from home but it seems like everyone has dealt with it pretty well and it's just a relief that she didn't have to suffer any more.

A final point to note was the catastrophic case of the shits we all picked up from a burger joint in Mendoza (which will go unnamed). Now a dose of the runs is never a good thing to have but when you're constantly cycling and eating huge amounts to fuel your body it does result in what could be described as an uncomfortable week. But I suppose a trip to South America wouldn't be complete without a dose of the shits, would it?

That pretty much covers our time in Mendoza and after reading how boring and un-humorous this post is I think I'll sign off immediately.

 

Alastair