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