We arrived into Salta in northwest Argentina and landed into a great hostel that even organised some local music for us. There was a good group of people at the hostel, one of the lads, Ryan Fitzpatrick played bluegrass music with the locals and had even toured Ireland. That and the local food was great, such good empanadas that theý put the Chilean food to shame. The town also had a cable car ride up to a viewpoint, handy for us to get a look at the road ahead.
We hit the road out of town, due north of course and before long we were headed into lush green valleys, a stark contrast with the borderline desert of Mendoza. We took the old mountain road and it was sublime, a narrow curving tarmac road one and half cars wide, cut along some hillsides and lined with trees and vegetation. The corners were even banked so we could whizz along on the bikes, getting glimpses of the jungle valleys below through the gaps in the trees.
At the smaller city of JuyJuy we had our first taste of Llama meat at a local restaurant. We thought it tasted similar to pork and lamb. After a short wait while Paul´s travel towel caught up with us from Salta thanks to the excellent bus parcel service we hit the road again, this time facing into some serious climbing and some of our toughest days cycling yet.
We were cycling through the Quebrada de Humehuaca, famed for its colorful rock formations. I guess at the this stage you´re probably wondering how many rock formations we can cycle by and be interested in. After 6 months of traveling we are getting a bit hard to impress but the reddish brown colored rock jutting out of the green valley sides was impressive none the less.
A bigger issue for us was the altitude, we were now at 2700m or so and the air was getting noticeably thinner. no problem if you´re in a car or a motorbike you just give it more throttle but for us it meant really working on our breathing. Even taking a sip from your water bottle had to be timed right so you didn´t end up out of breath. What was most frustrating was the lack of speed, we´d had to slow right down and lose the speed we´d built up over the previous months touring. It was a tough slog.
We stayed a day in the pretty town of Tilcara, meaning to get online and do some planning but the lack of any decent internet meant by midday we´d got nothing done so rather than face the mid day heat we hung out another day. A sign of things to come as basic services like internet became a luxury further north.
We continued north, stopping in the dusty town of Huemehuaca and keeping a good eye to the rainstorms to the north. The town´s river bed was dry when we´d got there, rainy season hadn´t started but one afternoon a storm kicked off in the distance and later on a crowd passed our riverside campsite. We thought there was a local soccer match on but no, they were all watching the river fill up. Some of the storms were spectacular, with big black thunderous clouds and massive flashes of lightening, not something you´d want to be caught cycling in.
As we hit the road north towards the Bolivian border luckily the rain had passed. We´d have to say that at this stage the cycling got a bit boring, flat plains at altitude with nothing much to see. Even if the cycling was a bit tame the Argentines´ beeping at us and waving was still a bit of fun and their friendliness lasted right up to the border. 4km from the border town of La Quiaca we had a couple insist we pull over so they could give us water and chat us about our travels. Great people and we were certainly sad to leave their country.
As a farewell meal at the border we ordered some steak and chips, our favorite food on the road. We weren´t expecting it to be great as we were very far north and quite remote but it was so tasty we ordered as second helping which came out even better and bigger.
Next day we bought 4 days supplies in Argentina to get us to the first Bolivian town with some to spare as we weren´t sure what to expect in Bolivia. I´d read a book about an Irish girl who´d ridden on horseback through Bolivia and called it "the land of we don´t have it" because they´d so little. It seemed like all the Bolivians crossed to border to do their shopping, the stores in La Quiaca were all more like wholesalers and there was a stream of Bolivian women crossing the border with shopping tied up in brightly coloured blankets. Have to say it was fairly noticeable that the men would walk round with their hands in their pockets while the women carried the load in the heat.
The border crossing was a good old fashioned harem scarem seething mass of people. You had two bridges to start with, one bridge for the locals crossing over and back unchecked on bikes and by foot, even gangs of dogs seemed to wander over for a look and a sniff. The other bridge was controlled, if controlled meant long queues supervised by sun beaten border officials wearing aviator shades. Wary of the mayhem and how wealthy our bikes looked compared to the locals we queued up with our bikes to get stamped out of Argentina one last time.
At the Bolivian entry side we queued for 20 minutes before I noticed we were in the wrong queue, but once we got into the right queue with our bikes and started blocking up the place the border officials saw us. As we weren´t going to part company with our bikes Paul queued while I stood by the bikes, we were blocking up the place so the officials took our passports and fast tracked us though.
Bam, We were in Bolivia, hard to believe this was our third country on the trip. We were looking forward to something different Bolivia didn´t disappoint. Villazon was a real frontier town, everyone was hawking something from stalls or just the side of the road. One guy was standing by a 3 metre cube of beercans for sale, street stalls offered shoe repairs on the spot and lots of Bolivian´s were selling coca leaves from huge bags. The smell of the coca leaves will be one of my lasting impressions of Bolivia, initially it smells like hay drying in a field but then you get a musty, pungent smell in the back of your nose like somethings rotten. No need for sniffer dog´s to find that stuff.
We hit the orad out of town and had to speed up to avoid getting caught in a thunderstorm that was sweeping across the plain. The landscape was very desert like, no trees, just some small shrubs. People were living in mud brick houses, some had thatch roof and were showing the wear of a couple of seasons rain.
We put in a good days cycling across the plano, the ripio road slowing our progress where the road was corrugated as it made no sense to be shaken the daylights out of for the sake of going a little bit faster.
That night we camped on the side of a hill, leaving us a nice downhill to start the day and a view of the thunderstorms across the valley as we ate our pasta.
Next morning the valley was soaking from the nights rain and shrouded in mist that burned off within half an hour to reveal a beautiful valley below. We´d had a few occasions to count the seconds between the flashes and the noise of the thunder during the night but we´d pìcked a good spot to camp so were safe, thankfully the ground was gravel so we could de camp without much hassle.
We set off for Tupuiza, descending into hot valleys and passing small, poor towns that reeked of no proper sewage systems. Any river were littered with plastic bottles, mud served as road, footpath and lawn for most houses and the people seemed quite poor. In one town a kid was playing with a bike wheel, rolling it along. I think the last time I remember kids playing with wheels was in roman history at school.
Round about the end of the days cycling I started to feel unwell, my porridge hadn´t settled well and despite drinking lots of coke, the only drink available I was dehydrated and really feeling the heat now we´d descended. I ended up getting a lift to town rather than make myself worse like I´d done previously. We got a taxi to collect my bike and Paul cycled into town where we took two rest days and ended up meeting two other cyclists Dave and Tom from England who were travelling the same route.
The 4 of us booked a 4 day jeep tour of south east bolivia and the salar de uyunyi together.
More about that in my next post, Im about 2 weeks behind so will hope to get up to date tomorrow.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Surfing Bolivia
At the end of the salar tour we looked at the dates and knew we´d not have time to make the Carnaval at Oruro and see the city of Potosi. Not big fans of backtracking we mentioned it to our friendly jeep driver, it turned out he was driving to Potosi the next day to service his jeep so could bring us and our bikes, keeping the possibility of making Carnaval and seeing the mines of Potosi alive.
Only our tour company didn´t agree with his hospitality so after a quick whisper outside the office on the qt with the driver I arranged to meet at 6am on the outskirts of town the next day, covertly loading the bikes and getting out of town before sunrise.
We arrived in Potosi after a few interesting food stops in small roadside villages. Two old ladies cooked us deep fried goat cheese and big mugs of coffee for 25 cents in one stop, very tasty even if we did have to ignore the dirt of the place. The driver stopped for lunch in another village where the meal of the day sat bubbling amid the flies, I just had a coke as the place was filthy, later on their dog even had a taste of the pot so I was glad not to be mid way through lunch watching him.
I just had a coke and chatted the locals as usual they were entertained by the height of the big gringo.
Potosi
As we drove into Potosi we passed the ramshackle mines an villages set against the hill of Potosi, famed for the amount of silver the Spanish extracted from it in the 1400´s.
The mining end of town looked very rough but the buildings in the middle of town were striking, clearly remnants of a wealthier past. Windy, narrow streets and old buildings made walking round town interesting and once we´d settled into our hostel we had a stroll around, getting a cheap meal in the mercado central where you could get anything from shoe and watch repairs to your weekly shopping.
Next day we did a tour of the mines with an ex miner. The interior of the mine was a mess, lots of tunnels had no beams to prop the roofs up. Wobbly timber ladders connected different levels, ore was pushed out by men using hand carts and the dust in the air near the drilling areas was filthy. That and the fact that the mine was at 4000 metres plus made breathing difficult, combined with the claustrophobic tunnels it was a hellish spot and it was no wonder the miners had a statue of the devil near the mine entrance. Give me a cubicle, swivel chair and a pc any day over this! In one section the lads descended to watch two miners drilling through a hole no bigger than a metre wide into a tight space where they were following the ore body. The two miners began to panic when their drill got stuck, one of them pulling at the revolving bit with his gloved hands. I stayed on top as my lungs wouldn´t appreciate the dust of the drilling and I´d need them in good shape for the next leg over the 5000 m passes. Just for a laugh I switched my head torch off, not a speck of light to be seen in the dark tunnels, just the sound of drilling travelling through the rock, very eeerie. Later on the surface our guide exploded some dynamite and fuses we´d bought for a euro at the miner´s market. In Bolivia mining is so unregulated anyone can buy dynamite, no paper work needed! I saw one guy loading the back of his jeep with bags of the stuff and days later as we cycled through valleys we´d hear the bang and see the cloud of dust rising in the distance from small mines.
A the hostel we met Emily´s cousin Neal Cromen again, a good man to meet for a few beers and a bit of craic. We also met the jovial Oliver, an English cyclist Dave and Tom had met down south, all of us bought a load of beer and rum and had a good seisiun at the hostel, the lads even bought a birthday cake for me with the excessive 29 candles.
Surfing Bolivia
Normally Bolivia isn´t a country associated with surfing. Mostly because it has no coastline, thanks to Chile annexing that part of the country in the War of the Pacific. We didn´t need water, we´d invented a new kind of surfing, truck surfing. When you´re pedalling up a hill with 45kgs of baggage at 3500m, the air is thin, so cycling is slow bloody hard work. Thing is though that lorries are quite slow too, so on the leg from Potosi to Oruro when the asphalt road was good and wide and slow trucks were passing the four of us would pedal slowly like highwaymen lying in wait, then when the truck was passing we´d speed up and grab on to the back of the truck and truck surf up a stretch of hill. Thing was, like catching a surfing wave you had to time your sprint well, at altitude you only had a short distance of sprint before you were left out of breath, sprint too slow or too late and you´d be left seeing stars and worse off than if you hadn´t bothered. Catching a lift up was great fun though, most truck drivers would even wave and give us a friendly beep, we even met one of the trucks a day later going the opposite way and got the full lights and air horn salute.
Carnaval
After 2 hard days slog over some high passes we put in a big day of 120km to reach Oruro wrecked tired but just in time for Carnaval. Being friday night we didn´t have much choice in accomodation at the last minute and ended up getting two singles rooms for the 4 of us with two of us sleeing on our camping mats. Next day carnaval began at 8 am with bands and dancers parading down the streets till 4am that night. The streets were lined with makeshift stands, rather than pay for them we wandered the crowds till we found a gap and could see for free, chatting to the locals and becoming prime targets for the locals who were throwing water balloons goodo and using cans of spray foam at close range. It wasn´t long before we got armed with a few plastic bags of water balloons and gave as good as we got, and the locals were in such good form they didn´t mind standing beside such prime targets and getting caught in the cross fire. The sun was out so we´d dry off easily and didn´t bother buying plastic capes most gringos wore. The water fights were great fun, thought the kids with massive water pistols did out gun us a few times we´d still manage to duck into the crowd. God help the gringo that ran out of water balloons as they´d show no mercy.
Later that night we managed to sneak into the main square and got invited into the vip section of the stands by some young Bolivians. It was great fun drinking beer and having a laugh with the Bolivians as the best bands paraded past.
One day of carnaval was enough for us really, next day the place reeked of urine, the streets had loads of excrement on them and by the afternoon of the second day a lot of the locals were wasted. We were hungover and Dave was sick with a stomach bug he´d caught from street food the day before. We stayed an extra day to recover then leaving Dave to catch a bus to La Paz Tom Paul and I cycled out the boringly flat road to La Paz. We made la Paz in 3 days, all of us feeling a bit tired and only doing about 80km a day average.
La Paz
La Paz was synonymous with excess. Lots of gringo tourists over indulging, not a whole pile to see in the city and more of a rest stop for us cyclists.
Saying that the wild rover hostel was good craic, the bar was hopping for the Ireland vs England rugby match with faces painted, flags and bunting in both colours, the whole works. It was great to see Ireland win, even if we hadn´t insisted on our bet that the losing team carry the winners tent´s on their bike to Cuzco, the two English lads would have been getting a rough deal with our monster tent!
Only our tour company didn´t agree with his hospitality so after a quick whisper outside the office on the qt with the driver I arranged to meet at 6am on the outskirts of town the next day, covertly loading the bikes and getting out of town before sunrise.
We arrived in Potosi after a few interesting food stops in small roadside villages. Two old ladies cooked us deep fried goat cheese and big mugs of coffee for 25 cents in one stop, very tasty even if we did have to ignore the dirt of the place. The driver stopped for lunch in another village where the meal of the day sat bubbling amid the flies, I just had a coke as the place was filthy, later on their dog even had a taste of the pot so I was glad not to be mid way through lunch watching him.
I just had a coke and chatted the locals as usual they were entertained by the height of the big gringo.
Potosi
As we drove into Potosi we passed the ramshackle mines an villages set against the hill of Potosi, famed for the amount of silver the Spanish extracted from it in the 1400´s.
The mining end of town looked very rough but the buildings in the middle of town were striking, clearly remnants of a wealthier past. Windy, narrow streets and old buildings made walking round town interesting and once we´d settled into our hostel we had a stroll around, getting a cheap meal in the mercado central where you could get anything from shoe and watch repairs to your weekly shopping.
Next day we did a tour of the mines with an ex miner. The interior of the mine was a mess, lots of tunnels had no beams to prop the roofs up. Wobbly timber ladders connected different levels, ore was pushed out by men using hand carts and the dust in the air near the drilling areas was filthy. That and the fact that the mine was at 4000 metres plus made breathing difficult, combined with the claustrophobic tunnels it was a hellish spot and it was no wonder the miners had a statue of the devil near the mine entrance. Give me a cubicle, swivel chair and a pc any day over this! In one section the lads descended to watch two miners drilling through a hole no bigger than a metre wide into a tight space where they were following the ore body. The two miners began to panic when their drill got stuck, one of them pulling at the revolving bit with his gloved hands. I stayed on top as my lungs wouldn´t appreciate the dust of the drilling and I´d need them in good shape for the next leg over the 5000 m passes. Just for a laugh I switched my head torch off, not a speck of light to be seen in the dark tunnels, just the sound of drilling travelling through the rock, very eeerie. Later on the surface our guide exploded some dynamite and fuses we´d bought for a euro at the miner´s market. In Bolivia mining is so unregulated anyone can buy dynamite, no paper work needed! I saw one guy loading the back of his jeep with bags of the stuff and days later as we cycled through valleys we´d hear the bang and see the cloud of dust rising in the distance from small mines.
A the hostel we met Emily´s cousin Neal Cromen again, a good man to meet for a few beers and a bit of craic. We also met the jovial Oliver, an English cyclist Dave and Tom had met down south, all of us bought a load of beer and rum and had a good seisiun at the hostel, the lads even bought a birthday cake for me with the excessive 29 candles.
Surfing Bolivia
Normally Bolivia isn´t a country associated with surfing. Mostly because it has no coastline, thanks to Chile annexing that part of the country in the War of the Pacific. We didn´t need water, we´d invented a new kind of surfing, truck surfing. When you´re pedalling up a hill with 45kgs of baggage at 3500m, the air is thin, so cycling is slow bloody hard work. Thing is though that lorries are quite slow too, so on the leg from Potosi to Oruro when the asphalt road was good and wide and slow trucks were passing the four of us would pedal slowly like highwaymen lying in wait, then when the truck was passing we´d speed up and grab on to the back of the truck and truck surf up a stretch of hill. Thing was, like catching a surfing wave you had to time your sprint well, at altitude you only had a short distance of sprint before you were left out of breath, sprint too slow or too late and you´d be left seeing stars and worse off than if you hadn´t bothered. Catching a lift up was great fun though, most truck drivers would even wave and give us a friendly beep, we even met one of the trucks a day later going the opposite way and got the full lights and air horn salute.
Carnaval
After 2 hard days slog over some high passes we put in a big day of 120km to reach Oruro wrecked tired but just in time for Carnaval. Being friday night we didn´t have much choice in accomodation at the last minute and ended up getting two singles rooms for the 4 of us with two of us sleeing on our camping mats. Next day carnaval began at 8 am with bands and dancers parading down the streets till 4am that night. The streets were lined with makeshift stands, rather than pay for them we wandered the crowds till we found a gap and could see for free, chatting to the locals and becoming prime targets for the locals who were throwing water balloons goodo and using cans of spray foam at close range. It wasn´t long before we got armed with a few plastic bags of water balloons and gave as good as we got, and the locals were in such good form they didn´t mind standing beside such prime targets and getting caught in the cross fire. The sun was out so we´d dry off easily and didn´t bother buying plastic capes most gringos wore. The water fights were great fun, thought the kids with massive water pistols did out gun us a few times we´d still manage to duck into the crowd. God help the gringo that ran out of water balloons as they´d show no mercy.
Later that night we managed to sneak into the main square and got invited into the vip section of the stands by some young Bolivians. It was great fun drinking beer and having a laugh with the Bolivians as the best bands paraded past.
One day of carnaval was enough for us really, next day the place reeked of urine, the streets had loads of excrement on them and by the afternoon of the second day a lot of the locals were wasted. We were hungover and Dave was sick with a stomach bug he´d caught from street food the day before. We stayed an extra day to recover then leaving Dave to catch a bus to La Paz Tom Paul and I cycled out the boringly flat road to La Paz. We made la Paz in 3 days, all of us feeling a bit tired and only doing about 80km a day average.
La Paz
La Paz was synonymous with excess. Lots of gringo tourists over indulging, not a whole pile to see in the city and more of a rest stop for us cyclists.
Saying that the wild rover hostel was good craic, the bar was hopping for the Ireland vs England rugby match with faces painted, flags and bunting in both colours, the whole works. It was great to see Ireland win, even if we hadn´t insisted on our bet that the losing team carry the winners tent´s on their bike to Cuzco, the two English lads would have been getting a rough deal with our monster tent!
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Pedalling over the andes
When we mentioned we were cycling the length of the Andes, I think it was our flatmate Pat Mc Garry who was quick to point out that there was the small matter of the andes mountains to deal with. No problem Pat, it´s been done already we said, all very well saying that in the comforts of Galway city in June but actually crossing the andes in the heat of a Chilean summer was going to be hard work.
We left Santiago after spending far too much time there. It had been our hub for leaving the bikes, meeting our visitors and travelling, don't get me wrong, we´d enjoyed the city, it´s very safe, has great transport and lots to see but we just needed to get on the road again. Like Buenos Aires we´d had enough of city.
One disappointing thing about the city was our hostel, Newen Kara. Despite being clean and quite comfortable we found we were being charged more than other guests in our last few days there despite all the business we´d put through the place. I guess we´d trusted them a bit too much.
So we hit the road out of the city early in the morning to avoid the heat of the day, trying to avoid any dual carriage ways or tunnels and using a bit of guesstimation to find the road out of town. Eventually traffic on the secondary roads was too bad, the tight roads and impatient commuters forced us onto the dual carriage way where there was more space in the hard shoulder. To reach our goal for the day, the small town of Los Andes we had to climb 800 metres in the baking heat of the day through desert like scrub land. We had to get a lift in a pickup through a 3km road tunnel before enjoying some well deserved downhill into town. In town later we met lots of other cyclists, even meeting a dutch coupe who we´d met cycling the opposite direction on the Carretera Austral. Great to chat to others doing the same thing but we´d met so many and spent so long talking that we were famished by the time we got digs for the night and settled into some steaks.
Next day, taking the advice of the jovial character who ran the Los Andes tourist office we cycled 44 km out of town to the last free camping spot before the steep hills and the border; a nice restaurant owner let us camp under some willow trees by some ponds he kept trout and ducks in for the restaurant. As we sat in the shade having a beer we saw some other passing cyclists and hailed them in. We filled the campsite with Rob, an American who´d just cycled the Atacama and had the rasher like ears to prove it, and Alex and Lauren with their two kids behind their bikes in trailers. I guess you meet lots of people cycling who are doing more extreme stuff than you are but towing a 2 and 3 year old for the entire holiday was my idea of hell. It seemed like Alex and Lauren were well up for it, they´d done 7 weeks in Australia and New Zealand already.
Next day we hit the uphill again and started to really climb, the vegetation on the hills disappeared and the air got thinner as we passed the 2000m mark. The the remains of the trans Andean railway, built in the early 20th century snaked alongside the road, disappearing into impossible tunnels and re appearing again from the rock. Its a real pity the railway is in poor repair as it would make one of the most spectacular rail journeys in the world. The road too, had it´s quirks, where the road ran close to the hillsides and the scree tumbled down there were covered sections or tunnels with open sides. Not so much space in these so we had to turn our lights on and try time it so we didn´t end up int here the same time as the trucks.
By midday we reached the series of 29 hairpin bends, by the top we´d climbed another 800 metres or so.
The road there had no crash barriers so was notorious for accidents. Also the traffic was heavy with lots of buses and lorries crossing the border and using all of the road on the hairpins. Still, despite the hard work it was fun cycling with the Argentines hooting their horns and cheering us on up the hill.
By late afternoon we reached the Chilean customs post and stopped to have a packet of biscuits and shoot the breeze with the Chilean border police. The border post was a desolate place, lots of rubbish being blown about a grey valley where cars normally had to queue for 4 hours to cross the border. We´d had to do the same with our jeep at new years so it was good to be able to relax and then just cycle on.
By the time we reached the tunnel at the top of the pass we´d really started to feel the altitude, it was an odd kind of tiredness, I wasn´t out of breath but just felt sleepy and lazy.
After the road company gave us a lift throughthe 6km tunnel we crossed into argentina and the scenery changed. Apart from the fact that we were at 3200m and the road stretch downhill ahead of us the valleys were more colourful, lots of red sand, green hillsides and copper ore lying exposed made the argentine side of the pass more spectacular.
We´d been so intent on crossing the pass that only then did we realise that it was 4pm and we´d only eaten a few packets of biscuits since 9am. So we stopped at the first place serving food and made short work of two helpings of a buffet dinner, much to the amusement of the woman runing the restaurant.
After the feed we freewheeled into the first town, Punta del Inca, stopping on the way to take some photos in front of Aconcagua, South America´s tallest mountain.
It´s probalby oneof my bigger regrets that we didn´t stop to hike someof the mountain, but at this stage we´ve had to ditch a lot of our hiking gear so we gave it a miss. So hard to fit everything in and I guess we could always fly in for an attempt at the summit proper as it´s not a technically difficult summit.
Next day we cycled to uspallata, having a late morning and lazy lunch and taking lots of photos along the way. Lots of the villagers kept mules to help mountain expeditions so we´d see trains of them trotting along on their own accord with packs of colourful bags on their backs, funny animals as they were always in a rush on the inbound leg home. The valleys became dryer and hotter on the way down and the cool breeze we´d had at the top was no where to cool the baking heat, so the days cycling was sweaty, hot going. After a steak we wild camped in the wood outside uspallata before hitting the road to mendoza the next day. Thankfully a cold front was coming in and the dead, 35 degree heat was cooled by a few oddly enjoyable rain showers. For lunch we called into a pistachio farm for water and were given a bag of fresh pistachios, fresh off the tree by the friendly Argentines.
After lunch we pushed off toward Mendoza passing through the wine areas. We´d both been on wine tours during our Christmas break but I´d had the idea of dropping into a winery while passing on the bikes so we ended up taking a free tour and tasting at the weinert winery. Have to say I was more impressed by the Ruca Malen winery I´d visited as the wines we´d tasted there was better and it seemed well run. Weinert was an older winery and looked a bit poorly run and dirty by comparison. For anyone reading at home you should try some of the argentine Malbec wines, it´s their speciality and tastes quite good.
We arrived into town and found a Hostel before heading out for a well deserved steak. Paul had been to a really good steakhouse when he´d visited with Emily so we took a taxi there and despite being the first customers of the evening we were treated to the best steak of my life.
It was 2 inches thick and perfectly cooked, really juicy with the charred taste of the barbecue off it. After 130 kms of cycling we´d had a long day and the steaks nearly put us to sleep.
We took a rest day in the Mendoza hostel, went to a Pizza party and hung out with the others staying at the hostel.
Of all the legs on the trip this was the most scenic and took the least effort to get there. Of anyone thinking of doing this you could easily fly into Santiago,cycle over to Mendoza and see the area then get a bus back, two weeks would make for a good cycling holiday among some sublime scenery.
Right now we´re in Salta, northwest Argentina and we´re headed for Bolivia. After all the days in well stocked towns we´re looking forward to the challenge of poorer Bolivia and the altitude of the Altiplano. Our wallets could certainly do with the break!
We left Santiago after spending far too much time there. It had been our hub for leaving the bikes, meeting our visitors and travelling, don't get me wrong, we´d enjoyed the city, it´s very safe, has great transport and lots to see but we just needed to get on the road again. Like Buenos Aires we´d had enough of city.
One disappointing thing about the city was our hostel, Newen Kara. Despite being clean and quite comfortable we found we were being charged more than other guests in our last few days there despite all the business we´d put through the place. I guess we´d trusted them a bit too much.
So we hit the road out of the city early in the morning to avoid the heat of the day, trying to avoid any dual carriage ways or tunnels and using a bit of guesstimation to find the road out of town. Eventually traffic on the secondary roads was too bad, the tight roads and impatient commuters forced us onto the dual carriage way where there was more space in the hard shoulder. To reach our goal for the day, the small town of Los Andes we had to climb 800 metres in the baking heat of the day through desert like scrub land. We had to get a lift in a pickup through a 3km road tunnel before enjoying some well deserved downhill into town. In town later we met lots of other cyclists, even meeting a dutch coupe who we´d met cycling the opposite direction on the Carretera Austral. Great to chat to others doing the same thing but we´d met so many and spent so long talking that we were famished by the time we got digs for the night and settled into some steaks.
Next day, taking the advice of the jovial character who ran the Los Andes tourist office we cycled 44 km out of town to the last free camping spot before the steep hills and the border; a nice restaurant owner let us camp under some willow trees by some ponds he kept trout and ducks in for the restaurant. As we sat in the shade having a beer we saw some other passing cyclists and hailed them in. We filled the campsite with Rob, an American who´d just cycled the Atacama and had the rasher like ears to prove it, and Alex and Lauren with their two kids behind their bikes in trailers. I guess you meet lots of people cycling who are doing more extreme stuff than you are but towing a 2 and 3 year old for the entire holiday was my idea of hell. It seemed like Alex and Lauren were well up for it, they´d done 7 weeks in Australia and New Zealand already.
Next day we hit the uphill again and started to really climb, the vegetation on the hills disappeared and the air got thinner as we passed the 2000m mark. The the remains of the trans Andean railway, built in the early 20th century snaked alongside the road, disappearing into impossible tunnels and re appearing again from the rock. Its a real pity the railway is in poor repair as it would make one of the most spectacular rail journeys in the world. The road too, had it´s quirks, where the road ran close to the hillsides and the scree tumbled down there were covered sections or tunnels with open sides. Not so much space in these so we had to turn our lights on and try time it so we didn´t end up int here the same time as the trucks.
By midday we reached the series of 29 hairpin bends, by the top we´d climbed another 800 metres or so.
The road there had no crash barriers so was notorious for accidents. Also the traffic was heavy with lots of buses and lorries crossing the border and using all of the road on the hairpins. Still, despite the hard work it was fun cycling with the Argentines hooting their horns and cheering us on up the hill. By late afternoon we reached the Chilean customs post and stopped to have a packet of biscuits and shoot the breeze with the Chilean border police. The border post was a desolate place, lots of rubbish being blown about a grey valley where cars normally had to queue for 4 hours to cross the border. We´d had to do the same with our jeep at new years so it was good to be able to relax and then just cycle on.
By the time we reached the tunnel at the top of the pass we´d really started to feel the altitude, it was an odd kind of tiredness, I wasn´t out of breath but just felt sleepy and lazy.
After the road company gave us a lift throughthe 6km tunnel we crossed into argentina and the scenery changed. Apart from the fact that we were at 3200m and the road stretch downhill ahead of us the valleys were more colourful, lots of red sand, green hillsides and copper ore lying exposed made the argentine side of the pass more spectacular.
We´d been so intent on crossing the pass that only then did we realise that it was 4pm and we´d only eaten a few packets of biscuits since 9am. So we stopped at the first place serving food and made short work of two helpings of a buffet dinner, much to the amusement of the woman runing the restaurant.
After the feed we freewheeled into the first town, Punta del Inca, stopping on the way to take some photos in front of Aconcagua, South America´s tallest mountain.
It´s probalby oneof my bigger regrets that we didn´t stop to hike someof the mountain, but at this stage we´ve had to ditch a lot of our hiking gear so we gave it a miss. So hard to fit everything in and I guess we could always fly in for an attempt at the summit proper as it´s not a technically difficult summit.
Next day we cycled to uspallata, having a late morning and lazy lunch and taking lots of photos along the way. Lots of the villagers kept mules to help mountain expeditions so we´d see trains of them trotting along on their own accord with packs of colourful bags on their backs, funny animals as they were always in a rush on the inbound leg home. The valleys became dryer and hotter on the way down and the cool breeze we´d had at the top was no where to cool the baking heat, so the days cycling was sweaty, hot going. After a steak we wild camped in the wood outside uspallata before hitting the road to mendoza the next day. Thankfully a cold front was coming in and the dead, 35 degree heat was cooled by a few oddly enjoyable rain showers. For lunch we called into a pistachio farm for water and were given a bag of fresh pistachios, fresh off the tree by the friendly Argentines.
After lunch we pushed off toward Mendoza passing through the wine areas. We´d both been on wine tours during our Christmas break but I´d had the idea of dropping into a winery while passing on the bikes so we ended up taking a free tour and tasting at the weinert winery. Have to say I was more impressed by the Ruca Malen winery I´d visited as the wines we´d tasted there was better and it seemed well run. Weinert was an older winery and looked a bit poorly run and dirty by comparison. For anyone reading at home you should try some of the argentine Malbec wines, it´s their speciality and tastes quite good.
We arrived into town and found a Hostel before heading out for a well deserved steak. Paul had been to a really good steakhouse when he´d visited with Emily so we took a taxi there and despite being the first customers of the evening we were treated to the best steak of my life.
It was 2 inches thick and perfectly cooked, really juicy with the charred taste of the barbecue off it. After 130 kms of cycling we´d had a long day and the steaks nearly put us to sleep.We took a rest day in the Mendoza hostel, went to a Pizza party and hung out with the others staying at the hostel.
Of all the legs on the trip this was the most scenic and took the least effort to get there. Of anyone thinking of doing this you could easily fly into Santiago,cycle over to Mendoza and see the area then get a bus back, two weeks would make for a good cycling holiday among some sublime scenery.
Right now we´re in Salta, northwest Argentina and we´re headed for Bolivia. After all the days in well stocked towns we´re looking forward to the challenge of poorer Bolivia and the altitude of the Altiplano. Our wallets could certainly do with the break!
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