2toTango

kms this post: 800

kms so far: 23, 800

Hello from the Mendoza, wine capital of Argentina!

The time and the kilometers are passing by quickly now as we inch our way down the map a little bit every day. Since our last post, we’ve been working our way down the east side of the Andes on highway 40. That has translated into lots of flat riding through long stretches of desert, interspersed with a few climbs through the foothills. There are some loney pieces of road out here, but every one eventually leads to a welcoming town or city with plenty of nice people, shady parks, and tasty (cheap!!) wine.

In the context of long desert stretches, I have a confession to make. MP3 player: I love you. You have made our lives infinitely better.

I also have a comment to pass to the eons of evolution that have preceded our passing. Desert plants: your adaptations are very effective against passive pedal bikers.

 

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On the latter point about the spikey desert plants, this has been a most record breaking stretch for us. Our previous “best” for flat tires was 4 in one day in southern Bolivia. At the time that seemed quite impressive. However, last week we shattered that day with a whopping 7 punctures in 24 hours when heading over the Cuesta de Miranda west of Nonogasta. Not willing to let the dream die, we managed 7 more over the next 2 days. At 200 mini-pumps a piece, that’s almost 1,000 pumps per day for 3 days straight. Finally,some good cross training for our pewny T-Rex arms.

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The main reason for the flurry of flats is that almost every plant out here has approximately one million trillion thorns. Every time we exit the highway, we run a big risk of running one over. The 7 flat day was primarily because we pulled off the road onto a semi-informal roadside camping area only to realize afterward that the whole (seemingly clear) 100 yard stretch we rode across was literally covered with little bits of thorny branches that the local goat herd had chewed and left to lie in wait for future passers by.

The next morning (after patching a flat, naturally) we spent a couple of kilometers pedaling across the landscape and discussing the number of potential flat tires suspended in the great expanse around us. First, we aimed high and estimated maybe it was close to the number of stars in a galaxy. Then, we aimed low and thought perhaps it was merely a crapload. As in most scientific estimations, the truth probably lies somewhere in between.

Erin even got a flat tire

Apart from punctures, and a considerable amount of headwind, Argentina has been quite enjoyable and relatively easy in comparison with the rest of the Americas. Grocery stores are well-stocked and town parks give us a chance to relax in the shade and chat with the remarkably friendly Argentinians. Also, there is always good camping, either in a town park, or alongside the road somewhere. We even camped at a gas station once. They had a greenspace next door with picnic tables, and bathrooms WiFi, all offered free of charge.   Additionally, there are often improvised picnic tables on the side of the road where there is a nice shade tree, or a shrine for someone who has passed away, or a grotto for the much revered “Gauchito Gil.”  The infrastructure here is probably due to the incredible culture of camping travelers in Argentina, and our lifestyle seems completely normal to most folks we meet.

The tandem bicycle, however, continues to amaze our fellow humans. Lots of folks stop to take pictures and kids often ask if they can climb on and pose for their parents. All that’s great and pretty normal for us, but we did witness a new high for tandem love when we arrived in Mendoza. While sitting down to have a tasty beer, we watched a drunk guy wander over by our bike, take a look around and give it a big fat hug before moving on down the sidewalk. I cannot think of a more earnest display of affection for a pedal bicycle. If only I could have been quick on the draw with the camera….

 

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The city of Mendoza, site of the hug, is remarkably beautiful and famous for trapping cyclists en route to the south (our cyclist friends Erich and Laura with whom we rode in Panama warned us that it’s impossible to leave here!). The streets and sidewalks are all very wide and absolutely filled with trees. Many streets actually run their course under a complete canopy of leaves. Under those trees are hundreds of open air restaurants where people hang out to drink tea, or more likely wine, and eat some incredibly tasty and varied food. We just went out once, but we got homemade pasta, an excellent bottle of wine, and a chocolate mousse for dessert for $30. We could get used to that.

Most things here are quite a good value compared to US prices, but we have managed to spend what for us is a small fortune in the past 3 days. We’re treating this as a kind of vacation from biking before one more long push to the end. This is the point where we have decided to take a bus. So, we are going to make the jump to light speed on an overnight bus and end up in Bariloche tomorrow. From there, we’ll skirt the Andes for a few hundred kms on the Argentinean side before crossing over to Chile and riding the famous Carretera Austral (southern highway). It promises to be a return to the kind of remote biking and lush forests that we haven’t experienced since southern British Columbia. So we are eating some good food and enjoying the city life before heading out to the woods to ride, camp, and not take showers. Life is good!

Until Patagonia…

Biker notes:
-about 10kms south of Belen is Londres, where there is a wonderful free campsite (complete with a pool filled with cold natural spring water) that we heard about afterward. Apparently, it’s a good place to get stuck. Londres has plenty of stores.
-There’s a long stretch of desert before Chilicito (~70km) with no services. Fill up your water bottles in San blas de los Sauces.
-Villa Union has a YPF gas station where you can camp for free.
-Guandacol has free camping at the town entrance, 1km off ruta 40.
-Mendoza is a bit spendy, but great. We stayed at Hostal Itaka at 480 Vllanueva (west of the center). Very nice and helpful folks 150 pesos for a double room. Restaurant 390 (tres con noventa) across the street is excellent and totally reasonable. Go there.
-As a second warning, be very careful exiting the highway on this stretch. Crazy thorns, including goat heads.

kms this post: 750
kms so far: 22,000

Hello there from weird and wild southwest Bolivia. We´ve managed to just about cross this landlocked, cold, poor, desolate country from north to south since last post and are on the verge of crossing into Argentina.

let’s start with something tasty. The Saltena. it’s like a bolivian Pasty.

For many bikers that bike the Americas, this is their favorite country on the whole trip. It is so wild and unrefined with many wide open spaces and crazy natural phenomena. However, for a variety of reasons, Bolivia has been difficult for us. I think the main hitch is that we have had many disagreeable interactions with people. More, actually, than we have had in the entire rest of the trip. We got a really bad first impression with border officials that blew us off for 3 hours and then literally laughed in our faces for having to wait. From there, it seemed like every other person we met really didn´t want anything to do with us. That includes people whom we bought stuff from. A number of times we´d say thanks and the reply would be a nasty glance, a head shake, and a “for what?” So much for common courtesy. That kind of general manner repeated itself over and over for the first week or so that we were here. On 2 occasions the person at the hotel refused to give us our change untill we harassed them until they finally, begrudgingly gave in.

This all really affected our mood and hammers home exactly how important it is to be surrounded by kind people. We are pretty much of out here by ourselves sometimes, and the short interactions that we have with people have been really energizing throughout the trip. We´ve been spoiled with wonderfully warm and generous people on a consistent basis. Until Bolivia.

Some of this has to do with the fact that many Bolivians live a hard life. It´s the poorest country in South America, with aweful social services, education system, and infrastructure. On top of that, the areas that we have biked through have been always over 11,000 feet, cold, windy, dusty, and desolate. Shephards huddle tight in their blankets and hats. Towns are dingy with dust and trash blowing in the wind (there is an awful amount of trash here). This is not exactly a recipe for good cheer.

But it hasn´t been all bad. There is certainly a beauty to the high and cold places of the Bolivian Altiplano. The open expanses seem to go on forever and the sunrises and sunsets are incredible with this backdrop. The days are filled with the bluest skies we have ever seen. That will be our lasting memory from Bolivia: the incredible blue skies. Sometimes you have to blink and check your eyes to believe that those colors actually exist.

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And there is a certain chaotic vibrance to the larger towns and cities that we have passed through. We had to spend a day in LaPaz to buy a new camera, since I smartly decided to wash our previously functioning camera with my pants in the bathroom sink. Let me tell you, this is the wildest human jungle that we have ever experienced. The stores spill into the sidewalks and beyond, into the streets. Seemingly anyone can just throw down a tarp in the road and start selliing candy and toilet paper (bright pink TP in Bolivia!). People scurry about making purchases and ducking behind stalls as traffic comes speeding by, honking constantly at the sea of people in their path. I was doing just such a duck to narrowly avoid a minivan when I very slightly brushed up against a sweater that was hanging in the traffic lane. Wouldn´t you know, the woman in the makeshift store yelled at me to walk around her goods. I calmly peered back under her sweater and said, “it´s kind of hard, lady, your store is in the street.” She looked away and tried hard to ignore me. Ah, Bolivia.

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The southern part of the country has treated us fairly well. Potosí is an intriguing city because of it`s amazing history as one of the world´s most important mines. Spain pumped so much silver from here that people say you could build a bridge of silver from Bolivia to Spain with it´s riches. People in Spain still say “it´s a Potosí” when something is extremely fortunate or worth a lot of money. Unfortunately, you could probably also build a bridge across the Atlantic with the bodies of the literally hundreds of thousands of miners that have died, first as slaves and later as workers, in pursuit of fine metals.

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For some crazy reason, it is possible to tour the mines. We signed up for a tour and walked, crawled, and climbed deep into the mountain. It was a wild experience. There are huge holes and rickety homemade step ladders leading to small chambers where miners chip away for zinc, tin, and copper. We met one miner and chatted for a bit. He´s 40 and has been working in the mine 6 days a week for 29 years. do the math. I don´t know how they do it, but apparently their endurance has somthing to do with consuming incredible quantities of coca leaves, cigarettes, soda, and 96% (yes, percent, not proof) alcohol – it´s the same stuff that we burn in our stove. They also all worship an idol that they call “tio” (uncle) who is very devil like and loves the same vices as the miners. Offerings to Tio are frequent, as he is literally covered in coca leaves, cigarettes, and alcohol (see pics). It´s a strange world in there.

The other highlight for us has been the area around Uyuni. We took a nice little pedal out on the famous salt flat (salar de uyuni). It was a surreal experience to crunch along the salt surface and take some pictures where distance is skewed from the lack of contrast and beaming sun from all directions. The roads to get to the salar are famously bad, and we definitely had our challenges in doing the 25kms in each direction. Actually the road is so bad that no cars go on it. they all wind through the desert and ancient corals on jeep paths that vaguely parallel the road. It took us 5 kms or so to figure that out, but even after we found our way to the paths, we got marooned a few times in deep sand and even crashed twice when the surface gave way beneath our heavy tandem tires (first crashes since Guatemala!).

In other, more global news, our trip has officially headed into it´s final phase (though there will be many chapters yet). We have purchased our flights home to be home for the holidays. That´s only like 11 weeks away. It involves some compromises in terms of what we do from here on out, but we were both feeling like it is the right move for us. We won´t be able to do the famous (and famously difficult) lagunas route into Chile from here. Also, we are going to have to hitch a bus or two to make the distance more manageable. To start the push, we are going to catch a train from here to the Argentina border, 200kms south. From there, we´re going to ride hard in northern argentina and see what happens. Wish us luck!