Leg 5: San Juan to Mendoza

After asking about the road between San Juan and Mendoza we were told that it was pretty much a major transport route with occasional sections of dual carriageway, so we opted to stick the bikes on a bus for this 160km section. Not ideal because we don't want to miss any sections (and the bus companies treat your bikes like rubbish) but it does have the benefit of allowing us to be in our intended destination for Christmas; the decision to remain in Salta for Spanish classes spoilt our chances of cycling all the way to Mendoza before the 24th.

We will try to make up the 'missing' 160km with side-trips during later stages.

Leg 4: Chilecito to San Juan

We'd heard a lot about the next section and we had seriously considered catching a bus because it crosses the Andes precordillera at a height of 2200m via quite a steep, winding, unpaved road. People did however describe it as absolutely beautiful and worth seeing by bike so we decided to cycle it, with the expectation that we would have to camp in the mountains overnight. The day didn't start well, with the longest climb yet; 35km of uphill with not even a single dip or flat section ... just climbing. This sounds rubbish and is horrendous in practice. Coincidentally this was also the hottest day yet and we saw that the temperature had reached 39 degrees at 10 in the morning. By 2pm it was at least in the mid 40's. Pardon my French, but the term 'pissing sweat' is best for describing the sensation of watching water literally pouring out of your forearms and face. It was whilst we were tired and heat-dizzy that we saw a tarantula-like spider on the road. About 6 inches accross, black, furry like a mouse, and recently cycled-over (don't mess with cyclists!). We asked the lady in the next house if she knew about them and she simply said 'Si. Son peligroso' (yes, they're dangerous). We didn't say anything and there was an awkward silence so she expanded by giving the advice not to upset them and we should be fine. We don't know spider etiquette so we considered ourselves to be 'not fine'.
The route turned out to be absolutely spectacular with lots of winding turns, looking down sheer rock walls into a deep river valley below. We reached the top by 2pm and, after a chat with a local paying his respects to one of the road-side shrines, we set off downhill for a long long descent through miniature 'Grand Canyon-esque' red rock formations, cactus forests, and hot hillsides dotted with ponies. 35km later, at the bottom, we managed to find the energy for another 40km accross the desert to reach the next town of Villa Union. We had intended to organise a trip to the national parks of Ischigualasto and Talampaya from here but the townsfolk wouldn't budge from their extortionate prices to get us there. We even tried haggling in Spanish (comical) but they really would rather have no work than lower the price. Dinosaur footprints will have to wait until we get to Patagonia. We had dinner with a couple of Italian motorcycle tourers that had passed us earlier and they told us all about their trip. Catherine wishes she had a motorbike. I still wish I had the hover-board from Back to The Future 2.
That night we stayed in a Cabaña just outside town and watched a thunderhead roll in before it exploded into an amazing lightning show, striking the fields all around.

The following morning saw a long stretch of featureless desert ahead; about 130km with just 1 town quite early on. We were 85km in to the day, making good progress (but wondering why we were passing so many dead horses), when a campervan pulled up and a Swiss family asked if we'd like a lift out of the desert to a small town in the mountains called Iglesias. We decided that it didn't seem like cheating because they were going to drop us off about the same distance away from our goal ... just higher up in the mountains where we could take a break from the heat. Their van, bought in Santiago and modified over the course of 18 months on the road, managed to fit us and the bikes with no real problem so one minute we were sweating away in the desert, and the next we were in an air-conditioned bubble watching the roadside km markers fly by. The best bit however was when Dario (3) threw up on Catherine in the back of the van and we all had to stop whilst they cleaned her down. Seeing sick makes me feel queasy so I just walked away a bit and admired the wonderful view.

We left early in the morning to make the most of the cooler mountain temperatures, as we had another mountain pass to cross, this time about 3000m high. Again, it took all morning to climb to the top so we began the descent in the afternoon and Catheirne noted on the bike computer that she had covered 24km without pedalling - an amazing feeling. After 115km we had to stop for the night at Talocasta. On our map of Argentina, Talocasta is marked with a symbol representing small towns, but it turned out to be a kiosk. The man in the kiosk seemed chuffed when we named him the mayor of Talocasta. There was a spooky desert ghost town nearby with a series of roofless, windowless buildings, so we camped there for the shade (still no trees). Contrary to everything I thought I knew about the desert, the temperature here doesn't drop below the high 20's at night, so we had a sleepless sweaty night, looking forward to being much further south where the temperature actually changes when the sun goes down.
San Juan was only about 60km from Talocasta so we arrived quite early the next day. The route in was not much fun because it's a major city surrounded by dual carriageways, but there was a nice big downhill on leaving the desert. I sped down ahead of Catherine and took a rest at the bottom by a tree, when a bird fell to the ground by my feet. When Catherine arrived I was eating a biscuit holding a bird.

Day 10: Chilecito to Villa Union - 110km
Day 11: Villa Union to Iglesia - 80km (before pick-up)
Day 12: Iglesia to Talocasta - 115km
Day 13 Talocasta to San Juan - 61km

Leg 3: Belen to Chilecito

The first day out of Belen saw our biggest day yet with a total distance of 114km. The road and weather conditions were perfect and we sailed through towns that we had originally planned to spend the night in. The highlight of the day has to have been seeing our first armadillo (crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside). It was in the middle of a long stretch of desert (90km between any sign of human habitation) with no traffic of any kind for hours and the moment he tries to cross he's nearly mown down by Catherine. No picture unfortunately because they're deceptively quick over short distances. We slept the first night in a shit tatty town called Schagui where the campsite contained ... another disco. The woman didn't even bother charging us this time (our faces the following morning suggested that she shouldn't bother anyway).

We thought the following morning that we might just make it to Chilecito the next day because it was only 107km away, meaning we would have a day in hand. The weather wasn't with us unfortunately, so we had to stop just 26km short of town, in the desert again. This would be fine but we had passed through a nice little town called Pituil at lunch where they warned us about the snakes and scorpions that lived in the desert to the south. Their advice was simply to check your shoes in the morning, but I simply chose to let Catherine get up first. Having said this, the only animal contact we had all night was finding out that the desert ants had eaten the bar tape off the bikes! I hadn't considered being scared of the ants until this point.
It turned out that we had camped just 1km short of a monster downhill section so we had a great start to the day - nearly 10km without pedalling. Just as I was at terminal velocity (51.4km/hr according to the bike computer) a motorcycle pulled up alongside and began asking all sorts of questions about our trip. I'm always up for a chat but it's difficult to wrestle with your spanish at over 50km/hr with only a cycle helmet for protection, especially when your new friend is swerving around alongside, dodging the oncoming traffic. Nice man though and he wished us well.

We arrived into Chilecito pretty early the next day because of the short distance, but first impressions weren''t good; they burn the city's waste just north of town in huge bonfires by the side of the road, which means that you have to cycle slowly (it's a 5km uphill approach) through dense plumes of acrid smoke. The icing on the cake: whilst you're in the middle of the smoke, and you look to see what you're breathing in, you see dead dogs mixed in with the tyres. Fortunately the town of Chilecito was one of our favourites so far - set high in the mountains (our first sight of snow), they even have a Cristo Redentor overlooking the town just like Rio, and it's full of really friendly people. We even got ´sponsored´ by a body-building store who insisted that we take some trousers for the journey. I'd popped in for some electrolyte powder (we were fading fast without it), and they wouldn't let me leave without taking some pictures and giving me a 'gift' of some matching his-and-hers branded body building trousers. Keep checking the blog for some pictures of me and Catherine in matching orange and white 'harem pants' emblazoned with their jazzy 'Mega Sport Body Pump' logo.

Day 7: Belen to Schagui - 114km
Day 8: Schagui to Desert - 81km
Day 9: Desert to Chilecito - 26km

Leg 2: Cafayete to Belen

We felt great leaving Cafayete because we'd had our first rest day, our first proper meals, and Catherine had agreed to be my wife (therefore I figured I had about 10 day's grace with no arguments). The sun was shining, the road was paved, gently undulating and mostly downhill, and we cycled through mile after mile of vineyards. We even saw a 'wild' dachshund in the desert. The whole day was pretty much perfect and we arrived into Santa Maria looking forward to enjoying the hospitality of 'some of the friendliest people in all of Argentina' (Lonely Planet). We've never, before or since, seen such a glum, humourless bunch. The campsite followed in the Argentine tradition of making sure that kids have no bedtime and that a sizeable disco is situated in the centre of the camping area. We got little to no sleep because of the pounding bass and because of the kids constantly tripping over the guy ropes. We were the only tent there, so maybe we souldn't have been camping in their disco? On the positive side, we were joined for dinner by a mum and her pups who flawlessly executed the age-old 'distract-and-steal' scam on Catherine.


On the second day we left for Nascimientos, and saw straight roads for the first time. Very straight roads, with not even a kink for more than 30km at a time. This gives the sensation that you are on a fixed training bike in a gymn, with nothing but a painting of an endless road to stare at. We also discovered that wind is the 'new sand' and a headwind can slow your pace to a crawl even on a downhill section. We need to get used to this because we have heard from people travelling the other way, to expect winds of up to 120km per hour in the south. Because of the wind, and the road deteriorating into ripio again, we didn't make it as far as we hoped so had to camp in the desert again, but we found a lovely sheltered spot beneath some mountains and the following sunrise was spectacular.

The desert is not the most comfortable bedroom but the complete silence allows the soundest sleep. We set off refreshed in the morning and covered more ground in the first couple of hours than we had in twice the time during the previous afternoon. We passed through the small vineyard pueblo of Hualfin where we held our first Spanish 'conversation' with a chatty local. This was significant for us because we realised that we're finally capable of holding a reasonable conversation, albeit as long as we don't deviate from the topic of road conditions and weather. We arrived into the small town of Belen via a winding road that cuts through a deep gorge (this is worth mentioning if you've just cycled through 270km of flat desert). Belen is a nice town with a sociable town square full of families eating and drinking until the small hours. Checking our bikes over for the first time, we found that my bike had suffered the first injury with a broken rear spoke (drive side of course, to make it more complicated). When changing the spoke I noticed that a tooth on the cassette was also bent, so I took it to a local bike repair shop (literally a man with a hammer and a vice), and he whacked it back into shape. It works fine now and I am learning to be much less precious about the bike.

Day 4: Cafayete to Santa Maria - 78km
Day 5: Santa Maria to Nascimientos - 89km
Day 6: Nascimientos to Belen - 86km

Words Are Boring

Sorry, not too many pictures on the blog of late. We´re having real difficulty in finding anywhere with a connection fast enough to handle the photos in batches, or without a bloody korean who hits 'cancel' on your upload window and then swears they didn't. We will have to update previous blogs with photos and hyperlinks when we get a chance.

Oh Dear

Through a combination of the effects of my malaria medication and the altitude, I asked Catherine to marry me last night, and she said 'yes'. This makes me (and hopefully her) very happy. For those that are interested in such things, it was on the steps of the beautiful church in the town square in Cafayate, on a very warm late-spring evening. I had an ice cream in my hand. Just when we though that nothing could spoil the moment, a puppy threw up on the steps right behind us (Catherine had given it some of her cone).

We've both learnt something valuable here: Don´t take medication at altitude, and there must be some other sort of dog-friendly ice cream cones on the market, the same as with chocolate.

Leg 1: Cachi to Cafayete

It took three long, hot, tough days, but we are ecstatic at having completed the first 160 km! Joking aside, we knew that cycling through the desert would be remote, hot, dusty etc, but we were surprised by how difficult some of the terrain was, especially as this is at the very start of the journey and we've spent more time eating empanadas than cycling of late. The Ruta40 here is no more that a dirt track with no public transport, and there is a section that is only really accessible with a 4x4 due to the deep sand. Cycling a bike that weighs about 55kg up and down hills covered in sand up to a foot deep, is like running up and down a sand dune all day with a jockey on your back. In the desert sun. Incidentally, we learned something new here: when you've finally pushed your bike up a hill for half an hour, through deep sand, there is no rewarding free-wheeling descent on the other side. You actually have to push your bike downhill again. Worth remembering. It wasn't all soft sand though. Sometimes we had corrugated hard sand, and sometimes, gravel. There were some occasional blessed strecthes of rock, but mainly it was a combination of the other 3. 25km prior to Cafayate however, an asphalt road appeared out of the sand. We were unbeliveably happy. The map tells us that we should have covered road for quite some time now so we expect more km/day from now on (and less tears)!

Dogs were also a feature. We occasionally passed an iosolated adobe house from which one (or several) semi-wild dogs would launch an attack and sprint after us. We can't cycle faster than dogs can run so the only two options are to keep going anyway and have them continue to circle you barking and growling, or as we later learned, dismount. Just getting off the bike seems to change their mood and they often just walk off. Some even start wagging their tails and start licking your legs (a bit unnerving given that the main breeds here are Alsations, Rhodesian ridgebacks, and some sort of Rottweiler crosses). Occasionally an 'owner' will come out and smack them which just makes you feel guilty.

Having said all of this we were prepared for this stretch to be one of the more difficult sections, so we managed to still really enjoy it, mainly because of the otherworldly scenery. The rock formations, the lonely stretches of track where you can see that you're the only people for miles, witnessing every colourful sunset (and sunrise), even the animals sniffing round your tent at night(!) ... all made this an unforgettable trip. This was also our first chance to try out wild camping in the desert. This will eventually become more and more common for us as it's free and practical, we can't easily plan to be in a particular place for nightfall each day. In this case, after lots of marching around checking the angle of the sun, where might get flooded during a sudden downpour, testing vegetation for signs of animal presence etc, we settled for a nice shady spot ... under a nest of bees. We may even learn to prefer wild camping as on our first night we camped in a small village called Molinos where the only entertainment was a 'babyfoot' table next to our tent - quite annoying trying to sleep with the rattle and screams of kids with no discernable bedtime. (Incidentally, yes Argentine table football figures do have hands as well as feet)

We're now in Cafayete, Argentina´s second largest centre for producing wine, although the town itself has a population of just 10,000. The whole valley is just vineyards dotted with huge etsates. They even make Torrontes and Malbec wine ice cream here which is delicious! We'll have a day of rest tomorrow and then get going south again on Friday.

Day 1: Cachi to Molinos - 50km
Day 2: Molinos to nr. Angastaco- 50km
Day 3: nr. Angastaco to Cafayete - 61km

Cachi and the Last Supper

Spanish classes are now over and we realise that the knowledge imparted by Graciela is of the disappearing ink variety (ie: as soon as you pay her, you forget everything). If in doubt, mime.

We have to begin cycling at some point so we stocked up on supplies at the supermarket and caught a bus to Cachi, a beautiful little village high in the mountains above Salta as our launch point. This wasn't the type of coach that Argentina is famous for, with fully reclining seats and wine and steak served at your seat, this was the chicken-on-your-lap, let's keep picking up more people even though we're three-to-a-seat, 'no, your bikes will have to balance on the roof' type of bus (some people paid the driver in plants instead of money?!) Once the passengers had thinned out to about a hundred, mostly being dropped off seemingly in the middle of a desert with no signs of habitation for miles in any direction, we could see through the windows, and the journey was spectacular. It passes through the Las Cordones national park, famous for it's amazing candelabra-shaped cacti, some up to 9m high and nearly a thousand years old. It was also our first glimpse of the terrain that we'd be cycling through on our first leg. Hundreds of kilometers of desert.

We chose Cachi because it is roughly at the northernmost (bike-accessible) point of the Ruta40, the single road that continues all the way to the Antarctic ocean, but also because it's high ... the theory is that our trip will mostly be downhill. It's a picture-postcard sleepy little village, high in the desert, with cobbled streets and raised walkways, supposedly a bit similar to Cuzco (albeit on a much smaller scale). We camped for the first time here, to test the tent, stove, filter etc before we got too far from civilization, and everything seemed to work fine. Apart from our cooking skills. We begin the journey tomorrow morning.

'Mi nombre es Phil'

Back in Salta, after returning from San Pedro, and have decided to delay the start of the cycling so that we can learn a bit of Spanish. Only knowing how to order a beer and then ask where the toilets are is a bit limiting, (although as they said in the Lion King ... that´s the circle of life). We didn´t find time to do it back in London (and it's obviously cheaper here), so we´ve enrolled at a local school, to be taught by Graciela and Carmen. It really is like being at school again because they´re quite strict and they keep giving us homework ... which we did drunk last night (Carmen not happy).

Going well so far but we're not convinced that knowing how to say 'the toothpaste is behind the talc, but on top of the perfume' will help us talk our way out of a tight situation on the road.

Hasta luego.

Uyuuni Salt Flats, Bolivia

We´ve just returned from a 4x4 tour of the the salt flats and high deserts in Bolivia, and we can´t descrive how beautiful it all was. The scenery really is from another world with a mixture of barren desert dotted with llamas, bubbling geysers and hot springs, multi-coloured poisonous lagoons filled with flamingos, active volcanoes, 200km-wide salt flats, and terrible food. Check out the pictures that can do the place more justice than we can here.

Much of the trip took place between 4000 -5000 metres, and we were both lucky enough to not suffer from any altitude sickness, although the first time we tried to run anywhere (out of character, I know), we were left gasping for air. Simple actions like bending to tie shoelaces, getting in and out of the jeep, or chasing llamas ... really took their toll.

The salt flat itself was really a high light and we had to take the obligatory 'look, I'm standing on my friend' pictures. Here´s Catherine eating the jeep:


We were also grateful to have shared the tour with some amazing people, as we had imagined the worst and presumed that it would be more like an international 4 wheel-drive Club 18-30 holiday.