Stage 2, Leg 5: Junin De Los Andes to Bariloche

The carnival (and beer and ice cream) took it's toll the next morning and we had our latest start yet for the short trip to San Martin De Los Andes. Fortunately, we covered the 44km in just 2 hours. San Martin is bigger and more up-market than Junin, a year-round mountain resort in the vein of Banff, and we were pleased to see many 'boaty-types' with pastel sweaters tied loosely about their necks in a jaunty fashion. It also has a beautiful swimming beach so we decided to stay for a day so that Catherine could top up her tan lines, and so that I could get whistled at by the lifeguard for swimming past the buoys, set 15ft from the beach. At night our luck continued as the town was hosting a street fair that night with more clowns (bigger in Argentina than one would think), open-air art galleries, free chocolate and liqueur tastings, and even those crappy speed-landscape 'artists' (à la Bob Ross).

Whilst in San Martin we also met Mike, another English cycle-tourer, whose journey was taking him north from Puerto Montt in Chile all the way to Peru. He had an exciting soundin job at Lockheed Martin, integrating weapons systems into military helicopters. The type of work that cannot be spoken about unless he kills you afterwards. Unfortunately we had a few drinks that day with Mike and he told us all about it, so we shall be looking over our shoulders from now on. Catherine has grown a moustache just in case.

After the rest day we began the much-anticipated Ruta De Los Siete Lagos, a semi-paved route through the mountains, linking a series of beautiful lakes, waterfalls, free campsites and hitch-hikers. This route is listed as a real 'must-do' in the guide books so we have been looking forward to it since the start of the trip. The route is 115km long so we split it into two days; the first being defined by the graceful ribbon of smooth tarmac winding between imposing mountains and deep blue lakes, the second being defined by the rutted and dusty ripio road, clogged up with an endless procession of camper vans and lorries ... only their headlights visible through the permanent dustcloud. The route as a whole was still worthwhile but we should have set off even earlier than 7am to beat the trafic on the second day. The best bit was the free campsite at Lago Faulkner, where we set up camp in the middle of an old forest on the shores of the lake. We lit a campfire, had dinner, and watched the fishermen as the sun set over the lake. Incidentally, another wild camp; another lesson learned (Ray Mears didn't cover this one): never put a campfire out be weeing on it. The fire doesn't go out, and the next day your hair still smells of hot wee. The hawks were back in large numbers too, the trees were full of them, and in the morning I caught them going through the belongings of some guys sleeping in the forest without a tent. Fools.


The 'Seven Lakes Route' is also a real favourite for domestic Argentine bike tourers, so we seem to have lost some (all) of our novelty status as we roll into a town or village or campsite. Even we're bored of them; whereas we used to stifle tears at the sight of another tourer, we can now barely be bothered to raise a hand as they go by.
After the disappointing ripio section, the drop out of the mountains into Villa La Angostura was spectacular. The descent crosses a high bridge over a river linking two huge lakes, and the town itself spills down a hill to a couple of lovely wooded bays facing the snow-capped Andes. Villa La Angostura is an even fancier resort than San Martin, and you pass a string of hill-top spa hotels on the way in. Even the campsite was a cut above, complete with marble sink tops and beaten-copper washbasins. Very La De Da.


The next morning we set off on the last leg of stage 2, an 85km nicely undulating route following the north and eastern shores of Lago Nahuel Huapi, finishing in Bariloche. At just over 2500km, it is the halfway marker for our trip. The ride was a beauty, surrounded by high mountains and always within spitting distance of the 100km-long deep blue lake, fringed with some amazing beaches. Whilst we had lunch we also met Hugo and Angel (note to self: good name for a cop show), a couple of Argentine bike tourers on holiday from Buenos Aires. Hugo was an odd guy, all teeth and ears, and covered in spandex and tattoos. He would punctuate the conversation by lifting a piece of clothing, exposing another tattoo that would illustrate or emphasize his point. Even as we cycled together for a while he would still be talking, wobbling about with a sleeve rolled up or a thigh exposed.

We'd heard mixed things about Bariloche; mostly bad, and mostly complaints that it's not a Swiss-styled jewell of the mountains, but a touristy moneypit, so when we rolled into the town square and saw gypsies asking for money to have your photo taken with St Bernard pups, the signs weren't good.

Day 28: Junin to San Martin De Los Andes - 44km
Day 29: San Martin to Lago Faulkner - 56km
Day 30: Lago Faulkner to Villa La Angostura - 58km
Day 31: Villa La Angostura to Bariolche - 85km

Volcan Lanin Trek

Junin is the gateway to Parque Nacional Lanin, famous for it's 3700m volcano complete with a perfect snow-capped cone. We decided that we'd trek the 25km up to the snow line and back before we moved on, and it was an amazing walk. It was another early start to catch the bus into the park, early enough to catch the hawks going through the rubbish bags outside our tent. I'd always considered these birds to be the majestic, fearsome scourge of the skies, but here they're just fancy-plumed bums that go through your bins at night.
The walk begins with a sign warning you of some nasty-looking yellow biting flies, saying that they can cause an allergic reaction. We assume that because neither of us are allergic to bees, we'll be fine. As it turned out, we didn't pay enough attention to the photo of the insect, and convinced ourselves that the yellow biting flies that carpeted our skin throughout most of the walk were the fatal kind, and spent a lot of the walk looking like we were at a silent disco. The walk winds through dense old-growth forest, bamboo and wild horses, past rivers and streams, before breaking the tree-line into high pastures and clear glacial streams that you can drink from. Just below the snow-line the ground is littered with pumice stone in oranges and reds, and black volcanic sand. We even walked for a while with a firewoman from Buenos Aires who had the appeal of looking similar to Angelina Jolie, but the unnerving quality of reminding us both of Sarah Connor from the Terminator. She very kindly offered to take us out in Buenos Aiores when we get there; We think her casual military attire, love of motorbikes (and long list of crash stories), and part time job as road-accident photographer for the fire department make her the most interesting prospect yet.


When we got back to Junin at around midnight, we walked straight into a Carnival procession, complete with dancers, floats and clowns. We're not sure what it was celebrating (bumper trout harvest?) but it was an amazing mixture of colour, humour and noise. Think Notting Hill Carnival without the attitude, gangs and stabbings. As ever, it was a family affair with kids and babies out well past 2am, mostly darting into the procession to cover the dancers in silly string. The party carried on long after we went back to the tent, catching a glimpse of guilty beaks as we passed the bins.

Pictures Pictures Pictures

As ever, more pictures will follow. It still takes a long time to upload as we go, and we're a bit behind, but I will be going back over some old posts to fill in the gaps. Not sure if this will reward a re-read of the posts(!) but it will brighten the blog up a bit. In the meantime here's a picture of a puppy:

Stage 2, leg 4: Lago Aluminé to Junin de los Andes

A few more sad goodbyes marked our departure from the campsite in the morning, and left us reflecting about how so much of our experience is down to pure luck. I'm not sure every set of neighbours could have been so freindly, and would have shared the same sense of humour about so many things? We circled the north and eastern shores of the lake for about 18km, passing the wooden cabins of the Mapuche people that populate the area, until we met the start of the rio Aluminé. This is a big river for both trout fishing and white water rafting; a bad mix I imagine? The scenery becomes even more alpine hereafter, complete with log cabins, and we could have almost been in the south of France approaching the Alps. This is also dairy and honey country, and it was lovely passing along lavendar-fringed roads, through shallow valleys full of farmsteads selling fresh honey, chocolate, cherries and cheese. The novelty wore off after being hit in the face by the millionth bee. It was easy to pick a perfect spot by the river to camp because they were everywhere. We settled on a secluded spot away from the road, shaded by birch trees, and with it's own 'private' sandy beach leading down to the crystal clear water. It'll take something special to top this as 'wild camp spot of the holiday'!

Unfortunately the following day was marked by long hot climbs over heavily corrugated dirt roads. We even left the river behind for most of the day. We did however bump into a couple of French cycle-tourers heading north, picking wild cherries by the side of the road. We were doing more or less the same trip in opposite directions so we swapped stories, and they warned us about the same isues as the Swiss couple; rising costs and limited availability of beds and campsites in Patagonia. They did at least say that it was breath-takingly spectacular and well worth the effort. We rolled into Junin de los Andes, absolutely knackered after 75 km of some of the worst roads we've bounced along; enough to numb your hands for hours. Mysteriously pork ribs and wine cure this condition.

Day 26: Villa Pehuenia to Rio Aluminé - 90km
Day 27: Rio Aluminé to Junin de los Andes - 75km

Stage 2, leg 3: Chos Malal to Villa Pehuenia

We had long since looked at the stretch between Chos Malal and Las Lajas and wondered what it would be like; the map describes it as 160km of nothing with no habitation, shops or diverting scenery. The map was right. We simply put our heads down and cycled for 160km without really stopping until we reached Las Lajas, where we rewarded our longest day yet with lots of chocolate milk, high-sugar drinks, and ice creams. The treats continued by splashing out on a cabaña, cooking sausages for dinner and buying eggs for the morning. The treats didn't extend to patronising the disco in the plaza put on by visiting local missionaries.

Las Lajas is right at the foot of the mountains that divide the dry precordillera and the far northern stretches of the lake district. We had a long slow climb in the morning but we could see that the mountains ahead were fringed with pine trees and this indicated the start of the lake district, a long-anticipated section of the journey that meant water, lakes and rivers, cooler temperatures at night, and the colour green. As we got higher we realised that the trees on the mountain sides were actually Pehuen (Monkey Puzzle) trees! For the rest of the day we would be cycling through forests of them, as the scenery became more typically alpine, and the smell of pine was almost artificial it was so strong. We stopped for a cold drink at Piño Hachado, essentially a small hut before the road either continues west and crosses into Chile, or banks south into the Argentine lake district proper. Keith Floyd appeared to live and work there, or at least the dead spit of him. He was even pissed at 2 in the afternoon. We climbed higher for another couple of hours until we crested a ridge and saw a beautiful sight, valley after valley of green, each with it's own river, and towering over all of it was the snow-capped Volcan Lanin. We descended into the valley thick with Pehuen forests, looking for a spot by the river to camp. When we were set up I christened the water by stripping off and running in - a sight that will scar the wildlife for generations to come.

We also quietly passed the 2000km milestone today.

The next morning we followed the river until it poured into Lago Aluminé, a beautiful lake that reminded us of Como due to steep forested sides plunging into endless bays with wide sandy beaches. The lake itself is surrounded by snowy mountains, creating the perfect backdrop for a glass of beer and some trout and venison sandwiches (not mixed together). The campsite was rammed and we thought that this was the beginning of the overcrowded nightmare described by the Swiss in Chos Malal. We picked the last remaining spot, surrounded by families with lots of children and just as many guitars, and unpacked the earplugs. The Argentines are teaching us however to be much less cynical. We fired up the parilla again after a visit to the butchers, and whilst we were eating, some of the families brought us freshly made bread, jugs of Gancia (like Vermouth ... drunk with ice by the litre) and even invited us to eat with them the following night. Even the music and singing turned out to be amazing. Shame on us.


The next day we ate a breakfast of more home made bread, this time from a family that we hadn't even really chatted with that much! We then spent the day at the beach, sunbathing and swimming in the lake with the young couple of Argentinos in the tent next to us, a circus performer and his psychologist girlfriend called Vik and Belén. Our Spanish is progressing but our vocab didn't yet stretch to 'human cannonball' and 'cognitive disorders'. Being a creative performer-type, Vik has a few tattoos, the best of which are a set of wings accross his back; This helped to raise in conversation Catherine's new 'Ben 10' tattoo that came free with a litre of chocolate milk. She stuck it on her foot thinking it would be temporary, but it continues to be a conversation opener with 9 year-olds 2 weeks later. We decided to be sociable so we organised a bigger asado for the surrounding tents, all Argentine apart from a couple of really nice Polish honeymooners. It went really well (with Vik overseeing the meat), and we had more live music accompanied by Argentine, Chilean and even Polish folk singing until the small hours round the fire. All very romantic and idyllic.


Whilst drunk, we had managed to convince the Polish couple to drive us up a volcano in their 4x4 the next day, and we reminded them very early in the morning. From the top of Batea Mahuida you can see another 8 volcanoes in both Argentina and Chile, and the snow-fringed caldera even has it's own lake to swim in. We didn't because it's about 1 degree above freezing, but it was nice to look at. At the lake we met a holidaying family of lawyers from Buenos Aires who were very pleasant but were also the first to ask us about the war. Not as awkward as it could have been, but difficult to discuss without much understanding of the politics involved at the time. They generously said that their government was foolish to have invaded in the first place, so we left it at that. That evening, after another large communal meal, we had to say goodbye to everyone which was a bit sad. It was also my breakthrough in terms of kissing strange men comfortably.

Day 23: Chos Malal to Las Lajas - 158km
Day 24: Las Lajas to Pehuen Forest - 78km
Day 25: Pehuen Forest to Villa Pehuenia - 25km

Stage 2, Leg 2: San Rafael to Chos Malal

The landscape to the south and west of San Rafael returns very quickly back to desert so we had another very long day ahead, with the next habitation over 130km away. We had handicapped ourselves with a hangover from the night before and had left Sandy and Doug's very late. By midday we had covered just 25km. For lunch, we were lucky to find a services in the desert, although it appeared to be run by Cathy Bates in 'Misery'. We did however manage to draw our biggest crowd yet from the other motorists, keen to hear about the trip. At least we now have sufficient miles under our belts for the journey to sound hard enough to impress a school child as well as a gaucho (each end of the spectrum). We are going to be very disappointed back in the UK when we aren't teated like celebrities in every service station and small village. On leaving the services, we felt that anything less than completing all 135km to the next pueblo would disappoint our crowd, so we made El Sosneado that night - our new longst day! We stopped for the night in the back garden of a restaurant who agreed that if we ate there, we could camp out back for free. It was an odd set-up with lots of dogs and pups, car parts strewn everywhere, a chatty 10 year old called Martin, and a sheep wearing hairclips.

We headed for Malargue the next morning, expecting to have a rest the following day, but we had an exceptional morning, covering the 51km by 10am so we decided to have a lazy afternoon and head off the next day. Malargue is a launch point for the local ski resorts so looked a bit alpine in some respects. The town has a backdrop of snow covered mountains and the routes in and out were a welcome sight after the flat plains surrounding San Rafael.

The day we left Malargue was not a day to bother getting out of bed. The scenery at the start was beautiful; the route winding slowly upwards through small volcanic cones just 100m higher than the road. In the distance to the east, you could see the northern reaches of a national park containing the densest collection of volcanic cones in the world, some huge, some tiny. Just after reaching the top of the pass however the road deteriorated into ripio again and our progress became a crawl. To make matters worse, a headwind picked up, shortly followed by stinging clouds of dust and even small stones picked up by the gusts. To round the day off, Catherine came off the bike on a nasty downhill section of deep gravel. The image of Catherine lying on the road with her bike on top of her is not a sight I want to see again in a hurry. I'm amazed at how well she took it, beacuse she had scraped the skin off her right arm, knee, and both hips. I'm not a nurse, and by the time I'd finished my 'field dressings' Catherine looked like Mr Bump soaked in betadine, so we stopped at the next village with a doctor, to get the grit removed from the cuts. The curative powers of beer and grilled chicken worked their magic and we managed to spend a very enjoyable evening with a touring English couple, Jen and Seb, in possibly the most basic accommodation outside of Bolivia and Tibet. This was clevery counter-balanced however by the cheering sight of the owner, a small greying man wearing top-to-toe shiny man-made fabrics, looking a little like a darts player/jockey hybrid.

In cosmic payment for the horrendous day before, the journey to Barracas was excellent. The road led gently downhill for nearly 60km, through a wide river delta between flat high ridges, crested with lots of volcanic cones (the southern reaches of the same park we saw the day before). This road really isn't travelled much and we had the whole valley to ourselves for most of the time, giving it a slight 'lost valley of the dinosaurs' air. By lunchtime the wide river delta had narrowed to a deep gorge where the lava from the volcanoes had redirected the flow, and we were now cycling through charred and blacklened flavafields. The road became ripio again and this time, to avoid a repeat of yesterday's accident, we asked a man with a truck to take us over the last 10km of gravel and he dropped us off in the next small village called Buta Ranquil. Catherine went off to find a shop whilst I fixed a flat tyre. She was gone a while when a man in a truck pulled up and said ' Catherine's having a BBQ at our house' and started loading our bags into his truck. When I got out at the top of the hill, Catherine was indeed holding a glass of wine, eating a BBQ at their house. We had just met the friendliest family in Argentina. They lived next to the shop which was closed for siesta, and when they saw Catherine walking away, they asked what she needed. When she explained we needed water and some more food they just said 'we have food and beer here, have dinner with us'. They also turned out to be the booziest family in Argentina and they plied us with beer wine (and the dreaded Fernet) until we couldn't walk straight. They were so kind and even asked us to stay the night, but we had to press on so we took the inadvisable option of cycling off into the mountains drunk, just as it was getting dark. On the plus side we did achieve a new top speed on the bike computer ... 69kmph

We didn't notice the strong winds at the start of the day and we seemed to be going pretty well all the way to Buta Ranquil, an isolated mining town in the shadow of a huge volcano. We stopped for some breakfast at a hotel. Whilst inside, we heard the wind outside turn into a raging hurricane and the owners suggested staying the night. We thought this was a ploy to drum up business. We weren't even put off when we went outside to find the bikes on the floor, and I had to walk three blocks before I found my helmet hat and gloves. We even thought it was novel that the wind could almost push you up a hill one minute but stop you dead in your tracks from trying to get down the other side. This continued for a few hours but ultimately the day was defined by the storm that followed. We rode up a ridge, very slowly into the wind, and saw some inky black clouds covering the high mountains in the direction we were heading. The wind got worse, we had to get off and push, and eventually the temprerature started to drop ... quickly. We found out later that the temperature had dropped from over 30 degrees to minus 18 in the space of just about 3 hours. The rain started and it felt like ice, so we had to stop at the nearest farmhouse to see if they could stick us in a barn for the night. They were a warm but nearly mute family of Gauchos, high-mountain livestock farmers known for ther love of hard stares and silence. They were, on the other hand, incredibly generous, and with possibly only 7 or 8 words spoken between us, they had warmed us up with maté tea and some toast, and had cleared a barn for us to sleep in. It was only when we went to bed that we realised that we were to share the barn with three dogs, a couple of goats, lots of hens and even a rooster (handy for those wanting an early start). The wooden and glass cabinet in the corner of the room containing a plastic figurine of Christ helped to drive home the whole 'Mary and Joseph' nature of the scene. To round off the night, a group of bikers from Santa Fe, stranded in the same pueblo, had heard about us from a neighbouring farmer, and popped round to see if we wanted to share some maté and coffee round at 'their barn'. They too were incredibly generous and we sheltered from the storm which had now turned to heavy snow, comparing routes and equipment.

For those planning a similar trip, some advice: If you ever see a cloud so funny that you have to stop and photograph yourselves, smiling in front of it, don't just continue to cycle towards it. It probably means something horrendous is on the way, like a hurricane, plummeting temperatures and heavy snow.


Inevitably we awoke with the rooster, thanked our Gaucho hosts and set off into snow covered hills on a cold windy morning. Conditions soon improved though and we were almost grateful for the snow as it provided us with an appropriate welcome to Patagonia. We had actually crossed the political border the previous day but the ridge of snow-capped peaks under a clear blue sky that greeted us just before the descent into Chos Malal seemed more fitting. In Chos Malal we stayed at a lovely hostel full of ... more dogs and cats, and with a lovely courtyard out back complete with parilla. We decided to test our parilla skills by introducing some of Doug's tips from his finca in San Rafael. The results were good but we spent most of the meal picking the kitten off the table and ignoring the circle of dogs, one of whom kept offering us stones in trade for meat. This would be endearing but he put them in the salad. We also met a couple of Swiss guys travelling north from Patagonia, and the news from 'down south' doesn't sound too good; crowded, expensive, difficult to get accommodation now that it's high season, and a bit touristy. We're not sure we're ready for this after so long in empty roads, campsites and hostels.

Day 17: Capitain Montoya to El Sosneado - 134km
Day 18: El Sosneado to Malargue - 51km
Day 19: Malargue to Bardas Blancas - 66km
Day 20: Bardas Blancas to Barrancas - 119km
Day 21: Barrancas to 'The Nativity Scene' - 86km
Day 22: 'The Nativity Scene' to Chos Malal - 43km

Stage 2, Leg 1: Mendoza to San Rafael

This section didn't start too well because the idiot in the tourist (mis)information booth told us that the Ruta 40 was the only way out of town, and we believed him. I even questioned his advice at the time to make sure that a 6-lane motorway was the most sensible (if legally questionable) option for a couple of cyclists heading south. His colleague confirmed with a solemn nod and just told us to be careful because 'motorways are dangerous'. 20km later, after being pebble-dashed with road-shrapnel, beeped by every passing motorist, and shoved onto the dirt verge by nearly every truck and bus, we decided to head west until we found an alternative road that might lead in roughly the same direction. It took about one and a half minutes. We came accross one of the quietest, shadiest and most scenic roads yet, following the exact path of the motorway and only one mile to the west, passing through vineyards (incl the Chandon Champagne Bodega) and small farms at the foot of the Andes. I will draw a map of this road on the tourist information man's face, possibly with his own blood.

The rest of the day was excellent and we racked up 130km, feeling slightly nostalgic as we went because the landscape en route was greener and more cultivated than anything we had seen to this point. Some parts really did remind us a bit of England, albeit an alternative England where the sun shines all day and the farmers grow mainly grapes, maize, sunflowers and oregano. We even passed a couple of turf farms! Presumably for the Polo fields?

We stopped for the night at the furthest point south before you eneter the unforgivingly dull praerie. To illustrate how much the cultivated land relies on the irrigation system, there is a ruler-straight line of trees stretching to the east and west horizons that marks the last canal. After the tree line there is nothing but sand and ants. A nice old lady said we could camp for free on the shady grass in front of her house so we ate dinner looking out accross the hundreds of kilometers of space that lay ahead.

There really is nothing to say about the day that followed. It passed exactly as we had thought, a long hot 102km slog through barren landscapes with not much to look at or comment on. We did however arrive at the next habitation, Capitain Montoya, in decent time so we began asking the locals for the address of Sandy and Doug, a couple from Seattle that we had met a week earlier in a bar in Mendoza that had re-located to Argentina to set up a bio-dynamic vineyard. They had kindly offerd us a place to stay en route south if we agreed to help out a bit on the farm. In reality it was a bit skewed in our favour because they gave us a bed for a couple of nights, coooked us dinner, and generally played the perfect hosts in exchange for a bit of weeding in the veggie garden. They even had a cold beer at the ready as soon as we had propped up the bikes. Their finca is absolutely beautiful, set in acres of lush, irrigated land near San Rafael, famous for it's vineyards. They had built/restored their own adobe house, and were busy working on another, as they are starting a co-operative for others interested in a fully-sustainable, organic lifestyle making wine. I can think of worse ways to live. You can even swim in the irrigation canals, something I enjoyed myself, accompanied by Max, their dog, after a sweaty bit of weeding. Whilst we were in San Rafael, we decided to visit some more wineries, and we hit the Bianchi bodega first beause they make champagne. We left a short while later with a box strapped to the bike with bungee cords. With good champagne at 5 quid per bottle it seemed more sensible to buy the box. Our lasting memories of staying at Sandy and Doug's finca will most likely be having a laugh on the veranda, looking out over their vineyards and fields of sunflowers, drinking fine local wine with Doug's amazing short ribs, and watching the fireflies hover and glow over the canals.

Day 14: Mendoza to Pareditas - 130km
Day 15: Pareditas to Capitain Montoya - 102km
Day 16: Touring San Rafael - 73km

Comida

The food in Argentina deserves a post all of it's own. I should obviously start with the beef, and in it's honour, I have even changed the title picture to the holy image of the cow. Even though I dare not say it aloud here, the Argentines aren't infallible ... lazy restaurants can still mess up a steak, but when they get it right it's absolutely amazing. Every part of the animal is usually represented, and if you ask for the menu in the best parrillas, they just point you in the direction of the fire pit and you pick the cut of meat sizzling on the grill. Meat heaven.

Describing our Christmas Eve meal makes me feel like the tourist photographing his dinner in restaurants but it was so darned good, I'll do it anyway:

Argentines celebrate Christmas on the 24th rather than the 25th and we were facing a dull night in at our hostel until a couple of Argentine boys next door asked if we'd like to share an Asado (BBQ) with them. If I bought the wood (using charcoal is an insult apparently), they would do the cooking. As luck would have it, they turned out to be a couple of 21 year-olds from 'chef school' in Buenos Aires! We brought a couple of steaks and some sausage to the party (how English) and they brought a slab of beef short ribs about a meter long, chitterlings (2m of intestines), and more steak. We shared the food with a couple of Spanish girls also from the hostel and saw in Christmas morning drunk on about 2kg of meat each and some booze called Fernet (really no point describing it because I'm not recommending it to anyone).


A slight disappointment here is that nearly everywhere (outside the fancy restaurants) works to the 'WYSIWYG' system ('what you see is what you get') and they very rarely deliver beyond the description on the menu. ie: if you order a steak and a salad from the menu, you will often receive a piece of meat with some leaves; there will be no garnish, no sauce, and no other dimension to the salad. This applies to everything. A popular meal here is 'milanese'; flattened meat (we've never dared ask which) fried in breadcrumbs, a bit like an escalope. We ordered 2 milanese in a resto bar and received ... 2 pieces of flattened, crumbed and fried meat. The waiter obviously thought that this was a well-rounded meal. Or he hated us.

I don't like to abuse the hospitality of the hosts by complaining so in the interest of fairness, I should mention that nearly all of our 'saddest' meals (outside of Bolivia) have been our fault. Our diet on the road consists mainly of rice or pasta cooked with pieces of sun-sweaty salami fried in oxo cubes. If we're lucky there'll be an onion in there ... or an egg. No matter how bad the meal, or how bored we are of it, we are always so hungry we'll eat anything. The less said about these meals the better.

To finish on a high note ... a brief mention for the two best culinary discoveries since pop tarts arrived on the scene when I was 10: wine ice cream, and pomelo (grapefruit) flavoured everything. Argentina is missing a trick in only shouting it's mouth off about steak and wine, they should be exporting their Torrontes and Malbec flavoured sorbets to every corner of the world. Also, Argentines are famous for slathering everything in Dulche de leche (caramel flavoured condensed milk), yet they keep quiet about their pomelo flavoured drinks and ice creams. Selfish, I say.

Mendoza (Christmas and New Year)

Mendoza is now probably my second favourite city in the world (after the bright lights of Walthamstow of course). Tree-lined boulevards, amazing old houses, probably the world's best ice creams, wine shops on every corner, beautiful people, and all of it surrounded on 3 sides by miles of vineyards, and the highest snow-capped reaches of the Andes on the fourth.
We spent a wonderful Christmas day sunbathing in the huge city park, (along with the rest of the city - it seems to be the thing to do), and we spent Boxing day touring the wineries of the Maipu region on our bikes. The 60km we covered in Maipu is going into 'the bank' to recoup the lost 160kms between San Juan and Mendoza.
The bulk of our days here have been spent enjoying the benefits of being in a civilised city, ie; day trips to water parks, and finally finding an engagement ring that Catheirne likes.


To see in the New Year we wanted to do something special so we decided to head for the mountains. Aconcagua is the highest mountain in the world outside of the Himalayas and whilst we hadn't organised our own summit bid, we could at least spend NYE at one of the base camps. We spent 3 amazing days dodging pack mules and trekking up to 4300m where we saw glaciers, the impressive south face of Aconcagua, and lots of gore-tex. After so long in the desert, I couldn't believe that it would be that cold up there so I didn't take the advice to pack gloves. Our first night in the tent reached minus 5 (the wind added a bit more on top), and the second day saw us huddled outside our tent cooking rice in a blizzard. Naturally my hands went blue and then swelled up to twice their size so that I couldn't make a fist (luckily for the pesky mules). Naturally Catherine packed gloves. It was an amazing experience from start to finish with some of the best scenery of the whole trip, and some of the nicest people we've met. It was great spending a couple of days with mountaineers from all over the world making their final preparations before their summit bids, and we spent NYE sheltering from the snow listening to their stories (both success and horror) from past expeditions. Amazing ... if you like that sort of thing.


Tomorrow, we set off for our next leg destination of Bariloche and the southern lake district, 1200-1500km to the south, depending on the route we eventually take. Whatever the route, we still face at least another 800km of desert before we reach cooler climes, but the principal difference seems to be the switch from mountains to flat prairie. Hopefully we'll have the wind on our backs!