Ghost towns, wild horses and snow capped peaks

We have made it safely to Santiago de Chile, after crossing Argentina east to west.  The last few days were shorter than those on some of the previous sections due to a combination of police pulling us over, snow storms at the border and traffic that was considered too heavy to cycle in.

After leaving San Juan the first day was meant to be fairly flat according to the riders notes.  This soon turned out to be "just a little inaccurate".  After lunch it was one long continuous gradual climb.  If I had known the climbing would not cease, I would not have attacked the hill in the beginning like I did.  I finished the day exhausted.  We were following the route of an old disused railway line, and some of the towns along the way had died with the railway line.  We stopped for lunch at a place called Talacasto - it was basically a ghost town, except for a truckers cafe.  It was strange for me to see a whole town of disused buildings as we don't have that kind of thing in the UK.  In the end it was just the first of several ghost towns that we would pass through.

The second day we left the bush camp bright and early as usual, and headed towards Barreal.  Until the sun came up it was very cold.  It isn't the first time it has been cold though, and I am sure it will not be the last time either.  The day started with a long descent and people easily reached speeds of 60km/h just freewheeling down the mountain.  When we reached the bottom and cycled along the valley it was like being in heaven.  Wild horses, lush green forests and snow capped mountains were everywhere.  Further along the valley there was a sign indicating there were some rock formations, so Eric (a Dutch guy) and I decided to take a look.  When we got to the bottom of the rock face we decided to climb to the top but we soon realised it was a mistake as the rock was loose and fell away in our hands.  By the time we reached the top we were exhausted and decided that we would need to find a better way back down the rock face.  In the end we had to circumnavigate the face, and it took us over an hour and a half to get back to our bikes.  Luckily noone had decided to ride off with them, and we cycled back to camp at a leisurely pace.  Later in the evening we arrranged to do a winetasting session at a vineyard that had only recently opened.  Despite the wines being young they tasted great and had even won a couple of awards.  The wine was accompanied by lots of delicious cheeses and chocolates and it was a great end to a great day.

Gorgeous scenery

The rock formation we climbed up but couldn't get down

Winetasting at a newly opened vineyard

The third day was mostly dirt road and it was very bumpy.  For around 10km on the paved section at the beginning of the day, we managed to draft behind a truck going at 35km/h and the driver gave a thumbs up in the mirror to let us know that he knew we were following him.  Once we hit the gravel/ dirt section it was impssible to keep up with him, so we had to start working again.  By lunchtime my back was aching a lot from all the bumps and I was happy to take a break.  After lunch we had another section of gravel/dirt and then suddenly the road switched to a paved section that was so smooth it felt like the bike was just hovering in the air.  The road was also going downhill, and within a few minutes I was whizzing along at 80km/h and loving every minute of it.  The whole remainder of the ride was downhill and it was 20km shorter than the riders notes had mentioned, which was a pleasant surprise.

The fourth day was another section with a fair amount of climbing.  The road passes from Uspallata to the border with Chile and over 1,800 trucks a day use the road to ferry goods across the border.  The ride was only meant to be short - around 70km, but after 41km one of the tour leaders passed me in the pickup and told me the police had stopped him and told him that we are not allowed to cycle any further on the road and that I needed to get in the pickup with him and be driven up to the hostel.  I was the lucky one, because the other riders behind had to wait for hours in the cold for the big truck to go back and get them, whilst I was able to stay nice and warm in the hostel.  It was a shame that the police decided not to let us continue, but I could also understand their concerns as there were a lot of trucks, and one passed me so close I had to get off the road.  The tour truck was just behind that truck and managed to get a photo of it passing me.  It looked too damn close for my liking.

We spent the evening chilling in the hostel, and then the manager to decided to torture us with several hours of his karaoke singing.  Then it was time for bed.  The plan the next day was to bike 20km to the border and then all cross the border together, but when we woke up we found that the border was closed due to snow on the Chilean side.  The border guys thought that it would take about 4 hours for the Chileans to clear the snow and for the border to be reopened.  In the meantime we just had to chill in the hostel and hope that we didn't get tortured by yet more karaoke.  Around 11am we got the news that the border was reopened and the tour leaders decided that they would drive us all from the hostel to the border in 2 groups rather than to cycle there, in order to avoid any further issues with the Argentinian police.  I was in the first group to get trucked to the border and when we got there we were warned it would take ages to get through the immigration control and all the checks.  In the end it took us all as a group around 5 hours to get through all the controls.  The main reason for all the checks is to prevent people bringing in plant and vegetable products to Chile.  They are very serious about this and confiscated all our fresh food.  They even had sniffer dogs not for drugs but for fresh fruit and vegetables.

Once we got over the border it was time to start the cycling.  The temperature was 1 degree above freezing and it was snowing so we wore as many clothes as we had available, and prepared ourselves to still be cold.  The descent is around 20km during which time you lose around 2,500m in height.  It would have been a lovely fast descent with lots of nice switchbacks, but due to the earlier border closure and the backlog of lorries, combined with the icy cold conditions, it was a very slow cautious descent stuck most of the time behind crawling lorries.  Towards the bottom of the descent the lorries seemed to be pulling off the road and stopping left right and centre, and I figured they were having some kind of issues with their air brakes caused by the constant braking.  After the initial steep downhill section we had to continue about another 40km on a gradual descent towards San Felipe where a bus was waiting take us the rest of the way to Santiago.  It was during this gradual descent that a dog decided to try and bite my back tire whilst passing it at 45km/h. It missed by just a few inches thankfully, otherwise that could have ended in a nasty mess for both me and the dog.

Snowy bike

Once we reached San Felipe we got on the bus and headed full speed towards Santiago de Chile.  By the time we reached Santiago it was early evening.  And here we are, 2 days on still enjoying this lively city.

5 days of bush camp, but now back in civilisation in San Juan

After leaving Cordoba we cycled through the Sierras Chicas mountains and are now enjoying a rest day in San Juan, Argentina. The last 5 days we have endured rather basic conditions with no mobile phone reception and no showers. The toilets were holes in the ground that we needed to dig ourselves. But the scenery was the best so far, simply spectacular.  It was also great to be away from big trucks trying to run us off the road.  Over the majority of the last section we have only seen a couple of vehicles per day, as whilst there is a highway from Cordoba to San Juan, we avoided it completely.  We did however pass a nudist camp that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere.

The distances covered each day ranged from 70km to 130km, but a lot of this was off road and one day was mostly sand and dirt, which made for really tough riding, especially for the heavier riders like myself. Those who brought off road tyres were a lot better off than those that didn't, like me.  The trick on sand is basically to pedal like hell and keep up the momentum to carry you through it.  Once you slow down or stop it is really hard to get going again.

There were some cool downhill sections but they were very bumpy, and despite bending my arms to absorb some of the shock, my forearms were hurting like hell.  Making a fist was also slightly painful.  On some of the downhill sections it would have been easy to slip and fall but luckily nothing like that happened.  The only times I fell it was on the flat - twice because of deep sand and once due to 3 big dogs running towards me at full speed.  The big dogs still scare me quite a lot, especially when they are running towards you and you are cycling completely on your own without a soul in site.  But so far they have always been all bark and no bite.

There was also one point when a cow decided it owned the road and stood in the middle of the road staring down passing cyclists.  For me a cow isn't scary, but for some of the riders it was a standoff and they were unsure of whether or not it was safe to pass.

The temperatures during the Cordoba to San Juan section were extremely variable.  At nights it was often freezing cold (less than 5 degrees Celsius) and in the afternoons unbearably hot (over 30 degrees Celsius).  On several nights we needed to build a camp fire to keep warm, and I learnt 2 new things about building fires.  The first is that it really helps to build a pit as this helps to contain the heat that the fire produces, and the second is that cow dung is an excellent fuel for the fire.  We started the night with a wood fire, and once we saw the miraculous burning properties of cow dung the fire was slowly converted into a 100% cow dung fire.

The night before last Dennis (a Danish guy) and I decided we would sleep out under the stars without a tent.  There was barely a cloud in site, the evening was warm, and it seemed an ideal night for sleeping al fresco.  Others decided to pitch their tents but not to put on their flysheets.  This soon turned out to be a big mistake.  Sometime around midnight the wind whipped itself up into a frenzy and bikes started falling over, in addition to a whole host of other objects that weren't firmly tied down.  It was strong enough to break the poles on one guy's tent.  Despite being covered in sand we managed to get some sleep but when I awoke at 2am with a call of nature I saw strange flashes in the sky.  We were surrounded on two sides by sheet lightning.  I awoke Dennis for a discussion on what we should do, and the conclusion was that we would probably be fine and should just continue sleeping.  At 5.15am James the cook started making breakfast on the tables under which we were sleeping, and so this was our early morning wakeup call.  We had survived our night al fresco unscathed.  Only 5 minutes later though James pointed out a scorpion scuttling across the ground only 2m from where we had been sleeping - thank goodness that thing didn't decide to sting us in the night.

Coming in to San Juan there was a lovely cycle path that continued for around 13km.  Often the cycle paths here are so short that it isn't worth the effort to leave the road and get onto them, but this one sure was.  The morning had been a hell of a slog, battling strong headwinds.  In the afternoon our luck changed and the wind was behind us.  This meant that there were quite a few sections on the cycle path when I was zipping along at over 40km/h.  San Juan is wine country and approaching San Juan we were passing vineyard after vineyard.  I arrived at the hotel on the outskirts of San Juan, took a shower and lay on the bed, content as could be.   A bed and a hot shower was all the luxury that I needed.

The rest day is now over, we have seen the main sights of the town, and now we are rearing to get on our bikes again, next stop Santiago de Chile.....

Start of beautiful descent

Bush camp

The wood fire that soon became a cow dung fire

Roundup of week 1 of Vuelta Sudamericana tour

Hi guys

I am back in the modern world again, after days of cycling through pancake flat country in Argentina, and camping in little villages that don't see that many foreigners.  I am now in Cordoba and we have the luxury of staying in a hotel, because tomorrow is a rest day.  This gives people a chance to do laundry, get a shower, and to generally be more human in appearance, ready for a night on the town. 

Thumbs up - all is good (except the sore butt)

We have cycled a whopping 900km or so in a week, on a mixture of paved and dirt roads.  And for the last few days we have been cycling into a strong headwind.  Unfortunately the roads in this region are almost totally straight and if the wind is against you it remains against you for the whole day.  Some people on the tour had never cycled more than 60km in one ride in their whole lives.  A few of these had to ride the truck as their bodies were crying out for rest, but one or two have made it through the entire first week, and I find that pretty amazing.  I myself have cycled these kind of distances many times, but never for so many days in a row.  My body so far though is holding together just fine.  A sore butt is the worst of my worries, and even that is improving day by day as it turns from squidgy to rock solid.

The most shocking thing I have found in Argentina is the sheer number of street dogs.  Sometimes they are in packs of more than 10, just roaming the streets.  On the whole they ignore us passing cyclists, but from time to time they start to chase us.  So far no one has been bitten and I hope it stays that way.  Apparently the problem of street dogs is not just limited to Argentina and is a general problem in South America.  We have been warned to expect even more once we arrive in Chile.  The howling of dogs at night has become a normal expected background noise for us when we are camping, and we have just had to get used to it.

The group is a great bunch, and many of them are repeat tourers, having done other tours organised by Tour d'Afrique.  In fact a lot of them knew each other already from the Cairo to Capetown tour, and some from the Canada tour.  The majority are early retirees but there are also some in their 20s and 30s who have managed to take a sabbatical from work or take a break from their studies.  Everyone speaks english except for one Italian guy, who understands it but doesn't speak it so much.  He is very comfortable speaking spanish, so the ones of us that know spanish try to use that with him so he doesn't feel too left out.  In terms of nightlife they are not exactly party animals and on cycling days, by 8pm everyone is in their tents reading or sleeping.  The cycling abilities are rather mixed and some have cycled thousands of kms this last year, and others have barely been on their bikes.  I am one of the, if not the strongest cyclist on the flat, but it remains to be seen what happens when we start tackling the Andes.  I have a feeling that then things will change a lot, as there are some good cyclists who are 15kg lighter than I am, and in the hills power to weight ratio and not raw power is what counts most.

For people like my friend Pete who love looking up routes on Google earth, these are the stages we have completed this last week (although most of the time using very indirect routes to avoid traffic and increase the scenic factor of the trip):

Day 1 - Buenos Aires to Capìlla del Senor
Day 2 - Capilla del Senor to San Pedro
Day 3 - San Pedro to Rosario
Day 4 - Rosario to Bouquet
Day 5 - Bouquet to Villa Maria
Day 6 - Villa Maria to Rio Tercero
Day 7 - Rio Tercero to Cordoba

The next few weeks we will be heading towards San Juan and then over the Andes to Santiago de Chile.  We have been told to expect more MTB like terrain for the coming days and people have been warned to change to their off road tyres.  I only have one type of tyres with me (of which I do have spares) and it has been good on the road, so I hope it will be equally as good on rougher terrain.  Fingers crossed eh!!