The northern Argentinian weather

The countryside is dramatic, and the roads are generally smooth, except for the odd stupendous failure. The weather is on the hot side of comfortable and the wind is constantly strong from the south. Except for my day off today in Belen when it has been blowing from the north! The beautiful views make it all worthwhile though. I looked out of my tent the other morning with 5,000m snowy peaks in front of me and what I think was a cayote scarpering off into the thorn bushes when I got out to take a photo.

There are a few solitary big red insects around which, from a google search, I think may be a type of wasp called a velvet ant, or cow killer. It seems that  someone who got stung by one said that it could kill a cow and that description stuck. The web site indicates that they hurt but don´t kill, cows or people. There are also lots of these tiny white insects that sound like ducks, which had me wondering where they were hiding at first.

I did 60km yesterday, downhill all the way, and pedalled hard to do a few km per hour. The headwind whistled in my ears and my panniers acted like big air breaks on the back. Three days back with no wind blowing, I did 150km and with a lot less effort. I do hope that the wind dies down! It´s been blowing with differing strength for two weeks and I had to pedal hard the whole way on the 2.5km vertical descent over 200km from the altiplano, which seemed rather like my reward for the work done in the ascent was stolen from me.

I cycled through thunder and lightening two days ago and it looks like there is more to come tomorrow. I´ve got a 100km route planned, so I´ll need to stock up with plenty of water to keep me cool. Gortex jackets are not good when it´s hot as well as wet. The dry river beds that I´ve been camping in to get out of the wind may be a bit more wet in the days to come, so a drop in the wind would be ideal.

The approach into wine country

"He's just around the corner." the Dutch couple said. "He followed us from Cafayate, for 35km. We tried to shake him off but he just kept on following.". I met the couple near El Garganta del Diablo, a deep amphitheatre in the rock, close to the road, where I stopped for a scramble and to take in the view.

20-11-2010 El Garganta del Diablo, well actually the bit beside it.

He was just around the corner. At the stone seats where the couple had stopped. He looked like he didn't want to go any further and was panting heavily. A dry heavy pant. The sun was directly overhead and there was no shade. He crawled under my pannier when I arrived as that provided the only protection from the sun's rays. He was young, bigger than a puppy, maybe a year old.

20-11-2010 The hound in the shade of my pannier

It was 30 degrees and there was no natural water around except for the river which was a significant drop below. I had a litre of water on me, and plenty inside me, so the hound got hand fed my half litre of cold mineral water from the bottle. We got a fair amount in and another fair amount dribbled down his chin. We started from the front, but found a bit less dribble happened when I poured from his left hand side. He licked the bottle dry once it was empty and looked down at the watery patch below his chin and decided that there was nothing to drink there and came back for another lick of the bottle. That being all done, I gave him a kiwi fruit, which he sooked at rather comically before deciding to eat the whole thing, skin and all. I set off, dog following, guiding the little fella back to where he left that morning, another 35km back.

20-11-2010 The river, a little too far below

A couple of km down the road there was a little pottery shop which sold water. I got one for the two of us. I filled my bike bottle and the hound took the rest. He was panting a little less heavily then and drooling a bit which looked more healthy.

I stopped for a chat with a guy selling empanadas at the side of the road. Once he heard of the little dog's big road trip, he kindly provided a free lunch for him. We carried on at 10-15km/hr, so as not to exhaust him, and then struck gold: a path down to the river. I had to lead him down, he wouldn't go on his own, but when he got there his tail was wagging like the wind was blowing it. A good cooling dip, a very long drink, half a packet of my biscuits, and he was looking very healthy for the first time since I'd found him.

20-11-2010 The hound finally gets to the river

The hills were gently rolling, but the bike was moving faster than I wanted to push the hound. I got up to 68km/hr going down one hill and rolled to the summit at the following one and stopped there. He came racing to the top of the hill just a minute behind. I stopped to let him get his breath back then on our way again. He would give out a bark and a whine if I got more than a couple of hundred metres ahead and so we continued to Cafayate, me rolling ahead and stopping for him to catch up.

20-11-2010 The hound in the shade at the top of the hill

I stopped at a farmhouse to buy some cheese and the little fella went inside a barn for some shade. Getting on my way, the lady at the farm said that I couldn't leave him there as she already had five dogs. I assured her that my amigo knew when he had it good and would follow me shortly. He was back on all fours by the time that I got to the gate.

It was mid afternoon and a little later than planned for lunch when we got to Cafayate. There was a pizza joint open with tables outside. I sat down and my hound sat under the table. Within 10 minutes he was breathing deep and heavy. The breathing of a sleeping dog. A shaggy sheep dog like hound that was walking by stopped and gave him a prod with his nose. The result was a grumpy growl of one just awoken. The sheep dog took a step back and looked at the little fella and then at me. I followed up with a second growl and the sheep dog scarperred off. The deep breathing was back within five minutes.

My salami, olive and mushroom pizza eaten, except for one slice reserved for my amigo, I left the restaurant, turned the corner and he was up and following me with a look that said he didn't want to go too far. Not another 35km. I stopped there and fed him his slice which he wolfed down, including the olive which fell off, which I thought was an acquired taste. Then sat down next to the bench there and got a final scratch behind the ear before I parted from my responsibility for the day. Safely delivered back to where he came from, after 70km of brisk walkies.


20-11-2010 The fertile green land on the approach into the wine gowning region around Cafayte.

20-11-2010 A big stoney thing

20-11-2010 Me outside Cafayate, taken by the first Russian cyclist that I´ve bumped into

20-11-2010 A dry tributary

20-11-2010 The river widens in the open plain

Across the tropic

I crossed the Tropic of Capricorn on 11th November, and the Rio Grande on that day too.

11-11-2010 Yìp, that´s my laundry drying on the back

The sweet change to tarmac

The roads in Bolivia are rural and full of charm, but it can feel like slow going on them when there is a target destination. The crossing of the border to Argentina has resulted in a change of pace. The road I´m following south to Salta now is smooth asphalt, in fact it is the Pan Americana. The tyres are pumped up to 70psi and it´s 20-30km an hour when the wind is not blowing. In the spirit of my now slightly meandering route, I set off east to Yavi on my second day in the country. The road there was also nicely paved despite it being a much more rural destination.  There is a little old Spanish era church at Yavi with onyx for windows, a gold alter and original unrestored paintings. The gardener showed me around and there is an old mansion next door which operates as a museum with some not so organised but rather interesting bits. The relaxed set-up has lots of charm.

09-11-2010 The church at Yavi.

 

13-11-2010 My lunchtime shelter in a bus stop which had the windows blocked with stones to keep the  fierce headwind out. Clearly the wind is a persistent thing here as the someone had already blocked the windows to save me doing it.

The Bolivian Review

My view of Bolivia after 35 days:

I'm very fond of Bolivia. The people were warm, friendly and very laid back. The openness and generosity of the Bolivianos was refreshing and left me with an innocent feeling that the world is full of nice people.

My stop on the southern shores of Titicaca took me to one of the most beautiful places that I've seen on my trip. The lake there is populated with small islands. Snow capped mountains line the horizon beyond the distant shores, and the nearby shores are unspoilt and dotted with rowing boats for line fishing.

Bolivia is often termed a developing country, but the feeling that I got is that the country, under the current leadership, does not strive for European style development. Things will happen slowly and with the interests of the people in mind and with small steps into industrial implementations. I wouldn't want to see Bolivia change too significantly. That's not just a tourist ignoring local needs to ensure that his playground remains different to home. I'd love the opportunity to stay in Tupiza or on the shores of Titicaca as they are today for an extended period. Yes, I think that better schools and medical facilities will help most Bolivians but those can be brought in without selling the salt flats or other land to external mining companies that have purely financial interests in projects. Evo Morales says that he wants to develop such resources from within, and whilst that is difficult and takes time to get a return on, the long term benefits for the country should be significant.

Most Bolivians look content. The workmen on the roads all say hello, and more than one asked how cycling on their new road was. There is a pride in work done. Nearly half of the road workers were women. Equality is here. The locals in the small towns and villages welcomed me with broad genuine smiles and, typical for rural communities in most countries, the people had time to talk and took an interest in the new guy passing through their town. There were a few people who looked stunned at the bike packed with bags coming along their mountain path, but even those folks, staring intensely, were polite and said hello and gave a wave.

I stayed in hotels, hostels and people's spare rooms. The people in the villages would go to some effort to find accommodation when asked and I got a lengthy interview from a lady in a shop for what turned out to be a garden shed. That may have meant that I failed the interview for the bedroom, but I like to think that I passed an interview for the shed. I just don't know which is so.

Bolivia has the best toilet seats in the world. They are plastic, but they are cushioned. Wipe clean, but have a bit of give like your sofa cusion. Everything else in the bathroom, especially the plumbing, is the most rickety that I've ever seen. Even the comfortable seat does not make a Bolivian khazi a place to linger.

A country should know what it is good at. Aside from bum friendly seats, Bolivia is outstanding with curtain rails. I stayed in places that seemed to be almost booby trapped, the window fell out of the hinges when opened, the room doors often did not lock 'people don't steal things around here' was said by more than one hostal owner, and seemed to be true. The shower heaters in the shower head were connected to the mains with bare wires that were attached to the walls in a way that made a wayward stretch of my arms potentially fatal. The water and electricity sometimes did not work at all, but every room always had not just curtains, but a perfectly functioning curtain rail with an intact pull cord.

I got quite well fed from the north to the south. Meal times are very specific outside of the big towns. Lunch is around 12pm to 1pm. Dinner is 6pm to 7pm. It the small towns there are only typically one or two places to eat. There is no menu to look at and you ask for almuerzo at lunchtime or cena at dinner time and you are brought whatever meal was cooked for the town on that occasion. Almuerzo costs 10 bolivianos (one British pound) in most small towns, and for that you get soup to start. Then rice, potatoes and either a piece of chicken or beef. It's a filling meal. The cooking is done once for all on a big stove in order to preserve fuel, and is hottest closer to 12 o'clock. Dinner is similarly good, filling and lacking in choice. Darkness fell by 7pm and mostly dinner servings were finished by then and the towns quietened as people went to bed. It's a natural life, getting up at sunrise and going to bed at sunset, and fits well with a daylight cyclist.

There are good fruit market stalls in most towns with fresh mangos, bananas, limes, apples and oranges usually available.

The bread is so so. Functional when fresh. The centre seems to collapse after a day though to leave a hole. I typically filled the hole with ham and cheese. The ham is typically heavily processed and not fresh from the many piglettes that were seen in the countryside, but tasty enough to make a decent sandwich.

There are no supermarkets outside of the cities. There is not an excess of food in the towns. The shops are small, and there is limited fresh food. The thing that I missed most was fresh milk. UHT milk is available, but that just doesn't taste good.

Bolivia has decent roads connecting the big cities (La Paz to Oruro) but very bumpy roads to the smaller Andean towns. The bumpy roads fit perfectly with the mountain scenery. The roads are not ideal for getting around quickly, on a bike or in a car, but the low traffic volumes and beautiful scenery make slow cycling a joy. I moved along having the whole road to myself, maybe seeing no more than 10 vehicles per day for a few days at a time.

I saw two other cyclists in Bolivia. Not many at all. I saw a few tourists in La Paz, Oruro and around the salt flats, but a low number in total. I was rather surprised at that given just how appealing I found Bolivia.

The hot sweat to the border

By 9am the thermometer on my bike read 24C. It topped out at 36C in the afternoon. I had two litres of water with me for the day and I was short of water by lunchtime when I got to Mojo, 30km from the Argentinian border, where I hoped to get lunch and water.

My T-shirt was damp when I took my backpack off, so I was still sweating a little, which was healthy, but my throat was dry and I had a dehydrated dull pain in my head. Things didn´t look too good when I got to Mojo. Mojo has a train station and is on a significant road junction. It is the sort of place that you might expect to have a shop or a cafe, but the village had maybe 100 houses and no one in sight, except for an old lady sitting under a tree, talking to a chicken.

After spending 5 minutes walking around the village, I asked the lady if there was a shop. I had not seen one, but often in small Bolivan villages the shops are not labelled and are simply the front room in someone´s house. The lady said that there was a shop, the post office, but it was closed and that the owner was in Villazon on the Argentinian border. I asked here if she had any water and she told me to go to Villazon, so off I went.

The road from Mojo to Villazon is very good. Fairly flat and tarmac for most of it, so I made the remaining 30km in pretty good time. I met two cyclists coming in the opposite direction, one from the village where I had camped on the evening before. One was quite excited as he had just got his bicycle and it was the first time that he had been to the frontier with Argentina, maybe 80km from his home. He was giddy with his new freedom and was talking about his future plans to see his country. I cycled on and maybe 10km from Villazon I met another cyclist from Argentina who was cycling home. I chatted to him for the remainder of the way to Villazon and it was good to have some company as I was feeling rather ropey by that time.

I got to Villazon and got a 2 litre bottle of Fanta into me before I went to customs. The water and sugar were just what I needed. At customs, the friendly official asked me what I´d been doing in Bolivia and kindly waved the fine for me overstaying my 30 day visa by 5 days. I cycled on into Argentina and was scratching my head as there was no Argentinian customs office to be seen. I cycled on a bit and came to an army post with a soldier outside, and I asked him where the office was. He said that the Bolivians and Argentinians share the same office and that the guy who stamped me out of Bolivia should also have stamped me into Argentina. I had a look at my passport and indeed he had.

I cycled on into the town of La Quiaca, the Argentinian side of Villazon, and into a local hotel. I got half of a bottle of water into me, a small bottle of Pepsi and a beer with a well salted dinner and then went for my first pee of the day.

Swapping aluminium for muscle

I did 6 hours in the saddle today. Not the bike saddle, but on horseback, through the canyons around Tupiza, a few km from the final resting spot of Butch Cassidy.

04-11-2010 In the canyons around Tupiza with my new trusty steed for the day. I now want a horse, specifically, I want this horse. He goes to a gallop with just a squeeze of the calves, and only stops to refuel at the river.

A spiritual day in Butch Cassidy country

I camped 30km north of Tupiza, on a bank of a dry river bed, next to a cactus, with red towering walls of rock all around me and a thick layer of thorn bushes between my tent and the road. It was a wild west scene from any good western movie.

I´d come down the mountain at speed to get to Salo on the evening before, where I stopped at the one shop in town to stock up on drinks. The tables in the shop / restaurant were set, but there was no dinner being cooked that day due to lack of demand. I was therefore on a sandwich diet for the evening. I ate all but one of my remaining tasty chorizo and cheese rolls, keeping one for a light breakfast the next day before the the short cycle to Tupiza where I would restock my supplies.

I was cold when I got to the shop and took a second jacket out of my SealLine bag on the back of my bike. My hands were numb from the windchill from the 700m or so vertical descent into Salo and I didn´t realise that I hadn´t clipped the bag fastener in properly after leaving the shop. I continued down the very bumpy road which shook my bag open and spilled my fleece, my warm trousers, my high visibility vest and a couple of other things on the road behind me. 500m down the road I realised that something was wrong as I had half of the village jogging along behind me. I stopped for the folks, mainly the children, to catch up and kindly return my things that I´d strewn on the way down. They were some very helpful and friendly folks there in Salo, one very red faced, who I think picked up the first thing that I´d expelled 500m back and run the whole way to politely return it. After a bit of a chat, a thankyou and a rendition of the trip so far and future intentions, I got on my way, bag now secured and refilled.

I got up in the morning and photographed the Western camp site. The light was low in the evening when I arrived and the morning was much clearer for my phone camera.

I packed and cycled for maybe 15 minutes and stopped at a site on the road with a good view of the valley. A beautiful spot, unfortunately but picturesquely marked with a gravestone of someone who had passed on there. You do see a large number of such grave markers when cycling along the country roads in Peru and Bolivia. Some mark the spot in the country where someone has been burried. If you work on the land, then you get planted there on the land when the time comes. Not in the field with the crops, nor in the back garden, but close to the road. Also, for those unfortunate enough to meet with a road accident, there are markers of the spot, though the person may be laid to rest elsewhere. That´s my understanding of the RIP markers on the roads here. This one I went to photograph with the scenic view in the background and my phone turned itself off. I turned it back on, switched to camera, pointed at the grave and pressed the shutter and it turned itself back off. I tried once more and when pressed, my internet browser opened instead of the camera. Not having much breakfast, low blood sugar, and not too ready to rationalise the situation mentality, I mutter to the deceased that I wouldn´t put the picture on my blog and pointed my camera to the view behind without the final resting place marker and it worked just fine. I decided not to work out what had gone on; it was very cold at that time in the morning and the low temperature is the rational cause of the misfunction.

15 minutes further on, around 6:30am, I came to a house in the countryside between Salo and Tupiza. There were two guys in their 30´s standing outside who said hello and I stopped for a chat. They asked me if I wanted to come inside and pray for their grandmother. It´s not the sort of thing that I´m particularly expert in, or actually believe in too strongly, but it didn´t seem like the sort of thing to turn down. The guys told me that it was All Souls Day which is why they made the suggestion. I parked my bike against their house and went to the buildings at the back.

There were five women in one of the building cooking up a feast, and in the second building out the back, there was a drummer in his 50´s sound asleep after a heavy night on the local chicha home brew and a piper slouched in another seat there. In the same room was what you might call an altar, covered in biscuits, more biscuits than I´ve ever seen together, all home made and decorated, some in the shape of animals, some in the shape of people. All either stuck on the thorns of a bush that was planted at the front of the altar, or piled high atop the altar. It was a strange start to the day.

02-11-2010 The biscuit altar

I was kind of wondering what to make of it all when the mother of the guys brought me a large plate of chile-bread and cakes and a steaming hot mug of sweet matte tea. I had a seat on the tree trunk seat that they brought out for me, and that was the start of my one-day religious re-birth.

We chatted in Spanish until after lunchtime. I got well fed with soup, lamb, salad, local grown potatoes and corn. We spoke about my trip, Bolivia, Peru, sheep farming in Scotland (I had to do charades for a sheep, which got my knees dusty) and had a remarkably funny time there with the family and neighbours who had contributed to the biscuit hoard.

02-10-2010 The father and his two mates forming the band.

I had six different types of the local chicha by the time I left in the afternoon, with a bag full of tasty biscuits, and had prayed for a grandmother, who I never new, but now think was probably a good lady. The people of Bolivia have been very friendly, and the hospitality of this family was very warm indeed.

I ate my first salad in Bolivia that lunchtime. It was fresh and spicey with local chilies, lots of tomato and carrots. The general advice is to avoid salads and veg that is not cooked as the water used to grow and clean the sald is not clean. The water that cleaned this salad came from the tap in the back garden, so I was a little dubious, but didn´t want to offend my host, and I also really fancied the good looking salad. It may have been The Big Fella who looked after my intestines, or it may have been the alcohol in the six different chichas that did the spiritual cleansing, but from that day on I have been dong Brittish poos once again. Before All Souls Day they were very much those of a gringo in Bolivia.

02-11-2010 The afternoon descent into Tupiza

Onwards into cowboy country

The route south from the Salar took me to Uyuni. It's a small touristy town filled with Italian themed restaurants, and little charm or local character. I made a brief stop to get fed and to stock up on supplies. None of the shops sell bread. They all sell Pringles though. The bread sellers come to the market in the evening and I got a big bag of heart shaped bite-sized rolls to supliment my supplies. Suitably stocked up, I set off for Atocha the next morning.

The road to Atocha is very bumpy. There is a secondary road that parallels the worn and bumpy asphalt main road every few km, when the main road gets particularly bumpy. The second road has been created by the trucks and jeeps that have opted to drive on the dry earth at the side of the asphalt. It is much smother than the asphalt, but has deep sandy sections which the bike sinks into and needs some hard pushing to get the 40 odd kilo bulk through. It's a tough choice between the two roads but the sandy option was mostly quicker and I stuck with that for most of the way. There were some very bumpy asphalt sections, with no alternative route through the land to the side, which left the fingers tingling for extended periods.

I camped out on the way to Atocha at around 4,200m. The view over the rolling altiplano there was beautiful and much prefferred to dwelling in the town centre.

After Atocha, Tupiza was the next town south on the map. The route to Tupiza from Atocha started with a cycle along the dry river bed. That was very sandy and tough going. 5km along or so, and the riverbed met with the road to Tupiza and that was refreshingly solid and reasonably smooth. My speed went up from 4km per hour to 12km per hour - not tarmac speed but progress could be felt.

30-10-2010 The sandy scenery on the road to Atocha

31-10-2010 The sandy road that joins the riverbed path to the road to Tupiza

31-10-2010 The solid road to Tupiza

31-10-2010 Sunset at the 4,200m campsite between Uyuni and Atocha



Big, white, salty and behind me

Getting to and from the Bolivian salt flats was remarkably difficult. A broken pannier, sandy paths, bumpy hard-packed soil and stretches of sinusoidal asphalt. Getting accross the 110km of the Salar De Uyuni was remarkably easy. Not just because the amazing views kept my mind on things other than cycling, but the salt flats are not just flat, but also very smooth. The most bumpy parts are those where the ridges that form between the salt plates, when the salt solidifies in the dry season, have not yet been flattened by the passing jeeps. It is a bit like cycling on a pedestrian precinct that has big hexagonal paving stones. The rest of the route is very smooth and a joy to cycle on. Navigating is simple. There is an island near the middle of the salt, Isla Incahuasi, and there are easy to spot tracks from the jeeps that have taken that route since the start of the dry season.

26-10-2010 Starting Out on the Salt Flats

26-10-2010 The view from the edge towards the Isa Incahuasi



26-10-2010 Approaching the Isla Incahuasi

26-10-2010 The view from the island

26-10-2010 Could anything be better than simply sitting down to take in the magnificent view of the Salar? Well...

I stayed at a hotel made from the rough salt which was 10km from the edge of the salt flats that I was due to exit at. For a mere 14 quid I got dinner, a room made of salt, and breakfast. There was no electricity, so candlelight was the source of lumination and a remarkably clear view of the sky was seen with the cloud free night. My one A4 page sky map came out and a few likely suspects were identified on it before it got uncomfortably cold to stay out.

26-10-2010 The Salt Hotel

26-10-2010 Inside the Salt Hotel

I got chatting to the only other resident that evening, a Japanese tourist, over dinner. There were a 10 or so other tourists who turned up in the moring to look at the hotel made of salt and it was then that I started feeling a little bit like a celeb. I´ve had a photo of me taken with each of the tourists after explaining my trip.