It has taken 6 days to get over here to Salta from San Pedro. It was a tougher crossing than I had expected. The route did not look too bad on the map. It is marked as a main road and did not seem to cross too many contour lines, but it had several passes of 4500m or thereabouts. On the map, only the altitude at the border was marked. This was about 4000m where the other route was 4200m. I knew from the passport office in San Pedro that that the road was unpaved between Socaire (60 miles)and the border (130 miles). The German and Swiss cyclists Sixtous and Michel had decided that this was the route they would take on the basis that there was more habitation and the promise of better scenery than the all paved Paso de Jama. On descending from the Bolivian border we had gone down part of this road and it was steep. They left 2 days before I did. It took a long time for me to decide which pass to take because I was worried that I would run into more sand and corrugations on the Paso de Sico, but the Paso de Jama had no habitation for about 250 miles. The road to Socaire was easy for 40 miles being pretty much flat. I met a German cyclist at Toconao who was just out on a day trip from San Pedro. He was waiting for some spokes and a new low rider front rack to to be delivered after an accident in which the rack broke and then it and the panniers got jammed in the spokes presumably throwing him over the bars. His friend had gone on to attempt the route I took to Uyuni, but he was planning to take a ride in a 4x4. I managed to get accommodation and a nice meal in Socaire. The next 2 days riding to the border were pretty tough but not as bad as the stretch to Laguna Colorada. I was able to pick out the tyre marks of Sixtous and Michel, but Michel's tyre marks mysteriously vanished 10 miles or so after Socaire. What had happened? Sixtous is a photographer and seemed to have a bit of an artistic temperament. I wandered if they had fallen out and now Michel was lying in a ditch somewhere. I met a German couple about 4 miles from the border and they told me it had taken them 6 days to get from Salta to there and they had taken a lift part of the way because the road was so bad. They too were going to take a 4x4 from San Pedro to Uyuni. When I got to the border at 4:00 I quizzed all the 6 staff there as to whether there was accommodation in the next town of Catua in Argentina. Opinion was divided. It seems amazing that these people would not know the definite answer to a question they have probably been asked a thousand times or more. I was offered accommodation there for $10 US which is pretty steep for these parts. I felt a bit uncomfortable at staying there with 6 male border officials. These people are notorious for their corruption. I was amazed that they managed to find enough work for 6 people to do there as all of 7 people had crossed the border that day! They cooked up a huge meal that evening of which almost all was meat. It was a buffet and I ate about half of it myself, but I did not feel bad about it since they were overcharging me anyway. Perhaps in revenge there was no food for breakfast. They said that it was customary in Argentina to have only coffee for breakfast.
I rode off to Catua which was flat all the way but corrugated and sandy. I was surprised that this town was much like those in Bolivia in that it was basic and was inhabited by Indians exclusively. I asked a man in the street where the restaurant was. He said it was the house opposite and he knocked on the door several times but nobody came out. He therefore asked his wife to cook me some steak, chips and fried eggs. For this they wanted only 1.50 pesos(1 pound=5 pesos). They also had a shop so I stocked up with 3 big bars of chocolate amongst other things. The next day I rode to Olacapato which is another small Indian village. The ride was 40 miles where half was up to 4200m then the other half down. In Olocapato again I was fed the same massive meal for supper and breakfast. The next stretch of road to San Antonio de los Cobres was described by the German couple, to be in a terrible state from overuse by lorries from some mine or other. I kept waiting for, and dreading the moment when the road would turn bad, but it never did. Again it was about 40 miles with half up half down. San Antonio was a bit of a shit hole, but it had one nice hotel. When I went there I waited for 10 minutes for a receptionist to appear. When he did appear I asked him he had a room for me. Whilst I was looking at about 20 numbered keys on the wall he abruptly said there were no rooms. Obviously I was thought to be too much of a ragamuffin for this establishment.
The next day I set off before 8:00 in the morning, which is early for me. This was because I was intending to do the 100 miles all the way to Salta in one day. I spent about 2 hours climbing on a dirt road to about 4000m then it was downhill all the way for 90 miles to Salta at 1600m! At first the road was steep with lots of hairpin bends. It was fun. I managed a top speed of 50mph on that stretch. Later it flattened out a bit and the wind made it such that I was expending as much energy as if I were going uphill. It was an amazingly sudden transition from high desert to fertile agricultural land. You could almost draw a line across the place where dust, rocks and cacti were replaced by grass and big trees with red flowers.
Salta is a modern city like any in Europe, but the prices are like those in Peru. My accommodation is 7 pesos per night and the most expensive main course in the nice restaurant down the street is 11 pesos. This is a big piece of steak with some kind of black pepper sauce served on the main plate with an additional plate with small potatoes in a cheese sauce. And yes it is nice! I have been resting here for three days now. This morning I walked around the centre eating continuously: Croissants, ice cream, chocolate. It does not have the mayhem and vitality of cities in Peru and Bolivia however. I may head off to Caffeyate tomorrow or perhaps the next day. The night before I had a chance meeting with Michel. It turned out that his front fork had snapped (Aluminium rigid) so he had taken a lift back to San Pedro. He could not find a replacement there so he had taken the bus here.
I was thinking last night about all the off-road bike rides in Wales. I have not yet been anywhere in the world that has a comparable density of quality single track. Even the tracks I did in Huancavelica and La Paz were double tracks. The ones in La Paz were damn good though. I am finding what I am doing here to be a big adventure, but I am an adrenaline junkie and I need a hit I will look on the internet to see if I can find some information on some single track in these parts. There is a website called mountainbikereview.com which has such information. Failing that I may have to hire a motocross bike. In San Antonio I saw a group of 10 lads with crossers, so perhaps there is a company here in Salta which does motorbike tours. I would imagine that such tours, if they exist, would be fucking good fun. I just worry that if I take a fall, I might not be able to make it to Santiago by bike.
On the whole, the cycling down to here has not been as amazing as the rest of the trip, but overall I have no right to complain. The roads are too flat and straight, and the scenery is not as good as I am used to. I am mainly riding through wasteland with low bushes and sand. I can ride all day and there is hardly any change in scenery. The towns, however are built in oases with lush trees, vines, flowers and grass. The first day from Salta, I managed 90 miles. The road went from flat land and then climbed gently through the Lerma valley. I camped just off the road in a short offshoot of the valley, whose depth was about 100m from the road. There was a donkey nearby and during the night it made its donkey noises with echoed around the cliffs and sounded quite menacing. Next day the valley became pretty spectacular. I think the colourings and shapes of the rock formations were the most spectacular I have yet seen. I met a Dutch couple who had hired some bikes in Salta and been taken by bus to where the valley starts getting good. It was only 30 miles to Cafayate. I stopped here, had a steak and then 3 bottles of locally produced wine. In the morning I had to ask directions back to the centre of the town as I could remember nothing of the journey from restaurant to accommodation. I felt so shit, that I had to take a day off. When I got to the plaza I realised that the residencial I had stayed at was in the opposite direction to that which had been recommended to me by one of the waiters. In Argentina it is customary to only have coffee and bread for breakfast (not good for cycle tourists) so I my standard breakfast is seven or so croissants. After eating my breakfast on my day of departure I met Sixtous again, but he and Michel were having a day off before Sixtous went up to Valle de Lerma and Michel was coming down this way and then crossing into Chile via Paso San Francisco. Further down the road I met a Swiss couple who were riding a tandem with a trailer. It was an impressive rig, but the whole thing with luggage weighed about 100kg which is well into motorbike weight territory. I got to the village of Punta de Balasto, but there was no accommodation, so I went another 10 miles, and camped in dessert. 80 miles total. There was luckily enough wood from bushes to make a campfire to keep the flies away. The next day there was tarmac for 20 miles , then 60 miles of corrugated sand and strong headwinds to Belen. The next day I did only 60 miles to somewhere near San Blas. Yesterday I did 75 miles to here. It was a bastard of a journey as the wind steadily increased to gale force headwind until 8:00 when I reached the town.
The monotony of desert landscape was broken by some nice mountains between Chilecito and Villa Union. I had been feeling quite pissed off with everything and the mountains transformed my attitude. The road surface was to my liking as well as the scenery, which was relatively firm gravel. There was an interesting religious shrine beside the road on the way up which consisted of the usual figures and prints of the virgin Mary, but in addition there were numerous old parts of cars: tyres, wheels, engine parts and steering wheels carefully placed or deposited in heaps. Also there were candles and hundreds of plastic pop bottles filled with water. In addition there was a shelter close by, under which were 2 picnic tables. To the side of the shelter were grilles for barbecues. I have seen similar places elsewhere in Argentina and Bolivia, but this was the most impressive. The most bizarre shrine I have seen was, I think just after Chiliceito, where there must have been tens of thousands of water filled pop bottles arranged to form a pathway and a maize leading up to the Virgin Mary. The road to San Jose de Jachal also passed through some nice mountains, but the distance was 20 miles further than was signposted in Villa Union and these mountains were in that last 20 miles, so ended up riding for 12 hours that day. Just after leaving Villa Union, an expedition equipped Toyota Landcruiser stopped and I talked to the German owners. The man was dressed in cycling clothes and was very excited to meet me. He even started filming me with his video camera! It seemed that he had not been and was not intending to go cycling that day, but he was a keen cyclist having cycled across the Sahara desert twice. It turned out that they had been planning their 4 year trip for 3 years and they had originally planned to cycle it. I suspect that he would have preferred to do it that way but his girlfriend or wife had put a stop to it. Nevertheless he was going to do the next best thing in dressing like a cyclist! He seemed to be bursting with energy and I predict that at some point over the next 4 years he is just going to abandon the 4x4 and girlfriend and head off on his bike.
The ride to San Juan was 80 miles of slightly downhill, then 5 miles climbing and another 20 miles downhill again: Mostly desert, but the wind was behind me, so it passed easily. I found San Juan to be quite nice and people were very friendly: Whenever I would stop on the bike to look at the map, some passer by would ask if I wanted directions. I had day off here.
I made it from San Juan to Mendoza in about 11 hours, but spent 1 hour trying to find somewhere suitable to stay. This was the biggest mileage day so far on this trip being 115 miles and it was not downhill either, just flat with a slight headwind as well. This is my fourth day resting now and I think I will have one or two more days off. I have been passing the time reading an autobiography by the (claimed) psychic Robert Cracknell, which I found quite interesting, but I am still a sceptic. I have got a quarter of the way through some book which offers an interpretation and explanation of the book “The republic” by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato. It is an interesting book, but a little hard going in my current state of exhaustion. I think it will do me some good to exercise my brain a bit before resuming my mathematical studies in February. Talking about brains, I ate some in Chilecito! In Argentinean restaurants they usually give you some bread and something to put on it. In Chilecito I was given some white mushy stuff with some kind of herb sprinkled on it. I did not know what it was before I tried it. When I asked the waitress what it was she said something I did not understand and realising my limited Spanish understanding she pointed a finger to HER head! Before reading the 2 books above, I read a book called "The Pirate" by Harold Robins: Absolute filth! I found it quite an exciting read wandering how the next piece of pornography could be incorporated into the plot.
I am looking forward to getting back into the Andes proper now and also to getting home. I will try not to moan about the weather in Britain so much after having travelled through such parched land for so long and I can’t wait to see and get plastered in some proper British mud on the mountain bike.
