Back On The Road - Argentina Again? - 26 Feb 2003
Back on the road properly at last
Hostel life ñ same as it ever was
Hoon again, hoon again Dick Whittington
Professional Bike Traveller
Oh, I give up! I donít know
Valle Fertil didnít seem so and there were no Welsh in Tafi del Valle
Sidmouth, west of Buenos Aires
We get exercise, too
Back on the road properly at last
The shock absorber had not absorbed any shock of the cost of its repair and so we left Santiago with the attitude that weíre going to have to pull the belt in for a bit. Our only real target for the next couple of weeks was to get up to Cafayate in time for the music festival. Helen seemed keen on this and one can only suppose that the faces she always pulled about Sidmouth Folk Festival were simply to get a rise out of me.
We managed to get out of Santiago on the same day as picking up the shocker and so we honed to the border before we needed to change any more cash into Chile pesos. But for nearly choking to death in the tunnel that leads from Chile into Argentina, the trip over the top was uneventful. We took the chance to call in at the Inca bridge on our way. It is not a bridge and was not built by Incas. It is in fact a rock formation where a river has found a path below and eroded down. An impressive sight in burnished gold. I was all up for parking Bertha on the top for a photo op. but Iím not sure it would have gone down too well.
I have to confess that as we rollover the Andean pass and were riding pass Aconcagua to our left we spontaneously began to sing ìTake me home country roadî. Do you think that subconsciously my brain is trying to tell me something? There was something relaxing about returning into Argentina. The road gave more spectacular views in this direction, and as we swept around the bends as we dropped a few 1000m into Mendoza it was good to be back on the road and the bike.
Hostel life ñ same as it ever was
Getting all the way to Mendoza was pretty impressive given our late start ñ jumping all the queues at the border helped. It was still getting on a bit and the only space at the inn was on the roof. This is generally fine in hot places as the night time temperatures are a lot more bearable. The other inmates at the hostel said that the rooms were cool enough if you kept the fans pointing at you all night. I donít really get on with nocturnal fan noises and so was reasonably pleased with our lot. The down side is the lack of security. It is a fair truism that if there is an accessible roof space on a backpackers hostel it will be haunted by pot smoking types. Donít really have a problem with that but we decided to put the tent up to put all the stuff in. The mere fact that a blunt knife would be enough to gain access would challenge the addled brains of these types and so security was guaranteed. In fact we basically had the roof to ourselves and it become our own little sun terrace, apart from the occasional person hanging/collecting washing.
We didnít pursue the room potential for the next night even though it was Valentines Day. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink. Personally given the options of a stuffy room or a starry night to enjoy Valentineís which would you choose? The idea of the night flight effect did not appeal. We settled for a romantic dinner of Öcurry. We do like our curries and no one seems to sell anything like. Getting meat in a sauce is hard enough. Feeling a little pink from a days sunning we sat down to a feast of curry and daal. Joining us was an entertaining German couple and a very odd American bloke. The German couple Antja and HP (not the sauce apparently) sporadically spend their lives travelling, seemingly returning to Germany only to earn the funds for the next trip and maintaining the equivalent of NI contributions. At heart they would love to be permanently on the road but quirks in German bureaucracy limit them to a year at a time. Itís worse than that. If you are German apparently there are great hurdles facing you if you wish to leave the country for more than six weeks at a time. When you get back and want to claim back tax for the months youíve not been working, you have to prove that youíve been away and simply showing your passport entries is not considered good enough. Moving house in Germany can be a fraught process. If you do not inform the authorities fast enough you can be fined. Scary. Maybe British bureaucracy is not so bad after all. Being about our age, we gelled quickly and before we knew it was 3 in the morning. I wimped out, Pat was made of sterner stuff. Not quite the romantic star lit night I had envisaged. Never mind it was a good evening and there is always next year.
Now the odd American, he was quite another kettle of fish all together. He joined us at the dining table just as we were tucking into seconds of curry and Antja and HP were on firsts of a kind of cassoulet. He sat unashamedly peering into the pots remarking on how good it all smelled until we could stand it no longer and all offered him food. Cheeky bugger didnít even like our daal. He did do his bit regards cleaning up by taking the pan to the sink and leaving it there to clean itself. Later, we heard that the day before he had done the same to another set of people. There are certain people around the world that have this ability to permanently blag their way through life. I will leave Pat to describe the other quirky aspects of his character.
Hmmm a strange fellow indeed. Let us begin with his dress. He had two numbers of choice. One was a set of denim dungarees and the other was a set of denim dungarees with shorts legs. With his white hair and long beard he looked something like Uncle Jessy out of the Dukes of Hazzard. Now, talking of Jesses, there was little confusion over which way this guy was hanging. I donít have a problem with gay folk at all, but I really canít abide mincing and affected lisping. He was the most confused chap weíve met with regard to politics of the world. We are no experts but when he was saying that he would not travel in Africa because it is so politically unstable but he was here in South America where Argentina has had countless Prime Ministers in the last year, Bolivia, and Venezuela are in political turmoil and Colombia isÖColombia. This is the man who was trying to see deep meaningful things in the movie ìThe Beachî It would all have been fine but for the fact that he had a habit of forcing himself and his opinions on you. Ah, well.
Having lost our address in Puetto Montt there all addresses of people back home and those we have met travelling have sat in a ditch somewhere in Chile. So we have been doing a little Internet searching in vain attempts to recompiled snippets of our correspondence network. On a search for the information for Taragui Tea, Las Marias estate, where the kind folk put us up, we were amazed to see our website come up as a link. We were quite chuffed to see ourselves, but it unfortunately was no help with our own quest for Charles and Doloresí phone number. Heigh ho.
Hoon again, hoon again Dick Whittington
Well we are heading North properly now. Did about 150km and stopped for a lunch break after some very dull road. Disaster! The bloody shock absorber that was meant to be fixed in Santiago was still leaking oil. I donít need to describe the adjectives that Pat was using, I think you can imagine. We had just spent 140 quid for nothing. I confess I was not good company over lunch. Even the delights of assorted barbecued meats failed to cheer me up.
What were we to do? Return to Santiago? This is getting to be something of a habit ñ also something of a debatable economic move given that it would now be an 800 km round trip and a few nights accommodation and food thrown in. Put it down to experience? Didnít seem the best idea as we could be left with a complete failure just up the road somewhere. Iím still not sure what is likely to happen to the unit if it runs dry.
We set off back to Santiago with heavy hearts after I had mopped up the smear of oil before we set off so I could monitor leakage. There are two routes up to the town between Mendoza and Santiago, Uspallata. One of them goes up the dirt, the other is a route weíve taken a couple of times, now. We chose the first option, as I wanted to see what effect serious hard work would have on the suspension.
It was a beautiful ride up over the mountains and we were almost pleased that weíd have to come back or we would have missed out on this stunning route. What made it extra special was the light of the setting sun on the mountains as we descended into Uspallatta which silhouetted the nearer mountains against a backdrop of increasingly hazy ridges falling off into the distance.
We camped for the night at a campsite we hadnít been to since mid-December. It was amazing to see the place transformed by loads of holidaymakers. We thought we would probably have quite a good gaff later as there was a Dutch sports bike on the site.
Sure enough, we had a fascinating chap with this guy. Weíd heard about his exploits back in Blantyre, Malawi. Heíd been at the same place we had the day before we turned up and the Hot Rockers had relayed his tale to us. Now, here he was in the flesh. Sjaak (Jack in Dutch) is a well-known world biker who shuns the tag ìfamousî. He has previously been around the world on a Honda Fireblade, which most would consider one of the least suitable machines to tackle a trip like this on. On that bike he clocked up an amazing 250,000 km ñ impressive stuff.
Now he is repeating the trip on a Yamaha R! ñ The latest boss sports bike. His route has taken him across the Sahara where his experience proved what we learned with Scully; that having super wide wheels and plenty of power is all that is needed for soft sand. More spectacular was his ploughing through Congo ñ literally. There are no roads to speak of and his worst day was making 8km. Most of the time his bike seemed to be belly deep in mud and he had to ask for help from local bandits from time to time to pull him out. His website is in Dutch but has rather more spectacular pictures than ours ñ www.sjaaklucassen.nl Do, if you can, spare the time look up his picture of the Sahara and the Congo, they will show exactly what a sports bike can do if you have a rider mad enough to take it through. Thank you Sjaak for showing Pat what he could have been dealing with in the nature of bad roads. It made our experiences seem very tame. There are times that Pat whinges at me about the direction I chose and the fact that we are covering so much dirt. I now have evidence that I have not really subjected our beloved Bertha to serious grief. It was also very humbling to meet a man travelling through much rougher countries (in terms of terrain) than ourselves. There are times that our journeying feels very ordinary. He did claim that in all his travels we are first couple travelling all the way round the world by bike that he had met, so maybe even though we are a little conservative we can still claim to be unusual. No one ever suggested you werenít unusual, Hippy.
It was amazing how many similar experiences we had shared and when he mentioned his favourite road in Argentina, I immediately blurted out ìTafi del Valleî and it so it turned out that we were in complete accord about what makes a good road. He liked it so much he went up it and then straight down it again.
He also has Patís obsession with talking about his bowels. We were relieved to know that by the morning he left us that had returned to normal consistency. Is this something common to all world bikers I wonder.
He also asked us an unusual question ¥Are you left handed?í He is carrying out a private survey of biker travellers, he himself being left handed. He claims that about 70% of bikers doing this kind of thing are left handed, there was even a couple on two bikes in Africa that were both left handed. Pat as you may know already is of course left handed, and I right handed. We will now begin to collect data for him. This may begin to give us an excuse for being a little strange. Maybe there is mileage in selling the results to bike manufacturers to design their world travel type bikes with this ergonomically in mind. Or is it the opposite way round that bikes are easier to ride if you are left handed and manufacturers need to consider right-handed users more. All manner of permutations to contemplate in bored hours on the back of the bike.
Regrettably he was heading straight south while we are aiming to get going north and so we parted disappointed not to travel together for a while. Iím sure heíll catch us up again in the north.
Before shooting over to Santiago which was not a very long day, we thought that weíd nip up to see some petroglyphs that weíd passed the other day. On the way up to them, a thought occurred to me. As there had been no further oil loss the previous day there could be two possible explanations; there was no more oil in the unit (seemed unlikely as it was still performing as it should) or the nitrogen container inside the shock expands when the pressure drops at altitude and pushes out a bit of oil. Hmmmm. We decided to go for a bit of a hoon and then head back down to Mendoza. If there was no oil loss, we would consider all well and head on our way north again.
Sure enough there was no leak. It will doubtless hit again somewhere out of sensible returning range for Santiago. Cíest la vie.
Valle Fertil didnít seem so and there were no Welsh in Tafi del Valle
There had been the idea of stopping at La Rioja but I demonstrated my being in touch with my feminine side by changing my mind at the drop of a hat. Hippy was not impressed. The shock held onto all of its oil all day as we made up for lost time on a blast up to San Augustin de la Valle FÈrtil. Bit of a mouthful but a nice chilled little town. Weíd passed through before and fancied a stopover. It was absolutely chocker with pickups leaving with all manner of rough road vehicles hitched up to them. There were battered looking 4x4s, Dukes of Hazzard style cars, quad bikes, motocross bikes and all sorts. Seems weíd turned up on the Sunday afternoon at the end of the biggest thing to happen here all year. Good thing we didnít arrive the day before as planned or Hippy would probably have ended up as a dirt widow.
As we sat ëal frescoí at a little caff having breakfast the tranquillity of this town was impossible to ignore. There was no loud music, no children crying, no cars racing through and no one shouting. A few locals were cycling up and down the street to fetch a few groceries. It felt like the sort of town where even if something terrible happened it would be impossible to disturb the ambience and get angry. This place was better than going for a massage; you could almost sense the tension draining from you. As Hippy said at the time ëthis town is so peaceful even the dogs donít barkí.
The down side of going to San Augustin was that the only way forward was by dirt road. But it turned out to be a pretty good dirt road (if a bit bland on the scenery front) and the saving in mileage was well worth it.
We had a stopover in Catamarca, which we chose due to its description in the LP as a quiet town, where they had not quite reached the capitalist 20th century. All we can imagine is that the writers of the LP had turned up in siesta time when the town shuts for five hours due to the unbearable heat ñ they could not have been more wrong. By nightfall the streets were heaving in this thriving commercial centre. Not being quite what we came for we were not that impressed. We just felt obligated to poke our noses into the temple attached to the cathedral that houses the remains of Argentinaís patron saint ñ the Virgin Del Valle. It is the done thing that all Argentine are encouraged to make the pilgrimage to see her so we thought it was polite to show our respects. The shrine was on the first floor and the walls of the stairwell were chocker block with votive offerings. Do people really believe that sticking a silver replica of an eye will really mean that the saint will remove their cataract, or is it more like Pat religiously wearing his football scarf to try and help Bolton win. When in fact if they only stopped letting in goals in the last five minutes they would be in the top half of the table. So it is not something people really think, in their heart of hearts will work, but it does no harm and it makes you feel like you are doing something to improve the situation.
Unfortunately, she is such a famous saint to the Argentines that was no need to have and explanation for the ignorant tourist like ourselves as to what makes her so special. All we had to go on was a series of stained glass windows in the temple that we took to be events in her life or miracles she performed. What struck me as particularly un-pc depicting the conquistadors fighting the Amerindians and a saintly lady in the sky sending thunderbolts to kill off the natives. So thatís how they did it!
It was wonderful to have the chance to travel the road that wound up to Tafi del Valle again without the rain that we had had the first time. The town was transformed from a rather wet quiet little place to a sunny tourist trap, teaming with grockles who were early for the cheese festival. We did contemplate staying to see exactly what one does to celebrate cheese. It was hard to imagine. Are there cheese rolling competitions? Do people dress up in cheese shaped customs? or guess the weight of the cheese. Cheese competitions ñ like prettiest cheese, most affable cheese. We decided to keep the mystery for another visit to Argentina and headed on to Cafayate.
If you remember the last time we came here we commented on the fact that we loved this town with its good wine, pretty plaza and enough altitude to have cool nights. We not prepared for what the town would become over the next few days.
Sidmouth, west of Buenos Aires
I dragged Hippy to a folk festival in Devon a couple of times and she has never really forgiven me. I was amazed when she discovered the Argentine equivalent in the pages of the Lonely Planet and professed keenness to attend. This had been our target for a few days and we arrived before the hordes in time to find a camping pitch. Or so we thought. In fact, the first site we went to was absolutely chocker.
On our first morning it was rather nice to be joined by a rather thin guest. A praying mantis had taken up residence on one of the largish stones we had to make a couple of seats and a table. He/she/it seemed reluctant to return to a leaf so we enjoyed its company for a while. Hippy enjoys these things, I confess to being a bit of a wimp so she had to pick it off my sleeve for me and place it in a tree.
We found space over the road for the princely sum of 90p a night for the two of us. It was basic but it had trees for shade and the promise of hot showers. There was the usual mixture that one would expect on a campsite anywhere. We met a charming couple from Buenos Aires who were heavily into the Boy Scout movement ñ they even gave us a baseball cap from their troop. Which is nice. The Argentines have been great people for giving gifts to us, there was the eagle badges from people in Buenos Aires, the bike club stuff for the chap in Formosa and now a hat from a scout master. Obviously we are not in a position to carry unwanted clutter and these small token we shall cherish with the respect than their giving warrants. Besides that we needed a new hat after mine was one of the many things inhabiting the now absent rucksack. The Lord taketh and giveth back. Whoa, Hippy, overdose at the shrine to the saint, maybe?
Another nice chap was a management student who bemoaned the fact that all of their textbooks were written in America and thus spouted American management practices. Not such a bad idea, I wouldnít have thought ñ they seem to have been more successful than Argentina in the 20th century.
There were of course a few less helpful types. Young kids (Pat is being to show his age by seeing anyone under 25 as a kid) taking what seemed to be getting their first stab at parent-free holidays would arrive home at 4 in the morning to a silent sleeping campsite, and then break into song. To be fair, their singing was generally excellent; it was just a shame that the same could not be said for their timing.
There was also a family in the next-door tent with numerous children. We didnít hear a peep out of the girls but the boysÖwell were being mindless boys. They had decided that batting bottle tops into other peoplesí tents was the greatest entertainment. When Pat suggested that this game would be better played in an unused area of the campsite, there was dismay on their faces. It seemed that although it was clear that other campers did not approve of the boys behaviour it was also not the custom to complain.
The disparative upbringing of boys and girls is more obvious here, it was not only the incidents in the campsite but sat in a quite civilised restaurant in Catamarca a few days earlier a little boys was merrily throwing a paper aeroplane around and grovelling under customers tables to retrieve it. It was not until the nose of the plane jabbed Pat in the cheek that his parents thought fit to say something and that was only to direct him to another area of the restaurant. Whilst this lad was causing mayhem his sisters were sat meek and mild having intelligent (is Hippy suggesting that little boys are unintelligent, tsch) conversation with their parents. I know itís the same everywhere boys get away with more than girls but here its gone a little far here. Perhaps this explains the attitude that was vouched safe to us by someone that the road laws simply do not apply to (male) drivers. There is a perception of personal freedom that is such that you donít need to follow rules that you donít like.
Folk festivals around the world seem to be very similar. It is strange (although, some might say not strange at all) that folk music can only be listened to after the consumption of large amounts of alcohol. Fortunately, Cafayate is at the centre of a large wine-producing region and so the only major prerequisite for enjoying oneself was readily on tap. My particular favourite wine offering was inside the main arena. In Britain, one would be able to buy Heineken poured from a tin into a wobbly pint pot and have to pay an astronomical fee for the privilege. Argentina shuns the wobbly pint pot in favour of the wobbly litre pot. One of these filled with your choice of red or white wine sets you back the princely sum of 40p. Hippy had the gall to remove the ice from her litre (fair enough, ice in red wine is not to our taste) and insist that the barman topped it up. Fair play to him, he scurried of and brought it back in an instant ñ probably filled up with water if he had any sense.
We did get into the arena for the final two nights of performances. We regret not getting into the first night, as the sound of the music was excellent. My manager mate described it as a fusion of musica tipica and rock. This actually seems to work better with Latin music than British. I look forward to a load of abuse from all those Fairport/Tull/Lindisfarne fans. The Irish end of things may just about match up.
The coca leaf sellers were in abundance, but unlike the dealers in the UK who are at the young end of the population and grungy looking. These people were mostly middle-aged men, with paunchy physiques and wearing rather nice slacks and a sensible cardy. Technically it is illegal (or so we presume because of mostly furtive dealings and the absence of chain stores called ìcoca r usî here but they were selling quite opening in the streets and the police seemed unperturbed at all. Whilst in the stadium we watched closely as an armed policeman approached a coca seller and we expected to see him at least ask the guy to be a little more discrete. Instead the policeman was just making a purchase and casually made a deal in front of about 5000 spectators. Now I realise that a lot of the British police force may use the odd illegal drug (perish the thought, Hippy) or two but they at at least try to present a public face of non-acceptance.
The coca leaf thing is a difficult one. Bolivia makes most of its living from its production and in its unrefined form it is relatively harmless. We have seen tourist advertisements extolling the virtues of the leaf as an aid to altitude and digestion, no less. I am aware that there is pressure on Bolivia from the US to stop production. But it seems harsh to blame the growers for what some people may do to refine the leaves into pure cocaine. Seems something like stopping the Irish growing potatoes as some nasty people make poteen out of them.
Night two was trad only and was surprisingly varied from the more typical Spanish Argentine ballads to Andean pipe music. All of it was excellent (obviously sufficient wine consumption), but the crowd seemed to have something of a racist attitude and shunned the Amerindian offerings ñ turning their backs and talking through it. The crowd chewed their way through the coca so that they could stay awake through the whole performance ñ ëtil 7 in the morning, no less. This meant other preparations were needed and there was a stunning array of ponchos. Our favourite, though, was the chap in front of us wearing what was, to all intents and purposes, a pink candlewick bedspread. It had actually been tailored so there was no excuse for him simply having picked up the first thing in the blanket cupboard.
Final night of the festival was a cut-price job described to us as a present for the people of Cafayate. It cost a whole 2 pesos for the tickets and Hippy pointed out to me that we had tickets number 18 and 19. The venue must have a capacity of more than 5 thousand! We prepared ourselves to be lonely. Sure enough, when we arrived a quick head count around the audience came up with 56 ñ I was not sure whether to include the two dozing dogs.
The music was again a rich blend of modern Latin folk music, trad and Andean. The performers were all amateurs and in some cases it showed. Either nervousness or simply lack of talent or bad preparation meant that a couple of performers failed dismally to reach the high notes and shivers passed through me in a fingernail on blackboard kind of a way. Others were truly excellent.
The highlight of the evening, for me, was a group of three school children. Aged six (drum), seven (pan pipes) and eight (charango - ukele type thing which is omnipresent here), they played as well if not better than the poncho clad Peruvians who seem to litter the pedestrianised areas of the world. They were not merely proficient, they were astounding and so into it that it was hard to believe ñ bopping about like mad things. I could have sworn that there were very small adult performers hiding somewhere. I almost wept with pleasure. Their teacher strummed away in the background but I honestly think that his presence was totally superfluous.
Come midnight we were ushered into the seated area in the middle of the arena. I suppose that the security chaps were getting a bit embarrassed at having to keep the 20 excitable concert goers behind the barriers. The quality of the bands improved, too, but without succumbing to the coca we once again had to go to bed at a European kind of time.
The area around Cafayate is pleasant wine growing slopes with Andean peaks behind. In fact weíd discovered by a strange quirk of spontaneous museum visiting that this whole valley is something of a South American Rift Valley. Rather lacking in huge game animals, though.
There was rumoured to be a waterfall up in them there hills and so we set off in search. The path led us up along a small irrigation channel that had been carved into the hillside. It was not clear whether this was a modern creation or simply improvement of old technology of the indigenous people. It reminded me in a way of the system at Petra. We never did get to the waterfall.
Well it was my fault really. I have a few things that get me perplexed, one of them being walking on slippery surfaces. So, you may gather that my only attempt at skiing was a disaster, and that day as the path criss-crossed the stream and it was necessary to cross the wet stones. With each new crossing my confidence was disappearing and in the end I resigned myself to the fact I was having no fun at all and it would be best for Pat to continue alone.
I was angry with myself, I remember as a kid I happily dashed across streams, climbed rock faces barefoot and now I have lost faith in myself. Pat tried every method of coercion possible, holding my hand, gentle encouragement and in the end lost his patience and starting shouting at me. Sensitive git, arenít I ñ but it did work in this case. I know how he felt, I was also mentally shouting at myself, to stop being so ridiculous. As I sat enjoying the view and awaiting Patís return I watched countless people of all ages shapes and sizes, in some cases platform sandals merrily crossing the stream. This did nothing for my confidence and I have to confess I spent the rest of the day wondering if I cannot cross a piss willy stream am I really the kind of person to accompany Pat on a round the world trip. Not a good day. Riding around the world on a motorbike does not require stream crossing abilities!
We cheered ourselves up with some slightly simpler walking, thereafter and even though weíd been drinking a good bit in the evenings in Cafayate, we came away leaner and fitter.