Westward to Salta - Still No Tyres - 11 Dec 2002
River cruise out of Paraguay
Horny moment
Would go further but my Reistencia is low
Lateral thinking
Long haul
ìCrackingì good time in Salta
We sweated the night away and were delighted to hear rain beating against all sorts of surfaces in the morning. The sheet lightning brightening up the skies, with the accompaniment of ground shaking thunder claps. This was the third thunder storm, in less than a week. Is it following us around?
It is so much preferable to travel in the rain in this climate and we had quite a way to go.
I thought that I'd brave the rain with just my non-waterproofs on figuring that I'd soon dry out when the sun came. This was clearly a big mistake and as we plodded through downtown Asuncion the roads turned to rivers and passing cars and lorries seemed oblivious of (or amused by) the plight of motorcyclists and hurtled past us sending cascades of water down our boots and everywhere. There were a couple of cars that seemed friendlier than the rest that drove along in front and behind and blocked the others. It was nice of them, but by this stage we were so drenched that there was little to gain from their thoughtfulness. Hippy had a bit of a go at me for driving down the wrong side of a dual carriage way, but the oncoming cars seemed to understand that I was driving down a perfectly dry piece of road to avoid the foot deep lake on the other side.
I was also annoyed with him for bemoaning the thoughtlessness of the other cars when he had ignored my advice about putting on his waterproofs and then complained about being wet. So, yes I was muttering and not really offering any sympathy. Pat and I have a difference of opinion when it comes to idiots on the road, he feels the need to tell them assuming that they may learn to behave better in future, I tend to take the line that real idiots enjoy annoying others, and the more you show your annoyance the more they do I, and has the potential to develop in something more dangerous road rage. Hence him shouting at the selfish drivers merely wound me up even more. So when he then started down the wrong side of them it was the last straw. The inevitable row ensued.
It really started to bucket down and so we sought refuge in a petrol station. We gaffed with the pump hand that was fascinated by English music. His string of questions about; Michael Jackson, The Bee Gees, Abba and many other English bands had him a little perplexed when we burst his bubble. He failed to mention a single one from the UK. Still, it whiled away the height of the storm.
We took the opportunity to get rid of the last of out Paraguayan currency and only as the pump reached the exact amount in our pockets did we realise that there was a pay station on the road before the border. Mr Pump was adamant that we'd be forced to cough up even though most of the peages allow bikes through down the side. We set off determined to bluff our way through or duck under the barrier in the worst case scenario. Predictably, there was indeed a way through down the side of the pay station for bikes and motorcycles. It seems that our man knew as much about the pay stations as he did about English music.
Nothing significant at the Argy border so far as paperwork went. It may have saved a bit of time using the Carnet de Passage but in the end the nice man gave me temporary import for 8 months even though our visas were stamped for only three. I guess he probably pressed the wrong button on his computer.
I was on my normal duty, of watching the loaded bike, while Pat was on paperwork. There was the most docile Labrador type dog on a leash and a small rat like number. These were the sweetest animals, until suddenly they went mentally aggressive, barking and snarling and then calmed again. The second time that this happened I sussed the cause of this aberration ñ a poor homeless chap, who was hobbling around accompanied by an unpleasant odour. I felt sorry for the guy, he is not just down on this luck but also dogs are trying to attack him.
Weather continued wet but not mad wet. One hundred yards through the border and the horn started to go off by itself. I figured that blowing off at cars that were soaking me in Asuncion had probably led to some water born crap lodging in the switch as it was in the open position as one of the bastards went past. A few wiggles on and off should sort the problem. Not.
Just as the horn went into solid blow mode we were passing a garage with a big open shed at the back, so I pulled in and set about stripping the bike down far enough to give all the sparks system a good old WD40ing. With all the kit on the bike, this took some time. First empty out the panniers to get at the WD40, then take all the luggage off to get at all the connections, etc. About half an hour later we were ready for the off and all seemed well. I had a cunning plan in the event of no improvement - disconnect anything that was not immediately important. See, after a while on the road four powers of quick fixing reach the obvious point of simply keeping going and forgetting all the unnecessary stuff. Hardly rocket science, as they say.
All held together for the next leg down to Formosa (I'm sure that used to be a country somewhere else) and we stopped only to take on coffee and burgers. This must have been the service station with the world record number members of staff. Fortunate really as one of them had to keep mopping the floor where we dripped. We were just about to leave when a guy poled up who was showing great interest in the bike. It transpired that he was a biker himself, owning a VMax (if you don't know what one is, contact Simon 'I can't handle it' Binner)
We were escorted back to his house where we dripped on his carpet while he showed us his collection of pictures of mates bikes, rallies, independent travellers, etc. As we sat on towels on his sofa, he filled us in on the roads ahead and we had to be really resolute to leave and head down the road to our chosen end of day's rest. He was extremely keen for us to stay but we vetoed for two reasons. Firstly, we were already wet and so we might as well carry on in the rain and get it over with - the next leg of the trip was due to be over a pretty arid area of Argentina. More than that, though, we felt a little guilty about staying in this man's little house. We had visions of the kids being kicked out of bed for us. Still, it all reinforced our admiration of the hospitality of Argentinean bikers. Nowhere else have we been so consistently invited to stay places.
Would go further but my Reistencia is low
With drying roads we made it to Resistencia in gathering dusk. Hotel, food, sleep.
Resistencia is just over a river from Corrientes, which had a much more favourable write up in the guide book so we went for a day trip. As we arrived, large areas of the streets were cordoned off by police and army and I was inclined to beat a hasty retreat. We persisted in trying to find parking, but had to resort to a paying car park in the end. 5p an hour - outrageous!
Not a bad little town. The bizarrest thing though was the students. We haven't said a lot about schoolies in South America so I guess this might be a good time. Secondary school girls are all lab technicians. Depending on the heat, they either wear lab coats over their uniform or wear a lab coat like uniform on its own. Given that the schools have names such as "Escuela 1352", there something of an anonymity about it all. Anyway, here in Corrientes the kids were going around in their lab coats looking somewhat scruffy. They all had felt tip pen messages written all over them. Only when we managed to read "feliz vacaciones" on someone's back did we realise that this must be the last day of term. It stands to reason that in the southern hemisphere and in a country that is not sitting exams associated with the north, the long holidays are around Christmas. Doh. We still could not figure whether this was why the streets had been turned into an exclusion zone.
Still on the tyre trail, we went into a bike shop. They could only offer something with a higher profile which on my bike is something of a no-no as there is so little space under the back end and even a "correct" tyre rubs at the very limit of the suspension. We shall try again later.
The gear box has not had an oil change for a while and as there are nasty noises and stuff from down below I thought that it might be sensible to change oil and see what horror stories it would reveal. Now, if you recall, the filler plug on the gearbox has now got a set of nearly completely stripped threads and the idea of taking it out and putting it in again filled me with dread.
Ages ago I had a nightmare when a dodgy geezer sold me the bike and forgot to put a bolt back in the top of the gearbox where it joins to the air filter box. Here was my alternative opening for filling the gearbox. All I had to do was measure the out coming oil to check that the right amount was in there in the first place and then fill up with the same amount from the top. The oil that came out was bang on for quantity which was reassuring as there is a steady dribble. It just goes to show how little oil needs to be dripping to create the impression of a major problem.
Great, all I had to do was put in 800 ml of fresh EP90 gear oil. Now most gear oil bottles come with a handy tube for dispensing the contents without making a sticky mess every where and indeed, this one did. However, the bolt into the top of the gearbox is not very big and I was faced with a sticky mess in the offing. Hippy bailed me out suggesting the use of a syringe. This may have taken well over a couple of hours, but it set me to thinking and in the end the oil was dispensed using the bicycle pump that I carry for no good reason ñ I have a foot pump as well. Job done.
While Pat was on bikey matters, I had a mission to try to discover a way to dry out the sodden boots. Now the last time that they were truly wet, we stayed in a place with air-con and a hair dryer, of which I pretty much burnt out the motor by using it till the wee hours to dry the boots. So there had to be an alternative strategy. Osmosis. With no technical semi-permeable membrane at hand, my first attempt involved film canisters of sugar inside the boots. This did produce the right principle as tiny water droplets collected on the sides of the canister. But the process was a little slow.
Jorge (the Vmax biker) had told us that the road we intended to take over to Salta did indeed have an un-surfaced section and that the surfaced bit was pretty potholed in places. We set off with the expectation of rough camping or at least stopping somewhere on the way. At least the skies were overcast and so we werenít going to suffer from the Paraguayan heat-effect. This is a pretty flat and dull section of Argy and can get extremely hot!
The road was fine and thenÖit was not. The dreaded potholes appeared and for all I did in the way of weaving, there was the odd one here and there that crept up and gave Bertha a big smack in the chops. Fortunately, after about 25 km of abuse she had and easy ride until lunch. We dined on chicken Milaneseís. For the exorbitant sum of a quid we had a whole chicken cut up and beaten flat and served with potatoes and 2 litres of pop. Getting out to the sticks really gives you an idea of how cheaply you could live in countries like this.
The usual police check points came and went with no major hassles. I felt really sorry for the guys out here. Hardly any traffic and not a lot else to divert ones attention. Dull, dull, dull. We chatted amiably rather than having a strop about being stopped for the nth time that day. One checkpoint was absolutely swarming with butterflies trying to drain the last vestiges of water from a muddy puddle. It was a nice little diversion for us, but I guess the guard would not find it so uplifting having been looking at it for the last 3 weeks.
The un-surfaced section never appeared which only goes to show that you should never trust a Vmax man (Sorry, Simon) and so we whacked onÖand onÖ and on. In the end we piled all the way through to Salta making it an 880 km. day. Havenít done that for a while and remarkably we were not too stiff and knackered at the end of it. Oh, I guess the first view of the Andes (even though itís only the foothills) was quite uplifting at the end of the day.
Arriving in Salta we removed our boots, to discover the nearest thing to trench feet that I have ever seen. Patís feet already suffering from athleteís foot were painfully wrinkled and bleached from basically being in a steam bath of damp hot boots all day. It called for rice, phase two of the dehydration process. Socks stuffed with rice into the boots. You may think that this is terribly anal but I even measure the volume of the rice before hand to see if it worked. Do you gather that I may have been in search of a mental challenge? It works by the way, again slowly.
We had been assured that Salta was a must. For a change as much as anything we decided to stay at a backpackers place.(actually itís the only place where you can swap reading material) Its good every now and again to catch up on travel info and to change reading books. So for the first time in months we were in a crowded hostel. This had the disadvantage that we had to fight to make a cup of tea and we were made to feel old by the spry young things going out at 11 and coming in at dawn. We came to the conclusion that if any of you are thinking of getting married or remarried for that matter, Salta would make an excellent place for a Stag/ Hen weekend. With 30 bars in the area of 3 blocks for the evening and white water rafting, quad biking, horse riding etc. available for daytime activities.
The advantage however was that we had a great crack [I think she means craic ñ webmaster] with some Irish folk. Is it something hereditary that the Irish have such a great way of entertaining others with their tales and generally amusing anecdotes? We had a great evening up till 3 in the morning, drinking beer, playing hearts and having the crack with Simon and Peter, two Irish mates and their travel colleague, Michael from the Isle of Man. Donít ask me to remember all the nonsense that we were talking , but letís say that it was one of those evenings where you look at your watch an it is 11 oíclock and then you become aware that there is no-one else left in the bar, and check the time and somehow it is 3 in the morning and serious political conversation begin. Michael turned out to be the most pro-British people I have ever met. He really believed that the Commonwealth aided all members equally. Bless him, light will dawn one day. With 2 Irishmen, who know the selfishness of the English first hand and 2 cynical bastards like ourselves, the man was outnumbered, and we decided to go to bed before the argument turned nasty.
The ethos of late nights amongst the hostellers meant it was hard to get motivated before mid day. We decided that we really must see something of the area and took a number of little day trips out. Being now in the foothills of the Andes, the roads are a bit more interesting. One trip took us winding through a misty lush forested gorge, with creepers and the lot -reminiscence of the Zomba plateau that we had liked so much in Malawi.
Another took us rising slowly up to 3000m towards the border with Chile. This road was following the railway line ìTren de las nubesî. Pat had really wanted to go to see the mad high spindly bridges that appear in all the brochures. The scenery got drier and drier, until only the area in the valley bottom was remotely green and then even that turned to rocks. On the way the rock formations was stunning, with flowering tree sized cactus to contrast the stark landscape. We were most impressed that what was shown as a dirt road all the way, metamorphosed into perfect tar after 30km and we could enjoy the twists and turned of the trail as it hugged the hillside. Our first alpaca thing outside a zoo. As yet, I am not sure of the differences between the different types of alpaca/guanaco/llama so I won¥t try to say here.
I was much relieved that Bertha showed that she could at least cope with 3000 metres without getting too sick.On the way back down we spotted one of the smaller versions of the big trainaducts. Underneath it was a cemetery and we sat and pondered for a while as to why this should be. It was on the far side of the valley from any civilisation ñ not that there was much, anyway. Our conclusion was that it was either a train crash site or the workers on the bridge had suffered some horrendous scaffolding collapse.
The next bizarre thing was when I saw a pile of plastic bottles and thought that some enterprising soul was collecting them selling them on as liquid vessels, but as we turned round to have a closer look it was clear that it was a shrine to pray for water. Along with plastic flowers, a model of the virgin Mary, the ladyís shelter was weighted down by a couple of well drill-bits and then some other random stuff that I failed to find any relevance for like clutch plates etc.
In the evening we were again entertained by the Irish, this time in female form, Caira, a women on her way back from a couple of years in NZ spending a little time in S. America. It turned out that she was a fair table tennis player, and persuaded me to have a go. Now, I am not known for my ball skills and coordination, but I wish willing to make a fool of myself. Although I say it myself after half an hour, I was a competent amateur and even won a few points off her. She explained that the Koreans and Japanese in NZ had a different way of holding the bat and maybe we ought to have a go. I stood twisting my fingers this way and that in all possible contortions and orientations of the bat until by chance more than intent I got this strange bat hold. It did nothing for her game, but mine was so bad it just created a new lot of defects and corrected some of the originals, creating an overall stalemate. After a good trashing Pat decided to have a go. Pat had clearly played properly before (coached by webmaster Will, no less), and was winning points, and the game was pretty evens. Until he pulled his master stroke by reaching for the ball and cocking his leg up in a Homer Simpson style ballerina act. It was so entertaining that poor Caira lost concentration completely, and could not stop laughing. From then on Pat knew he could win the game if he merely began to cock his leg, it would instigate giggles from the opposition. I did how ever feel for the poor chaps trying to watch TV in the room behind the TT table as every couple of minutes a ping pong ball went careering in, and pinging around the walls.
That night we spent a pleasant evening chatting with Caira and a Czech girl, who was a little distracted by missing her man. We crawled to bed at 3p.m. again after discussing everything from the words to karaoke songs, different types of travellers we had met to the Irish version of Blind Date, where the blokeís mother asks the questions with him cringing in the background ñ I have to see this!