.... or not!

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AAAaaarrgh!!!....just when we thought we had it sorted, we found ourselves up against The Way Things Work Here. 5 minutes before the bus left for Salta we discovered that we couldn´t take the bikes on the bus, despite the assurances from the ticket office. So we watched in despair as the bus pulled away from the terminal without us. We had to arrange for the bikes to travel separately to Cordoba, as far north as it was possible to send cargo from Rio Gallegos. A full refund was not possible, so we transfered our tickets to Argentina´s second largest city to wait for our bikes, which will apparently take 5 days to arrive(!). A very stressful and costly experience, plus very worrying to be separated from our biciclettas. While waiting in Rio Gallegos we met other travellers who could empathise with us, and shared similar tales. It´s amusing that tourists we meet who travel solely by bus, invariably exclaim that cycle touring must be hard. Cycle touring is sooooo much easier than other forms of travel - ride, eat, sleep, all when we want, what could be easier? We only encounter difficulties when we hit the cities, or try to arrange transport.

So after 38 hours tedious hours on a bus filled with too many american movies, interrupted sleeps and irregular timed meals (us and our Kiwi habits found 11.30 a tad late for dinner). We finally emerged from the unchanging desert pampas into the the hot and humid city of Cordoba, releived to not be spending 52 hours on a bus like originally planned! We were very fortunate to have arranged a SERVAS host stay. We have been staying with the very generous Grace, who lives in a grande old high rise very close to the microcentro. Grace speaks a little more english than we speak spanish, needless to say our conversations are a tad stilted, but we manage to get by. Our first afternoon we had our own personal tour guide as we wandered the city and explored the old Jessiut buildings, over-the-top baroque churches, and galleries and cafes.

All in all Cordoba has been a relaxing, easy place to pass the time as we wait for our bikes but we are already suffering from city overdose. We had sympathy for the other kiwi couple we met, funnily enough the ones who sold us our map of Chile on trade me. They were stuck in Rio Gallegos for a week, waiting for a part for their motor bike. Rio Gallegos doesn´t offer much but maddening winds.

All going to plan, (who knows if it will, please cross your fingers for us) our bikes will arrive tomorrow and then we´ll catch a bus to Salta. We hope to spend a week taking our time adjusting to the heat and altitude by cycling slowly north exploring the Quebrada de Humahuaca and then through Bolivia to La Paz, perhaps by train.

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Photos

Check out that peak
We were so fortunate to have a clear almost windless day and able to get so close to Mt Fitzroy. I had to hold Phil back from going higher!

can I keep it?
un guanaco bebe. CUTE.

Big Sky Country
Rolling through the Steppe

The dancing water
Grace, keen to show us the local attactions, had us wait 1 hour to see the water fountains dance to Queen.

Cordoba
Old meets new.