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Arg 1
downtown Buenos AriesDay 15. Km 1045.
On our Trusty Mighty-ones, "Jay" Guevara and Ernesto(tt) GuevarIan. We have now crossed the mighty pampas of Argentina which felt like a mini epic. set off after a few days around Buenos Aries generally recovering from the flights, rebuilding the bikes and meandering around the city. Taxi journey from Airport was quite funny...outside lane all they way...pip at anything that even slightly looked like getting in his way, begrudgingly let an ambulance with sirens on past but only after holding it up for a minute or 2. He had a trick that he clearly had done before which involved driving up to a toll barrier flat out and not slowing down causing unsuspecting fares (us) to brick themselves when he knew that he had some little chip on his car somewhere that automatically raised it...i saw a little grin on his face when i gripped the hand rail. He also managed to overtake someone in stationary traffic who hesitated for 0.0001 seconds but drove his car over some sort of fire hydrant stump to do it...i really appreciated that one place up in the queue..!! Really enjoyed wandering around the City, got a very European feel to
Arg 2
Recoleta Cemetry it with French style buildings on many streets, Italian food, pizza and pastas, British Influence in names of streets and buildings )apparently some cheeky brits occupied BA for a few months before they got thrown out and then the locals on the back of this revolted against the Spanish and gained independance. Saw Eva Perons grave in the Ricoletta Cemetry which was quite an impressive if not erie place, all the rich and well to do families have mausaleams (sp) here..ex presidents, artists, politicans and some famous generals.
Seems a bit like a US city with all the streets in grids..this is something we will get VERY used to...also in every town in Argentina you can almost guess what the main streets are called...every single town we have been in has the same street names in Grids...¿Donde el centro? ermm...head for Calle 9 July, 28th May, Sarmiento or Rivadavia...with a sprinking of O'Higgins and San Martin General Alvear thrown in for a bigger town centre!!
Was in BA for 1st may ..National Holiday and big day for major Argentinian national pastime of protesting...we saw about 4 of them all heading for the city centre square..scene of all those
Arg 3
Coy Carp at the Japanese Gardens BA Eva Peron on the balcany moments. They all seemed pretty harmless, protesting about various things, some tax on tourism, socialist stuff, one was about Uniter States in South America??? dunno much about this one anyone care to enlighten me? a bit of an anti Iraq vibe to this one with a group of guys 10 metres in front all with baseball bats so we kept well clear of this one!!
Leaving on the Bikes was pretty easy to say this city is home to 14m people!! ...got on a main artery road and basically kept on this for 30 miles till we got out of the city!!..there was some sort of a cycle lane for a lot of it you just had to watch for cars and buses turing on you from 2 lanes out like it was their right to...other drivers didnt seem to mind though..not an indicator in sight. First stop was a camp site at a small town called Lujan with a pretty impressive Cathedral type thing. I really didn't expect to see something quite so impressive here. Managed to snap a tent pole which was a bit of an arse on the first camping night...first
arg 4
just the seven lanes then....at a rare quiet moment night using the new stove...aka Saturn V..its one hell of a thing, no chance of simmering but will boil water in about 30 seconds...erm also not much chance of sneaky cooking up in hotel rooms a la east europe as this baby is noisy and should have ear plugs in the kit.
Next few days were spent trying not to get psyched out by the signs 973 Mendoza...!! practising riding in a straight line on the flat..Route 7 is a long, straight, flat road...keeping an eye of for dogs, although jenny is doing a decent enough job a dazing them with her "Dog Dazer"TM. Like i keep saying to her..i cant out run a dog with all this weight on, but i can outrun you!! We bought a more detailed map of the country which covered till about 1/3 the way across the pampas, which has smaller roads/tracks on so when the opportunity arose we took it to get off route 7. Mainly proved unsuccessful. 1st time some local told us not to bother and to go down another track to the dual carriage way and there was a beautiful quite old road, paved, next to it which did
arg 5
tango dancing in the street...pretty cool us proud (i say he told us this...we didnt actually know what the heck he was going on about but worked it out when we found the quiet road!!) 2nd bit of off road worked out realy well and made good progress doing about 24 miles in the morning, a hard compressed soil "ripio". Unfortunately it wasnt quite the track we wanted to be on and ended up back on route 7 about 20 miles before we wanted to..the 3rd attempt at a track a few days later put us off for good when the sand was too deep to even push bikes easily and we had to back track a couple of miles.
The people have been super helpful, we have had 3 or 4 offers of accomodation in the middle of Argentina but unfortunately we havent been going that direction, or it meant a 200 km detour. most grateful though, we think the Argentinians appreciate the values of a great journey. Back on route 7 for good now and we were trying to knock 100km a day down but some days, of headwind we could only do 40. Tried to make the most of tailwind days but
arg 6
Puerto Madero (the new modern neighbourhood) bridge...a bit like Albert Dock meets Salford Quays even those were tough to be on the flat in the same gear and position for so long. The road isnt too busy, sometimes no cars for ages, sometimes a train of trucks come hurtling passed...many with an appreciative wave and pip ( we worked out that some of these guys probably see us every day as they lug stuff to and fro across ruta 7.
Found some surprisingly nice resorts heading across the pampas, a lake here and there near Junin, at General Levalle, near San Luis all with campsites which served us well. On the map they all look the same towns, many towns are...all very American Wild West with Gridded Streets and wooden houses, half expecting a saloon bar and tumbleweed in some places (especailly in siesta time when it is deathly quiet). Managed to camp 6 nights and the rest in cheap hotels...a mixe bunch, some motel type, some nice, some not so nice - no real safety in any of em..wires hanging everywhere taped to walls...haha...we didnt care a room is a room.
Quite a lot of wild life spotted...apart from the millions of scabby dogs everywhere there is habitation. Seem plenty of
arg 7
Casa Rosado..pink house...where it all used to go on..and still does to some extent Pelicans ad flamingos loads of birds of prey maybe 7 different types big eagle types, smaller falcon types and some i reckoned were harriers although i have nothing to base that on but i pretent to jenny i know about things!!..think others were ospreys as the were in the salt lake (white band on feathered wings if you want to check with JM Dad) incredible amount of bird like on the salt lake..also on the road plenty of parrots, noisy and cant fly in formation..stragglers all over the place, very much like a B run. Saw a minature deer thing some foxes..had some horses wake us up one night ( but i think they had escaped from somewhere!!). We also saw some minature tornadoes on the horizon picking up dust in a vortex which was pretty interesting...well anything is interesting on this road to be honest!! haha...
300km from Mendoza we headed 20km into the mountains near San Luis, looking for a campsite (cheaper than Hotels) and ended up next to another lake in quite a resorty area. You could feel the colder air and it was so refreshing! We have had wall to wall sunshine everysingle day so
arg 8
just another protest ..... far, about 20-24 degrees which has been perfect conditions. Mainly a cross wind to be honest and we got a bit of wind chap and sun bash on the face...ive taken to riding with my cap (not beeza one yet ) over the right side of my face like some gangsta rappa!!)
240km from Mendoza (notice how its all done in count down!!) we came to some thermal baths which were ace...really relaxing after a day on the bike..well impressive..they had rooms there with a thermal both in the floor, cost about 40 quid ...we camped opposite for a quid and made the most of the public bath and restaurant facilities..haha..
The end was in sight with 240 km on the countdown and we blasted the next 2 days to get to Mendoza to rest up, get some tent spares (broke another pole..and punctured my therma rest !!) Ready for out next step, across the Andes to Chile, Valpairiso.
The final day on the Rd to Mendozo we could see some mountains on the horizon. Must have been amazingly clear as mendoza was 88 miles away and the mountains we could see are still another 50 at
arg 9
Lujan Catherdral...pretty impressive for such a small town..its like a Argentino Lourdes least miles away...it was the Aconagua Massif. Aconagua is the highest mountain out side the himalayas and the highest in the southern hemisphere and wester hem fact fans.
Mendoza is a cool place. quite relaxed...wide streets, lots of trees, cafes, a few art gallerys (i just dont get modern art though..it seriously was just a pile of bricks...). Food has been good...meat incidents has been surprisingly zero (that i know of) although i expect that number to rise!! blimey...struggling with the language..im sure they dont speak spanish as they dont understand what i say ( and im fluent arnt i May?) ..they speak so fast!! Mark and Kara from Coffee Break Spanish didnt tell me this!!
joke on a sweet wrapper...¿What is a Gansado? A worn out goose...work it out!!
Ian
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Mayo
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ooh thermal baths they sound nice. the national holiday on 1st may was something to do with labour day and the rights of the workers, working hours and pay etc, starting end of 19th century. that's all i know on that. miss you hope you're having fab time! Besos xx