Feliz ano nuevo !!!

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Happy New Year and Bonne Annee!!

I hope you all had a great Christmas and new years eve. We were thinking of you, and mince pies, comfy sitting rooms, silly television shows....

One of my new year’s resolutions is to update the blog more often so that I don’t get so behind and you don’t have to read so much all in one go. I warn you now; this is a long one...

We are now in San Martin de los Andes, a very touristy, chalet style town in the Argentinean Lake District in northern Patagonia. Today is a rest day as our legs are aching from a combination of lots of walking and cycling over the last few days. Fortunately to speed up the recovery they have some great chocolates here, which I am munching on while writing this! So, back to the beginning...

Our first stop in Argentina was Cordoba, the educational centre of Argentina. It’s the second largest city in Argentina (about 1.3million) and has a very large student population due to its seven universities. We decided it would be the appropriate place to go back to school to learn a bit of Spanish, so we signed up for an intensive 3 week program, 4 hours a day. The class was just the two of us with Anna, our teacher, who had just recently come out to Argentina from Spain to live with her Argentinean boyfriend. We were pretty lucky to have a teacher from Spain because Argentinean Spanish is quite different from Castilian Spanish. The Argentines use Vos instead of Tu to address friends, they don't use irregular verbs and there are many other small differences. Generally Argentinean Spanish is a little simpler to learn but not very useful for using afterwards in Bolivia, Peru, Chile whereas Castilian Spanish is understood almost everywhere. The lessons went really well and we learned a lot, now we are practicing everyday and improving little by little! Outside of the classes and the homework(!), Cordoba was a great city to spend time in, one of my favourite cities so far on our trip. It has the best-preserved colonial architecture in Argentina, a large pedestrian area and a huge central square - Plaza San Martin and it's really lively all the time, except siesta time of course. The Argentines take their siesta very seriously. As Cordoba is a large city, most shops and services stayed open, the city just quietened down. However, in other cities we have visited since we’ve found that almost everything closes from about 1.30pm until 5.30pm. It’s a little frustrating when you want to do stuff in the afternoon or if you need to buy things so we’ve decided if you can’t beat ´em join ´em and have been indulging in lots of afternoon naps!

A siesta can also be essential if you want to go out in the evening in towns like Cordoba as the Argentines don’t go out until 12pm and the peak time in bars is around 2am in the morning! In Cordoba and Mendoza we spent a few evenings in the bars and clubs which was a lot of fun but not really very different from university life in England. The young argentines in Cordoba listen to pretty much the same music as we do in Europe, drink vodka and redbull and like to dance to techno!

We also took the opportunity to see some more traditional dances while we were in Cordoba. We went to a fantastic flamenco representation at the local theatre with an argentine dance troop and a local star soloist. The audience participation was great with lots of clapping, cheering and Olés! Another evening, it was a Tango show in a restaurant, which was really good but too short. Tango is an amazing dance and we definitely want to see more, if we don't have the opportunity before we will certainly seek out more in Buenos Aires, the capital of Tango.

During the weekends in Cordoba we left the city and headed into the Sierra de Cordoba to visit some small villages- Cosquin, Alto Gracia -where the Che Guevara grew up and the alpine-style villages of General Belgrano and the Cumbricita which were founded by survivors of a German battleship which sank near Montevideo, Uruguay in WWII. It’s quite strange to find German beer and restaurants serving sauerkraut in the middle of Argentina!

After three weeks we finally left Cordoba direction San Juan, a smaller provincial capital that was nevertheless lively outside the hours of siesta. We arrived on a Sunday and found everyone at the Dique (reservoir) sun-bathing, partying and asado-ing (BBQ-ing) in typical lavish Argentinean style. Despite the economic crisis there is still a rich contingent of Argentineans who have money to burn and they were out in force with their jet skis, quad bikes and big four wheel drives. When Argentines have money they like to flash it around! The following day we took the opportunity to get back to the bikes with a tour of the local vineyards (good motivation for cycling). It was really nice as the people in the wineries around San Juan were really friendly and we did some very interesting tasting sessions where we learned a little more about wine tasting (the parts that we could understand!).

San Juan then became our base for visiting some other small villages in the mountains nearby. We spent a few days in Rodeo, a small town at 2010m, with a picturesque lake which attracts windsurf enthusiasts from all over Argentina as the wind is strong almost everyday, up to 120km per hour. We stayed at a small hostel on the lake and spent our time trekking round the lake admiring the amazing mountain scenery. The few other Argentines in the hostel windsurfed everyday, their efforts at persuading us to take lessons almost paid off, but not this time. If the wind hadn’t been so strong Edouard would probably have been tempted to kite-surf but at 120km per hour you have to be pretty good otherwise you’d end up paragliding!

From Rodeo we made a brief stop back in San Juan before heading back into the mountains this time to a small village called Barreal in the Calingasta valley. The scenery for the first half of the 4 hour bus journey there was flat and dry but as we entered the valley things got a lot greener alongside the river. Then the village appeared like an oasis in the desert thanks to a system of irrigation that channels the river into little streams that flow all around the village. There were ponies grazing in green fields, willows and lots of other trees providing shade over the dirt roads and the picturesque adobe houses. To top it all off was the view of a stretch of the Andes with seven peaks ranging from 5130m to 5885m and a glimpse of the Aconcagua (the highest peak outside of the Himalayas at almost 7000m). We had a really peaceful few days trekking and cycling around the area. As the tourist season had not yet started we were the only people in the municipal campsite, except on Sunday when all the Argentines arrived for the Sunday afternoon asado with kids, music and lots of food and wine. They really know how to relax and enjoy themselves.

After San Juan our next stop was Mendoza, La Tierra de sol y buen vino (the land of sun and good wine) according to the mendocinos (inhabitants of this province). Mendoza province produces 70 per cent of the wine that Argentina exports, much of which goes to England (none to France though as they apparently have enough of their own!) Of course we did the obligatory tour of the local wineries but although the region was scenic, the wineries weren’t really that great as they were heavily commercialised to cope with up to 1000 visitors each day (and you had to pay for all the tasting!). After an evening camping amongst the wineries we cycled into the precordilliera (chain of mountains, older but smaller than the Andes) to Cacheuta a spot on the map which consisted of a hotel and a few restaurants around a fantastic complex of thermal pools. Surrounded by barren, grey, dry mountains, the complex was full of trees, tropical plants and families having a great time bathing in all the different pools, some with wave machines and tunnels, slides and the works. It was a bit like a huge Romsey Rapids but outside and with thermal water the hottest pool being 45 degrees - no one was in that one. We had a very relaxing and fun afternoon!

Otherwise the town of Mendoza was pretty nice, but nothing special. Lively, lots of tourists, a really nice park, hippy markets in the evening, pleasant for spending a few days strolling around. We went to a really lively restaurant one evening and ordered a parilla as everyone else was having that. It’s a kind of mini BBQ bought to your table with lots of different cuts of meat including intestines and black pudding - not really my favourite but when in Rome.... The Argentineans are great carnivores, they are constantly having asados at home with the family and when they go out to eat in a restaurant they choose parilla! The exception being pizza which is also VERY popular in restaurants, but never really very good for European tastes (unless you like heated bread covered with cheese and 3 olives that is.)

Next stop after Mendoza was San Raphael. We took the bus as the road was long, straight, and hot with no provisions, water, shade or shelter for a few 100kms. It’s possible to do it on a bike but we were trying to build up the mileage gradually for my knee and it would be bit crazy to spend days on this road when a comfortable bus was heading that way! There wasn’t really a lot to do in San Raphael, a small, very mellow town but around the town there were some really nice spots -we again visited a few wineries, including a champagne producer-(mmm!) and we spent a couple of days cycling in the Valle Grande, a beautiful verdant valley with red cliffs on each side and an incredibly clear river flowing though trees and fields and leading eventually to a reservoir and a huge multicoloured canon. Apparently the place is full of Argentines in January and February but it was quiet when we were there. We went rafting on the river, it was really exciting as it was only grade two (on a scale of five, five is hard) but it was worth it just for the scenery. We also met a couple of argentine cyclists in a campsite in the valley who were at the beginning of a two year trip around South America (the first of many cyclists!)

San Raphael was also the jumping off point for Malargue, small town, at 1400m in the dry precordillera of the Andes. It draws visitors in the winter because of the ski resorts nearby and now more and more people are visiting in the summer months because of the amazing scenery around, especially the Parque Provincial Payunia - 450 000 hectares with 800 volcanoes, the highest concentration on the world. We went to the park, which was 200km from the town on a jeep tour (the only way you can go), with 6 Argentines. The trip there on a dirt road passed though beautiful valleys of yellow flowers, inhabited only by the goat herders and their goats (Malargue is the argentine capital of goats and trouts). In the park itself the soil disappeared to be replaced by a kind of black volcanic shingle and all around were volcanoes rising up like mole hills some glowed with a reddish colour. A small moss like plant grew in certain places streaking the black and red with yellow. The scenery was incomparable. As if that wasn’t enough there were herds of guanaco (like llamas) and some Rheas (emu-like birds) roaming around this strange land. It was like being in another world.

In Malargue, we also visited a huge saltwater mountain lake, Laguna Llancanelo, which although it is very barren and wild is home to over 100 species of birds. The lake is so huge that we didn’t see many species as naturally they were all up in the inaccessible end, however we did see lots of black necked swans and colourful flamingos. We spent our other two days at Malargue cycling in a beautiful valley surrounded by snow-caped mountains where the main attraction was ´castillo de pincheira´ a castle sculpted in the rock by the wind and also to a reservoir with a trout farm from where we bought back two fat trouts which ended up on our BBQ in the campsite.

From Malargue the ruta 40 south was in very bad condition so we had to return to Malargue to get a bus for 15 hours to Zapala. Zapala, a very windy, dusty town was to be our starting point for visiting one of Argentina’s most popular holiday destinations, the Lake District and the spectacular mountain scenery and glacially formed lakes that give the region its name.

However, welcome to Patagonia, we couldn’t leave Zapala west towards the Andes as planned because of the strength of the wind! No exaggerating here, the wind in Patagonia can lift rocks of the ground and push cyclists off the road into the prickly plants! It is a serious problem, apparently one French guy had taken to cycling at night to avoid the worst of the wind, not the best way to admire the scenery but an original solution! Another couple of German cyclists had apparently designed a sail system attached to their handlebars for harnessing the power of the wind when they were going in the right direction! Crazy solutions for a crazy wind!

We were in our campsite contemplating what to do with our day in Zapala- it’s not the most exciting of places(!) when the campsite warden told us about an interesting place about 150km north-west in the mountains where there was nice scenery and thermal baths. It sounded fun, so we left the bikes, packed a few bags and caught the bus there. The journey itself was great, through real gaucho land, striking mountain scenery, with lots of cattle and goats being herded around by the gauchos in full traditional attire, high boots, ponchos, leather decorated waste bands and wool berets. Quite a sight! When we arrived in the village of Cavaihue, it was the evening, very cold and windy, there was snow all round but we were brave / foolish enough to buy a hot quiche, from the bakery and then go to the nearest campsite to huddle in our tent. It was a good test for the sleeping bags as it must have been almost 0 degrees at night and they keep us toasty! Fortunately we didn’t have to go to the loo in the middle of the night!

The next day we headed higher into the mountains to the thermal complex which was in a tiny hamlet called Copahue at 2500m. This place was so strange!! Surrounded by snow, with a live volcano looming over, the village was composed of a few shed like buildings, houses and a couple of shops around a type of hospital complex with fuming swimming pools outside. We felt like we were in Antarctica. To use any of the facilities, we had to have a medical consultation and then the doctor recommended the different treatments we should try. At first we felt a bit uncomfortable with an in hospital type feeling but we soon got over it after we’d tried a few treatments. It was great! We were planning to stay just a day but in the end we stayed 4 days because it was such a weird special place and the baths were so relaxing. We did at least one walk in the surrounding area per day, bracing the cold and the howling wind, up to the volcano and the mountain lakes, through forests of beautiful pehuen trees that can live up to 1500 years old (see photos) and to fumaroles, where hot steam comes bursting out of the ground. Then the rest of the day we soaked in baths of medicinal sulphur water from the volcano, in hot relaxing 'agua verde´ green water from the green mountain lake. We tried the massage bath with jets like a jacuzzi, and the stronger jet massage where someone uses a powerful jet to pulse all your muscles. I did some fangotherapy where my knees were covered in fango, a special mud for all articulation problems before being wrapped in plastic and placed under a heating light and of course at the end we both had a full body massage - bliss! Apparently the place is in January and February, but in December there was hardly anyone there so we never had to wait for treatment and we had great attention from the staff. After March the complex closes because the village is inaccessible because of the snow. It’s a pity, it would have been nice to pass by on our way back up north. I have decided that the new theme to our trip will be Thermal baths and massages throughout South America all tested by me!

When we finally got back to Zapala we found that the wind was just as strong as before. Apparently Zapala is always windy but this spell was exceptional and the locals had no idea when it would end. Even our super relaxed legs could not cope with the wind so put the bikes on the bus and were in our goal destination Villa Pehunia, on the lake Alumine by the end of the day. Here the weather was great (no wind!) and so the following morning, Christmas Eve we were able to cycle happily around the lake in the really Christmassy scenery of Pehuen trees, dark green pine trees, against the red rocks of the mountains with the added bonus of spring flowers, blue, purple and pink lupins and other varieties of beautiful red and orange flowers. When we arrived at the small village of Moquehue we decided to stop for the day and relax by the lake. Nothing was open, but there was a beautiful closed campsite with little BBQs, picnic tables and a stream running through it. We went to ask for permission to camp there at the local hosteria which ran the site and to buy a few provisions from their small shop. We returned with a loaf of homemade bread and an invitation to Christmas Eve dinner! It was a nice surprise as we hadn’t planned anything for Christmas, (in fact we were so out of sync I rung home to say happy Christmas on what I was sure was Christmas Eve but turned out only to be the 23rd!) Dinner was a friendly but simple affair with the owner, a lady in her 60s, her mother who was in her 90s but in top form, the handy man and lots of dogs! It turned out later that the lady and her mother had been a bit depressed because a member of their family had had a serious accident and they weren’t motivated to do anything for Christmas but when we turned up she decided that we’d been bought to cheer them up and make them think of other things. I think we did quite a good job as the evening was very cheery, topped off with cider and kisses and midnight. Luckily we’d had a few drinks in the campsite to warm us up beforehand!

Christmas day was beautiful weather, we had a lovely day cycling. Things just got a little more difficult in the evening when the village marked with a substantial little square on the map turned out to be two or three disparate houses and most importantly no provisions. Asking around we were invited in for food but as Edouard had a bit of a dodgy stomach we decided to avoid being plied with beer and other food and continued on to find a place to camp. So Christmas night we dined in a cow field by the river on what was left of our bread and cheese hoping we’d find more food the next day. We weren’t too bothered because neither of us were that hungry and Ed´s stomach was still not on form. Two hours after falling asleep we both woke up feeling rough and to cut a long story short, Christmas night for me was spent crawling out of the tent every hour or so onto the cold wet grass to be sick! We decided the culprit must have been the water that we had taken from the river and drunken untreated as everyone else does.

The next day we had a bit of a problem, stuck in a cow field, feeling sick and weak with no food. Eventually we plucked up the courage to cycle the 15km to where there was apparently a hotel and a campsite with a little shop. Motivated by the thought of a hotel room with bathroom I managed to cycle the flat bits and push the bike up the hills. Only, our luck was out, we reached the hotel after the allotted 15km but it was the poshest hotel we’d seen in ages. Five stars and 260 dollars the night. I don’t think we even had that much on us! So we pushed on 2 km to the campsite to find it was closed and deserted. Hmmm!! Camping wasn’t a problem, we could put the tent anywhere but the next place to get food was in 35km!!! After the wind, this is one of the biggest challenges of cycling in Argentina - finding food and planning so you have enough till you get to the next place. Anyway, our problem was soon solved this time as Edouard went back to the hotel to ask them for so food and explaining that the campsite was closed and we weren’t up for doing another 35km, he met a lovely girl Marianna who worked in the hotel who volunteered to take us in her car to the next place we could stay with some provisions. We were saved! So we spent the night in campsite 10km before the town were she dropped us off, they had a bit of food but not great stuff for dodgy stomachs, very cheesy pizzas and hamburgers so we didn’t eat much. The next day feeling better we cycled the last 10km into town, went to the nearest Rotisserie (take away) and ordered an entire chicken and a kilo of chips which we devoured immediately in the local park!

From Alumine we cycled a couple of days and a little over 100km to Junin de los Andes where we two nights in a cosy hosteria (little hotel) on the river with a beautiful garden full of birds. We had a room with a balcony overlooking the river, perfect for lazing around reading books and magazines. It was difficult to drag ourselves away from this little paradise but we managed to, to go to the Park National Lanin where we camped by the lake did a couple of hikes, one of which was a climb right up to the base camp of the Volcano Lanin. The volcano, which at almost 3800m towers over the mountains around is especially picturesque as it has a perfect cone shape covered in snow, like a pointy cream cake!

From the park we then cycled on a very picturesque route, past Lake Lolog to San Martin where we are now. We were a bit disappointed when we were arrived to find the only packed campsite right by the highway and lots of people in the touristy shops and all around. We’ve been spoilt recently with the beautiful, wild locations we’ve been in and being crammed in a campsite with loads of other tourists is quite a shock to the system! As soon as our legs have recovered we’ll be off again, back to nature, to wake up to the sounds of birds, not lorries roaring past! The plan is to continue south through some of the most picturesque parts of the Lake District and then to cross the border to Chile. But plans may change as always.

Just a final word on the Argentines. They are great! At first we found them a little cold compared to the Brazilians but that was just an initial impression probably because we were in a city. In fact, they are really friendly, welcoming, fun-loving people, always eager to help and for us to join in their activities. We’ve met so many great people, it’s so good to be able to speak a little Spanish. Apparently the Chileans are a little more reserved but that has yet to be proved!

Anyway, I hope you are still awake after this long report! Love to all and keep in touch by email.

Rebecca

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