Back in the saddle and a change of plans

So, where we left, we were leaving Embarcacion to Jujuy to start riding again on Monday June 17. We had a couple of challenges, after two bus rides we made to San Salvador de Jujuy, and got there with some light left to find the hotel that our friend Agustina had reserved. It was not easy to find but we did it only to find out the gate was closed and nobody there. After a while I jumped the fence and was greeted by a nice cat in the porch. After a while Steve passed the bags and bikes over the fence and then jumped in. We essentially broke in the place… when the owner came about an hour later he was a little startled but everything turned out all right. Next morning we were ready to go at 8 when we realized it has been raining all night and still drizzling, this is supposed to be the dry season. Agustina joined us in our ride up to Purmamarca, the traffic out of San Salvador was busy and slippery at times but as we climbed passed the clouds the weather go dry and warm. San Salvador is about 4000 feet and Purmamarca about 7000 so our out of shape friend Agustina really struggled and decided to hitch a ride to a town Volcan to have lunch with us and then take a bus to Purmamarca. We kept on riding and got into town before 5, Agustina had found a wonderful place to stay called El Viejo Algarrobo (The old mesquite). Before getting to Purmamarca there was a sign stating that Paso de Jama into Chile was closed due to snow and ice. After evaluating options on how to continue we decided to skip Chile and keep going north on the famous Argentinian Quebrada de Humahuaca to “La Quiaca” to cross into Bolivia. It would take 3 days of reasonably difficult but doable riding. Day 1 to Humahuaca, Day 2 to Abra Pampa and Day 3 to La Quiaca, border town with Bolivia. After a very nice and cold evening with Agustina and a wonderful rest in the hotel with an electrical heater and a couple of blankets we parted ways with Agustina and today we made it to Humahuaca. The scenery is fantastic and hard to describe with words, even the pictures don’t do it justice to how beautiful the mountains, the sky, the cactus, the braided rivers are. We steadily climbed from 7000 to close to 10,000 today we will probably stay above that until we go to Lima at the end of the trip. We are feeling the altitude especially in the steeper up hills but since we are gradually climbing 13,000 tomorrow our bodies are adjusting nicely. Pictures: leaving San Salvador de Jujuy in the rain, Steve on the road today, a cemetery in the middle of nowhere and the church in Humahuaca.

Salta and a very interesting side trip

It was nice to get in to Salta and have a cold beer. We splurged on a lavanderia to wash all of our dirty clothes we had accumulated. For about $6 a very nice man washed, dried and folded all of our clothes while we toured some of the interesting sites of Salta. For dinner we went to a vegetarian restaurant recommended by our former yoga instructor Kat who used to live and work there. They remembered her and insisted on providing us a free dinner. A very nice evening indeed. The previous clothes washing was done in our hotel room and it was in the high 50’s in the room that night and the clothes didn’t get very dry. Nothing quite like the feeling of wet, cold bike shorts in a cold room to start the day! From Salta it was time for our first bus (but not the last) bus trip of the journey. We needed to get to Embarcacion by 12:30 to meet our friends Agustina and Beatriz to travel to Mision Chaquena. Agustina is a family physician that has collaborated with Patricia some in the past. She and Beatriz live in Cordoba but Agustina works for UNICEF with the native American tribe Wichi at Mision Chaquena. The plan was to meet in Embarcacion after noon and then ride the 25 miles to the Mision then Patricia and Agustina would work together on Saturday. We negotiated with the bus company on prepping the bikes and we were off at 8:45 AM. The adventure was just beginning. About half way there the bus pulled off at a police checkpoint. And stayed… It turned out to have a problem with its air compressor and it wasn’t going anywhere. We waited an hour for another bus. They urged everyone to get on quickly when we found out that the bus wasn’t going where 6 of us (us plus 4) we needed to go. They said go ahead and they’d send the bikes later. Hahahahaha. Patricia said no. We waited longer and they sent another bus just for the 6 of us. We made it to Embarcacion about 2 PM. A great reunion with friends, we assembled the bikes, had a nice lunch and we were ready to head out about 3:30 PM. There are too many details to include here, but a summary is the road was 33 miles, not 25, and it was dirt with large river rock, deep gravel, and deep dust. We were half way there when it started getting dark. Fortunately a small village was there so we stopped at a small market that sold us some beer secretly (it was illegal in the village I guess). A thunderstorm was brewing and dust was everywhere. Agustina called our host and he came to pick us up – in a small car. Two bikes on top (ours) and 2 bikes ridden in the dark on that road by two of his seven children. The car had a water pump problem and needed to be stopped every 5 minutes to add water. One time they added gas to the radiator by accident because of the dark. It kept getting better. ☺ Finally we arrived to find the conditions like rural Mexico. Some electricity, you flush it toilets, a hose bib in the yard. The rain started in earnest and the fine dust turned to sticky clay everywhere. It is not unusual for the family to just have bread and mate for dinner, but we got some groceries with the beer and cooked a meal for 11 on the outside firewood stove (zucchini and tomato scramble with pasta). Good times. Had a good time talking with the family and practicing my Spanish. Actually had a very good night’s sleep. In the morning we journeyed to the family’s large garden and Patricia spent the time teaching them healthy foods they could prepare with their harvest. The weather was warm even though it’s mid winter for them. The elevation is less than 1000 ft and it is just inside the tropics. It gets to 120 F there in the summer sometimes. It would be miserable. No cooling anywhere. We fixed a nice lunch at the garden and walked back. We made bread using their outdoor oven in the afternoon. Very tasty and Patricia helped knead a different recipe not using lard – it was tastier. We had decided we weren’t riding back on the road. Doing a shuttle with the car didn’t look good. There was a bus leaving at 9 PM and we worked things out to put the bikes on and we were off dreaming of a nice warm shower to clean off two days worth of dust on us (we are so spoiled in the US!). For a last act there was a small gang fight when we arrived in Embarcacion and the bus was pelted with a few rocks. Very exciting. ☺ The bus dropped us off right at the hotel and we jumped out. A nice room with breakfast for $24. Civilization, hooray.

Good and not so good surprises, up and down the hills into Salta

The not so good surprises: coming out of Tafi del Valle resulted in changing some plans in the past two days and not having internet, but the good news is that we made it to Salta as planned and we are back in schedule to meet with our friends Agustina and Beatriz in Embarcacion, provincia de Salta, to do some medical work in a native community. So the surprises: a monster hill following Tafi del Valle to a place called Infiernillo, 3.5 hours of climbing very slow at what Steve thinks was about 7-8% grade. Surprise number two, we expected to descend rapidly afterwards but the road after infiernillo was very crappy. The scenery was spectacular though. We decided to stop before Cafayate (a really nice touristic town with many wineries around it) in a town called Colalao del Valle, third surprise… the hosteria was very cheap and the water heater functioned by heating with a wood fire and there were no restaurant in town, so we made our own sandwiches. It was cold and no heat but a nice alpaca blanket kept us warm. The next day (#3 of riding) we went to Cafayate for second breakfast/lunch with internet, very civilized, what we did not know was that there were no services for the next 60 miles. But the scenery was super spectacular, the Quebrada de las Conchas (Canyon of the shells) is a mostly downhill road in excellent condition that goes with the Las Conchas river and the east walls of the canyon are similar to Sedona but 30 miles long of red rock formations. Last surprise yesterday was getting to the town where we were told there was a Hosteria, La Vina, to find out there was not one. It was 6:30 and getting dark, but as usual we found a place to stay and thanks to Sra. Maria Cota’s homestay place we had a decent room and a hot shower. Today coming to Salta there were no major surprises, as a big city the traffic was hectic at times, we had the first and only unfriendly truck experience but we made it to the Centro and have a nice hotel near the plaza. So the summary of the first 4 days is approximately 260 miles with 16.000 feet of climbing, the butts are a little sore but the rest of the body feels great.

Day one in the Pre-Cordillera (Andes’ foothills)

The first surprise was how late it was light in the morning. We knew this would be a challenging day to complete before the sun went down. Only 70 miles, but a net gain of 6,000 ft and 7,000 ft of climbing. The hotel in Tucuman was very accommodating and we had no trouble re-assembling the bikes the night before and we gave our suitcases (from Goodwill) to Carlos, the concierge. We were under way a few minutes after 8 AM. The traffic was a little heavy but not bad. The head guy at the hotel suggested a better route than we were planning and we took his advice. A lot of Tucuman reminds you of Nogales or Agua Prieta in Mexico. The air was very dirty with smoke and dust. Visibility was about a mile. We could barely see the hills we were about to climb in to. After an initial stretch of bumpy highway it turned in to a nice divided highway with a good shoulder. About 40 miles in the valley by miles of sugar cane. The air slowly got better. Finally we hit the foothills and started up. Gently at first, then a steady grind. At the lower elevations it was jungle. Up and up we climbed. Eventually we started to see some deciduous trees and then it turned to grassland. Just beautiful scenery. It leveled out a bit at the end by a reservoir or we would have finished in the dark. Found a very nice hotel for about $60, took a nice long shower and am drinking a 1 L beer at the moment ☺ 67 miles for the day, 7,000 ft of climbing. We’re pooped. Patricia’s additions: I agree it was a really hard first day, there are not many services along the way and we almost finished our reserve food we brought from the US, a guy driving an SUV stopped and gave Steve 4 big “mandarinas”, adding to Steve’s load, which I consumed in one of the many stops to recharge energy along the way. By mile 55 I was feeling pretty weak… Steve even asked if I wanted to hitch a ride, but I really wanted to finish the route I had done so many times by car in the 80s on the bike, so I got my earphones out and started listening to music, and we made it. The initial view of the high valley was amazing and felt it was all worth the crazy effort.

Two days in Buenos Aires with Elena

The weather in Buenos Aires has been perfect, 50-60 Degrees and sunny. We did a lot of walking and had wonderful meals with my mother. We are in the Hotel Dolmen, located centrally near Avenida 9 de Julio. Yesterday we walked to Puerto Madero (picture with the interesting bridge in the background) and recovered from the uncomfortable night in the plane. We had dinner at an amazing restaurant, Centro Vasco Frances, had mussles, calamari, trout and more (Elena's picture). Today we went to the cathedral and the Pink House (equivalent of the White House). You can walk inside to parts of it (picture of us in the courtyard), from there to Plaza Francia and then to San Telmo to an interesting tapas restaurant called Sagardi. To finish the evening we went to the theater, to see a play called "Una Relacion Pornografica" with amazing acting by Cecilia Roth and Dario Grandinetti. Steve was a good sport sitting in the theater and not falling asleep in spite of only understanding some words/phrases. Tomorrow we will go for a run, have breakfast and go to Aeroparque, the smaller airport to take our plane to San Miguel de Tucuman where we'll assemble the bikes and get ready to start touring on Monday morning.

2013 Adventure: Up into the Andes

We are off to Buenos Aires on our way to start our South American bike trip on Monday June 10th. This year we are going a little longer (6 weeks), starting in the northwest of Argentina and going through parts of Chile, Bolivia and Peru to Cuzco. We are flying to Buenos Aires today to spend the weekend with my mother, going to nice restaurants, the theater and just hanging out in the cool winter temps. Sunday we fly into Tucuman, the city where my son, Federico, was born. After unpacking bikes and discarding boxes and luggage we start our bike trip to Tafi del Valle and then to Salta and Jujuy. We are meeting our friends Agustina and Beatriz to do some work in a native South American community in Jujuy and then we start ascending towards the Andes. We go into Chile through Paso de Jama (15,800 feet) to San Pedro de Atacama. We will visit several areas in Bolivia including the Salar de Uyuni, La Paz, Lago Titicaca. We cross the border in to Peru at Copacabana. Still up in the mountains we will go from Puno to Cuzco where our bike touring ends and after we meet Steve’s friend Jon we will hike the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. We are coming back from Lima July 18th. We will probably do about 4 weeks on the bikes with a few intermissions for visiting cool places along the way. This will be our longest and highest bike tour, crossing the Andes 3 times at altitudes above 15,800 feet. Hopefully we still have the lungs and the legs to do it. Steve will have a chance to practice his recently learned 500+ words in Spanish and I will be spoiled by being in familiar environments that are missed when I am in the States. I am hauling my Mac Air through the Andes to be able to do some work occasionally and also to be able to blog when we have internet access. More to come soon, stay tuned.

The reward at the end of a long ride

This is the fifth day since leaving Bangkok and it already feels we've been here for longer. Our stops: Ayuthaya, and Lop Buri were pretty touristy, Uthai Thani and Khlong Khlung not at all, I think we are the only tourists they've seen for a while. In Uthai we had our picture taken by the coffee shop owner and he placed it in his Facebook page. We had dinner with the locals while a baby elephant and his owner came by our table and we fed it for 1 dollar. Riding is challenging because it is so hot and humid after the early morning and there is no relief with rain... We are still to see a monsoon pour (just as at home in Tucson). The roads are excellent, drivers and motorcycles respectful, we get multiple signs of encouragement along the way which at the end of the ride are needed. There is food and drinks along the way, and we can get icy drinks and sort of vegetarian meals whenever we want. It works when there is an outside kitchen (most of the time) and I can point at what we want. But what keeps us going at the end is the reward of a nice shower and AC in the room... We must have been lucky so far and found hotel rooms from 350 to 590 Bhats 12 to 19 dollars a night. We can't upload pictures but you can see some in Facebook.