Wednesday 31 October 2012

Day 59 - 68. Beauty and the butt ugly beast

Day 59 Santa Maria

Still amongst the shorter, flatter "holiday" riding, we had 78km with only 486m of climbing.

At lunch, we stopped at the beginning the dirt road leading to the Quilmes ruins. Only a few of us opted to ride the climbing dirt road to visit. I wouldn't have forgiven myself for not satisfying my curiosity, as I still had plenty of daylight left to finish the day. The ruins themselves weren't all that spectacular. Aside from the fact they were a bit higher than the valley we'd ridden in from, so there was a nice view. The ruins were basically low walls made of stacked rocks like what we'd previously seen being used as paddock fences up until now. The stall selling cold drinks however was most welcome. 

If anything, I couldn't drop the feeling that the ruins have been restored a little to become a political tool. The information leaflets were all about the indigenous people of the region, and the treatment these people received during colonisation, and nothing about the ruins themselves, or the lifestyles of the people when the place was first built. I found even this fascinating, as it sounds much like a similar story to what is heard back in Australia.

Part of the riding was on very soft gravel which the tyres sink in, and can cause the bike to squirm and even throw you off if not careful. Hard work.

It has been said that in Argentina in the previous years of this trip, people begin to put back on some of the weight they've lost. I can see why. Even in the smaller town of Santa Maria, the ice cream shop was still open during siesta time, and the 1/2kg tub of ice cream was delicious.

Speaking of siesta. In Argentina, siesta is strongly followed. So the shops MIGHT open in the morning, no guarantees there. Then loosely around midday, siesta begins and the place becomes a ghost town. At around 6pm, the shops begin to open again. If you want to go out for dinner, good luck finding a place open before 8pm.

Day 60 Hualfin, the butt ugly side of cycling

122km with 680m of climbing. When this amount of climbing is spread over this distance, may as well call it flat. Long low rolling undulations, hardly enough to slow us down. Instead, it has another dreaded feature, the long straight road. Some of the riders find this difficult due to the lack of changing landscape, and do their best to ride together to at least chat while getting the distance done.

I made it to the lunch spot at 65km, and was suffering catastrophic butt failure. The day after day of sitting on a bike saddle for so many hours, it can go from being sore to quite painful. In my case it was getting so painful I was slowing down, and was no longer able to properly take in my environment, and the legs weren't too keen on moving. Not mistaking it with some other people have been experiencing, which is broken skin from the constant friction when pedalling.

We stayed at a spot which was a little out of the way, yet had hot springs. So our showers consisted of going into a concrete shed, and there was a pipe constantly streaming out nice big volumes of very warm water. Quite nice.

Day 61 San Blas de los Sauces

Still suffering catastrophic butt failure, I opted to recover sitting in the nice, wide, soft, padded seat in the truck. As a result, I missed a 160km flat day.

Day 62 Chilecito

119km with 842km of climbing. A howling beast of a day I won't forget in a hurry. Well, until I meet the famous Patagonian winds later I suspect.

Yes, the day was windy. All day, with headwinds except for a brief 30 second tailwind when meeting a junction between valleys. The day should have been easy given the lack of steep climbing. Instead it felt like we were climbing a moderately steep hill constantly all day. Oh, then add the occasional dust storm which masked the surrounding countryside. In this region, not seeing far wasn't much of a problem as it was more of long wide valleys, with mountains running either side. We'd been seeing this for days, so most of us had stopped taking pictures which is quite surprising, as some are stopping what seems every 100m to take a shot of something.

By the time I reached Chilecito and the beginning of a rest day, I was covered in dust except where my sunglasses had been.

In Chilecito, we were staying in apartments spread over a small property. Quite comfortable. I was sharing with the party animals. Later that night, I was woken by a soon to be squished mosquito. When I came out of my room for a moment, the party animals were still being animals having a party, and they misheard me when I said "There's mozzies in my room man!". They heard "there's an aussie in my room!", which got some chuckles, as the aussie was no longer in the room, and this has been brought up multiple times in the days since.

Day 63 Villa Union

119km and 1240m of climbing. Well, that's what the sheet for the day said. The route was changed however, and so rode the same distance, but climbed 1679m. Nope, not flat. 2 significant climbs rather than having the undulations spread out over the day. 

Look it up if you would like, but in the difficulty level used by rides such as Tour de France, my bike computer later calculated this day as difficulty level 1. Level 4 is the least difficult, through to level 1. There is 1 level above level 1 which is "HC" which apparently means "Hors Category", or in english means outside category, but I prefer to think it stands for Holy Crap.

Not that it wasn't enjoyable. The first climb was on dirt road, and in some parts very steep, which now I'm capable of getting through them, I'm finding I enjoy the achievement. Not only that, when at the start of the day we see on our sheets how much climbing we have to do, it's nice to get them done in big chunks rather than having the climbing drag throughout the day.

During the first climb I rode with Tamsin from the UK, but once descending the other side into a long valley. She's a good consistent climber, and more cautious when going downhill, especially when the road is not sealed. I waited for her to catch up once during the first descent, but after that I was enjoying the rough road continuously going downhill too much to hit the brakes.

Once starting the second climb, I encountered Christine and Yolande. There were some thorns on the road, and there I was coming round the corner when Yolande was holding the spare tube. So I pulled over to help out. Not that I minded, although unfortunately for me this also won me the llama mascot for the day.

Looking back down the valley during the 2nd climb of the day

A reminder about the llama. The llama is our little toy mascot that a rider keeps with them for the day, and is passed from rider to rider. Usually the person who gains the llama has done a "llama moment" that everyone remembers. The challenge then is to keep note of what everyone gets up to, so that there's a story to tell with it the next day about what happened. Whoever does the best llama moment, wins the llama. So we all enjoy some of the stories we hear, until that moment when we get it!

Camping beside a petrol station that night was quite good. It had wifi, and the shop attached was open, so there was coffee, drinks, ice cream and toilets. Luxurious.

Day 64 San Jose de Jachal

A 143km 886 day. Although for me it was shorter, I only got through 73km. I started having a lot of coughing fits after going through the dust on the way to Chilecito, and was getting worse so decided to back off. I certainly didn't want a repeat performance of what happened during the first month of this trip, which back then had landed me in a private hospital for treatment.

Day 65 Tocota

116km and 1806m of climbing. This climbing was constant, and done through the entire day.

Richard takes a photo of the lake and the visible again snow capped mountains

Compared to the other days, 116km doesn't seem so tough. However, at perhaps half way through, the road became unpaved. There were a few who suspected the last part of the day will take too long, and opted to go in the truck to get to camp. Not so silly in hindsight.

At first, quite a few of us were saying that the surface wasn't too bad, remembering how bad it can get after riding in Bolivia. Oops, instant jinx. After we'd taken the time to even dare thinking that the surface was ok, it wasn't ok anymore. It became the dreaded loose gravel and sand. The energy sapping, wheel sinking and spinning, bike kicking and squirming, tough to ride through stuff. But wait, there's more. Then the wind turned from being a cross wind, to headwind.

There were parts that couldn't be ridden it was so soft, there many trails of footprints beside tyre tracks.

With perhaps 20km to go, I hit the wall. No fuel left in the tank. What was I to do though? No phone reception, the trucks had already passed and gone to the campsite. So the afternoon became as much a mental challenge as it was a physical one. I finally reached the campsite just before 6:30. A long day on the bike, when we left the hotel that morning just after 8.

That night we celebrated Adrian's (UK) birthday. He does enjoy beer, so with a little inspiration, a fake cake was made where first there were some beer cans taped together, then coated in icing. When Adrian went to cut the cake...POP! Geyser of beer. Awesome. That can was quickly recovered and put to its intended use. Then the real cake came out.

The campsite was a surprise, as we camped beside a police station. The police station was in the middle of nowhere. Apparently the police at this spot are more concerned about making sure people don't damage or hurt the flora or fauna. So we had a cold shower, toilet and soft grass to put the tents on, and surrounded by paddocks with horses with the sound of the wind through the poplar trees to fall asleep to.

Day 66 Barreal

129km with 695m of climbing. I hadn't fully recovered from the previous day, so I made it to lunch after riding 86km, with the first part of it being on the dirt road from yesterday, but at least it was downhill and the surface seemed a little more solid.

Just before lunch however, we had secretly agreed to all meet together. Didier, the crew member who is the medic, truck driver, supplier of lunch and all round good guy didn't know we were about to celebrate his birthday. So when everyone had caught up, as a group we armed ourselves with silly party hats, horns, rattles and then rode around the corner making as much noise as we could to where Didier was wondering where everyone was. Complete with Richard in the 2nd truck with the fire engine siren and lights going. The 2 trucks are old fire engines, not sure if I'd mentioned that previously? Didier broke out with a big grin, so that worked.

Rock formations before reaching Barreal

Day 67 Uspallata. Should be prounced "oo-spa-yata", I prefer to say "you splat a"

112km and 808m of climbing.

This was just the day I needed both mentally and physically. We had far more paved road than was expected, the climb was barely noticeable with a single hump up, then downhill the rest of the day. The unpaved road was a much better surface than expected, with few soft spots.

During the climb before the unpaved part, I was able to ride with Malcolm and Tamsin side by side across the road as there was so little traffic. Quite good chatting away and eating up the distance so easily even though we were still climbing thanks to some help from a tailwind.

Once the top was reached, it wasn't long before the paved surface returned and a nice downhill started complete with a strong tailwind. Most of the time at this part I was happily moving along at 50km/h with no effort at all.

The town where we were camping was my kind of town. Not so big that everything becomes an inconvenience, but just big enough to have the essentials and still be pleasant. It was a Sunday, and beside our campsite there was a horse riding competition, and a road bicycle race going through town, so it had a festive atmosphere to the place. It also had a place to get coffee and ice cream. When riding back from the cafe to the campsite, one of the racers on a bike had gone in front of me, so the crowd on either side of the road first saw a racer go past, then another cyclist approach with a name plate on the front of the bike, but then became a little confused when they saw it was a mountain bike, and the rider was wearing casual t shirt and shorts (I'd already changed from the battle clothes and had a shower). A bit of fun.

Day 68 Mendoza. First impressions don't always last

111km and 1270m of climbing.

The first 30km was all up. Not too steep at between 3-6% incline (briefly I saw 12% just before the top), with the last 16km of climbing on unpaved surface. Thankfully, very few soft patches that cause the wheels to  sink and squirm to the side.

With the climb and lunch done however, there was the most beautiful downhill. A descent of 2000m. Starting at 3000m above sea level, there were over 300 curves on this unpaved road that was in good condition. All amongst proper rocky mountains, and the wind pushing clouds up the side. During the descent I saw a herd of Guanacos (type of llama) and a falcon who took off from a rock just above me as I passed. This is what I had in mind before coming here, of what it's like to ride amongst the mountains.

Let the fun begin!

Once the descent from the proper mountains was done, the downhill wasn't finished. The surface became paved and kept dropping to the plain where Mendoza is. Nice curved road that I happily carved up the corners on at over 50km/h.

The road eventually flattened out and for 30km perhaps, there was a headwind and even the look of rain. The air was misty below the clouds, but never felt a rain drop.

Once reaching the edge of town however, not so good. Didier meets Malcolm and myself with the news that 2 people riding a motorbike had pushed Ghilly over when she was riding, and tried to steal her bike, with 1 of them displaying what looked like a gun. I heard later that Ghilly was convinced the gun was fake, which goes along with what they did when she refused to let go of her bike. Rather than properly threatening to shoot, they were hitting her with it. Either way you look at it though, not good. She yelled out enough that the locals all came out, and the 2 idiots left empty handed. She had a scrape to the knee, but otherwise she later seemed ok and she had continued riding from the incident to the campsite.

Malcolm and I also saw a motorbike rider lying on the road after having an accident, with people around him. This was on the same road that Ghilly had her moment.

Welcome to Mendoza!

We later heard that the road we first used should be avoided. Experience prompts me to agree.

Our campsite was right out on the edge of the city. When visiting the city, it looks very western, with the typical Spanish touch of a plaza in the middle. The Plaza Independencia is quite large, with trees and fountains. As far as cities go, it's quite beautiful. The coffee I later found to be excellent.

2 comments:

  1. And another wow! What a "mixed bag" of adventures! We too had a some nice dust swirling around on my peninsula this week! But ours was from the delights of building a bigger and better freeway which the wind decided to remodel. Your dust sounds so much more "natural". Your mozzie tale is a hoot! And adore your refurbished version of the place on Day 67. Finally the touch of danger at the end is a sobering thought. Getting worried about you and wondered what was happening! It seemed to be "forever" since your last post! Glad you're Ok and enjoying the "big escape"! Take care!

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  2. Back again! Here is the link for converting your blog into a book.
    http://blogspot.sharedbook.com/blog2print/googleblogger/index.html
    Maybe worth a thought!
    Happy wheeling!

    ReplyDelete