Villa Union, Argentina - Getting to know you

Too often as a cycle tourer you get up each day and move on to the next place without ever getting to know a town. The advantage of being trapped in Villa Union for a few days is that I´m settling into the place and getting to know familiar faces - the guy at the fruit and veg counter in the supermarket who smiles at my attemtps to name the products in Spanish; the people at the cafe in the service station on the plaza know it will be a "cafe con leche" for me; I know when the bloody music from the tourist information booth will be switched off and I can get some peace; and each night around 8pm as the lights on the plaza are coming on and the artesan sellers are setting out their crafts, I wander across the square to chat with the French lady who runs the tours to the national parks to find out the latest news.

Today I sat drinking coffee looking out over the plaza as the town came to life on a Monday morning - people heading to work in shirt and tie; shops opening up for business; the stray dogs unfurling themselves from sleep, stretching and picking their preferred begging pitch on the plaza.

These little things in Villa Union remind me of the little things in the town I know and love best - Portobello. When I´m back home in Portobello, I´ll buy some fruit and veg from the greengrocer without any language difficulties and I´ll wander down to the promenade to sip coffee as a new day starts. I´ll watch people cycle by on their way to work, parents taking children to school and well-fed, much-loved dogs being walked along the sands. And I´ll think back to the pleasant little routines that I grew to know in Villa Union.

Villa Union, Argentina - mini update

From deserts to floods: from blistering sun to incessant rain: it's all gone topsy-turvy in Villa Union where I'm stuck waiting for a break in the weather so I can visit nearby national parks or just get on my way again. Even the internet is flooded!

Click on map to enlarge

San Juan, Argentina - Pleasant surprises

I wasn't really looking forward to the cycle from San Martin to San Juan. To avoid a busy stretch of Ruta 40 I was doing a dog-leg to the east across several empty inches on the map with no campsites for a few days ... in fact, with not very much at all for a few days. However, as is often the case in Argentina, there were pleasant surprises.

At lunchtime on the first day I pulled off the highway into the village of Asuncion, hoping there might be a spot where I could get permission to camp. It was a poor village, the poorest I´ve seen in a country I´ve come to think of as "European". A true desert town, there was only sand and bare soil, scoured by a wind that sent dust devils across the plaza. I´d arrived at the start of siesta and the deserted streets added to the gloominess. I settled myself down in a patch of shade to sit out the the heat of the afternoon. I was just thinking to myself "this is grim" when I spotted a tent between a gap in the houses. Investigations revealed a group of young Americans who were camping in the village while doing voluntary work in the area. My tent was added to the colourful little village of tents and there was even an unexpected shower and dinner invitation! Then of course, after siesta, the village came to life - women watered front yards with buckets of water to keep the dust down, kids flew up and down on bicycles and threw stones at chickens, and a trailer-load of grubby menfolk was deposited on the corner, presumably having come from working in the vineyards to the south.

The next dot on the map was Encon, an unattractive cluster of buildings around a road junction in the desert. At least I knew there was a service station here for camping, although when I got there it wasn´t the most appealing of service station stops. With a long afternoon ahead of sitting out the heat and waiting to pitch the tent, I decided to treat myself to lunch out at a wee "comedor" in the village. I had steak, eggs, salad, a cold drink and a coffee for less than six pounds. As I was leaving, the senora asked me where I was staying and when I said at the service station, she led me around to the back of the restaurant. Here was a little oasis - a lush lawn surrounded by a carefully-tended flower border that was alive with butterflies and shaded by tall trees. Noisy wild parrots flitted back and forth, watched over by the equally noisy pet parrot. His Spanish vocabulary was about as extensive as mine - "hola" and not much more. His English was excellent though! The senora´s house was above the restaurant and a smallholding extended beyond the garden - she invited me along when she went to feed the cattle, pigs and chickens. If they were the source of my lunch, then I can record very low food miles! My tent was pitched in the middle of the lawn and I pottered away a very enjoyable afternoon.

San Juan is another pleasant surprise - a modern city of tree-lined streets. Although there is a sad story behind this. The city was largely destroyed in the middle of last century by an earthquake so what we see today is the result of the modern rebuilding. It´s a wealthy city -the surrounding vineyards have generated the money here which is such that there are even shops where you can buy outfits for dogs!

One advantage of swinging out on a more easterly route is the incredible perspective it´s given me of the Andes, as a result of "standing back" a little. I´m cycling on a 600m high plain. At its western edge the mountains are a sudden uprising of snow-covered rock, snaking away to the south and to the north as far as the eye can see. These are big guys now of five and six thousand metres but yesterday morning the rising sun picked out in pink one peak that rose above the others. At 6959m it´s the highest mountain in South America - Aconcagua.

I´m pretty excited about the road north of San Jan which turns back into the mountains. I´ve picked up a lot of information from other cyclists such as locations of campsites and service stations, the most scenic routes, places to get shade and water and, most critically, where the coffee stops are! But I´m hoping there´ll also be more pleasant little surpises.

More photos on Fickr and an updated map below.

San Martin, Argentina - Roadkill cookery

Argentina is a country of contrasts and the last stretch of cycling has certainly brought them out. I cycled out of Malargue with Lesley and Chris from Haddington and it was great to have such good company for a few days, especially as they shared my inability to pass a service station without stopping for coffee. Ahead of us was a two-day crossing of a long stretch of pampa desert with an overnight wild camp, so we left well-stocked with water - I had six litres but could have done with more. The pampa can be quite bleak but this stretch was memorable for me as I was rewarded with my longest daily distance of the trip (75 miles which is not bad on a fully-loaded tourer) and I passed the 4000-miles-cycled mark!

Eventually we turned off onto a dirt road and descended in a series of hairpin bends into the depths of the fabulous Atuel Canyon, Argentina´s answer to the Grand Canyon. It was spectacular. There were banded rocks the colour of IrnBru and huge boulders that reminded me of big lumps of putty with indentations like finger marks as if they´d been worked by giant hands. The most bizarre formation was "The Monks", a tight cluster of tall, grey, spiral rocks that looked like a huddle of religious leaders debating some important matter of the day. The canyon delighted us with pampas grasses whose feathery tops caught the sunlight, cacti several feet tall and peppercorn trees - we picked the ripe, pink peppercorns to spice up our camp stove cookery.

Beyond the canyon and the town of San Rafael we were back into pampa and back to carefully monitoring water supplies. It was blisteringly hot and we dozed the afternoon away in the shade of a hailstorm shelter before making a wild camp behind bushes off the highway. Then it was all change again as a long descent took us down into the countryside south of Mendoza - a patchwork of green with vineyards stretching to the mountains and orchards of pears, plums and peaches. The area is also famous for growing oregano and the sweet aroma filled the air as we pedaled along. Of course, it´s really still desert here and the agriculture is only possible as a result of extensive irrigation. Nonetheless, it makes for pleasant cycling in contrast to the pampa. Another bonus of cycling in this area is the roadkill that can be collected for the pot . . . it´s not as gruesome as it sounds! There are any number of trucks trundling along these roads with all the fabulous produce and inevitably some of it falls off. The keen-eyed cyclist can collect many "roadkill" fruits and vegetables for that evening´s supper!

In this part of Argentina there is a little slice of heaven in the form of the campsite at Hostal Rosengarten in San Carlos. It was so relaxing that I stayed for three days. Big, mature trees provided shade and shelter around the lawn and there was a little swimming pool with a view to the Andes. A heavily-laden pear tree ambled over the toilet block, an area favoured after dark by huge toads. Eclectic clusters of seating on the lawn encouraged people to relax and chat - stylish chairs that you might find on a Provence patio or roughly-hewn wooden benches set under the shade of the trees. In the mornings I swam and nipped to the shops on the bike and in the afternoons I watched the world go by. The Senora who ran the site was a bit of a character. When I asked her for directions to a supermarket, she said she was going herself and would give me a lift. There then followed a terrifying journey at breakneck speed as she narrowly missed several cyclists and a few dogs. I thought I was in the Dukes of Hazard as we almost became airborne when she hit at full throttle speed bumps that had escaped her failing eyesight. In the afternoons she was the perfect hostess, circulating around the campers and picnickers as if they were her personal friends over for a dinner party. On my last night I was slightly alarmed to be woken up at a late hour by somebody calling my name. I unzipped the tent to find the Senora inviting me into the house for ice-cream - at midnight!

As I write I am skirting east of the city of Mendoza. The contrast between the peaceful countryside and the busy city is one that I´ll bypass for now.

There´s a new set of photos from Argentina on my Flickr page and an updated map of the route below.

San Carlos, Argentina - Monday mornings

We unzip the tents at 5.30am. It´s still dark and there´s a sliver of silver moon. All is still and quiet around our wild camp in the desert beside a salt lake. By the time we are having breakfast, huddled in fleeces against the dawn chill, there is a band of golden light on the horizon. And as we push the bikes back to the road, the sun´s peachy morning rays are already touching the rocky peaks of the Andes to the west. We slip into our tow clips, push off along the road and share a smile - this certainly beats heading into work on a Monday morning!