October 10 - November 10: San Juan to Uspallata, Argentina

Hey friends and followers, I promise to keep this blog shorter than the last one!  For those of you who read my last blog, you saw that I was beginning the third chapter of my trip.  Now a month in, I have learned so much about myself, it’s tough to explain.  For years, I have dreamed of cycling without ties, stopping wherever I please and leaving when I wish.  When we arrived in the San Juan area, we only had one contact as I mentioned in my previous blog:  Miguel.  We waited at that gas station on the outskirts of town until after dark for someone we had just met to come pick us up.  This could be a great scenario for a hit horror flick, but for us, it was the beginning of relationships we’d never forget. 

Miguel and his fiancee Cecelia from Pocito, San Juan, Argentina

The ‘staying until the end of the week’ I mentioned in my last blog somehow turned into almost three weeks at Miguel’s place in a suburb of San Juan.  We had the run of the house from day one and made Pocito our home, meeting Miguel’s family, his fiancée and her family, friends, business-owners, etc.  We even met quite a few strangers I’d easily call my friend.  From the folks at the bike shop that hooked Coco up with tons of free and discounted parts to Miguel and Cecilia’s friends in town, from the vegetable place to Pablo’s art house, from the bakery near Miguel’s motorcycle shop to the lounge on the plaza, from the grocery to the cool sewing shop… It felt like home.

Some friends in San Juan

We got to know their families very well, going to barbeques seemingly every other day, going to the boliche (club) in San Juan which was a stellar time, and Miguel’s grandma’s birthday party, poor thing.  I taught Coco and Greg a thing or two about the bikes and they taught me how to make bracelets, dream catchers, necklaces, and other cool art.  One day we went to San Juan for a pay-by-weight vegetarian restaurant and ended up meeting some awesome local medical students.  We set up Miguel’s inflatable pool in the back garden one day and seemed to throw one another in, clothes and all, more often than simply deciding to go for a swim.   Some nights a lot of Miguel and Cecilia’s friends came over and we played guitar and made light-art, drinking the national Argentine drink, Fernet and Coke until the wee hours.  I took the opportunity of our resting to really hit the Spanish hard and learned a few tenses more or less plus tons of phrases whose translations make no sense in English.  Coco, Gregg and I watched the last few episodes of Breaking Bad, officially making it the only show of which I have seen every episode, so incredible.  We almost got Heisenberg tattoos (the main character of the show), which would have been a pretty cool life-mistake. 

Pool time with Coco and Gregg...

Miguel owns a motorcycle shop about 8km from his house and he recently changed locations so we helped him set up and paint the shop, though there was typically less painting and more joking around with his friends.  His sister and he run a clothing shop a few doors down that I often went to for Mate.  Miguel gave us all clothing to wear around town from his the business, which was a nice change from all our ragged cycling garments.  I gave him my cycling jersey and he gave me one of his with ‘Pocito’ on the front, so I’ll never forget the place.  To summarize the days we spent there, it was relaxing, but felt like real-life, not traveling, making relationships, sharing stories, learning every bad word in Argentinian Spanish (gracias Miguel, culiado).. 

Miguel and his sister's clothing shop in Aberstain

As with all my trips, I come to a point where I simply feel like not cycling anymore, yet after over two weeks and only 100 in-town kilometers on the bike, I was antsy to get going – we all were.  On the day we were supposed to leave, a huge sandstorm whipped up, not allowing us to leave.  I won’t go into detail, but the night before we had originally intended to leave wasn’t a great one, so we got to end on a high note after the wind died down the following day.  It was a bittersweet moment leaving Pocito, Miguel, and Cecilia, but I know I will be back someday, if not for the wedding next year. 

Ceci's light-art

The occasional day-trip into the San Juan city centre

Back on the bike after weeks of not cycling was… tiring.  After 50km of headwind, Greg’s front wheel bearings took a crap on everyone, forcing us to hitchhike the remaining 100km to Mendoza.  It felt a little strange as the last time I used motor-power to advance my trip was between Lima and Cusco in Peru back in June, but I’m not a ‘purist’, I’m Kurt and I really don’t care.  The people we hitchhiked with were these cool gypsy brothers who owned a vegetable pick-up truck and went around selling vegetables and other unmentionables.  I stuffed myself on top of the cab where one of their beds is, Coco was tucked in the bed of the truck under some slanted boards and Gregg sat up front with them.  They passed around stuff to share including a banana, which is a first for me.  I like sharing, don’t get me wrong, but it’s what Argentinians do best – whether it be a sandwich or a banana.  The road blazed by in a haze, the great Andes and Aconcagua came into view through a rip in the tarp up top where I sat and through this rip I also saw the brothers bribe the police with leftover fruit for reasons I could only imagine.  A few times we had to stop because apparently the engine-hood blew up in the wind, which I am glad to have not seen.

Hitching a ride with the gypsy brothers

In Mendoza, we fixed the bike and found a hostel near the center, making it the third hostel I’ve stayed in since mid-August in Uyuni.  We fell asleep early, woke up at 1am, and went out until sunrise.  During the day, we went fuzzily to the huge park near the center, where there’s a running track, big forests and meadows, a lake, etc.  For the all-too-short time we spent in Mendoza, I found that it is quite an attractive city where I wouldn’t mind passing a few weeks or months.  On Saturday though, we left in the direction of Chile via an alternate dirt road, after making the decision that taking the highway wouldn’t be very fun with all the traffic.  The first day we covered only 30km before finding a decent place to camp, but on the second day we entered a National Reserve and began climbing endlessly up dirt switchbacks, each turn opening a new and inspiring view.  I rode ahead to the rhythms of Beach House and Red Hot Chili Peppers, cranking away until I found a really beautiful place to camp on the hillside.  I waited for Gregg and Coco to confirm the spot but knew they’d love it.  Up nearly 5,000 feet above the valley, we perched our tents on a flat ridge with a stunning view, especially of the sunrise.  We had a grand ol’ night running around, re-enacting war scenes, and philosophizing our travels.

Mendoza

Heading up towards the Andes again

The road continued to climb, topping out around 9,000ft, giving us our first glimpses of Aconcagua in front of us, the highest mountain in the Western Hemisphere, nearly 2,000 feet higher than Denali in Alaska and only 7,000ft lower than Everest.  We descended down into Uspallata and found a campground a few kilometers from the center to pass the night.  Well one night turned into two, which turned into three, which somehow turned into another two weeks for me.  Victor, the guy who runs the campground offered me a room and food in exchange for a few hours of work a day.  Coco, Gregg and I had traveled together for nearly 6 weeks and felt we had reached a good point in our trip together to go our separate ways.  With tons of climbing and hiking literally next to Victor’s property and some cool projects to work on, I stayed and Coco/Gregg left to Santiago.

A few days out of Mendoza

Coco gettin it

Coco, Gregg, and I

Uspallata is a town of perhaps 5,000 inhabitants, set in a desert valley between low-elevation canyonlands/vertical walls and very high (17,000-22,000ft) snowy peaks.  The town has a river that is irrigated, giving it a lush green setting with lots of tall, thin Alamo trees, farms, and horse ranches.  The ‘downtown’ itself is just one street really, with everything you need (except soy products, Argentina se puede anda cagar), and I managed to find peanut butter for the first time since Sucre, Bolivia. 

Out front of my new residence for a few weeks

Uspallata sunsets

Uspallata valley

Hanging out with the mutts

Coco on a nearby hike

Victor is a late-60’s expat from South Africa who has been on the road for almost 40 years.  He has lived in Argentina for 12 years now and doesn’t plan on moving on (unless he gets caught).  He is a very spiritual person, and is the poster-child of a true conspiracy theorist.  Every morning around 5am, I can hear him ‘making contact with God’, yelling and chanting things in Afrikaans.  His camping is 4km from the center on the empty dirt road we rode in on, making it odd to hear a car go by.  There are over 1,000 Alamo trees on the property and while the morning always brings tons of songbirds, the evening breeze sings a beautiful tune through the leaves; it’s really nice, yet quite rustic as well.  The nearest drinking water is 3km away, there’s no running water in the house, the toilet is a manual (flushes with a bucket of water) and the bedroom is pretty dirty; after 200 days of sleeping in the dirt, I don’t use ‘dirty’ lightly.  The shower is a weekly affair as it requires pumping the irrigation ditch for water then building a big fire to heat it up.  It’s not uncommon to find spiders the size of tarantulas crawling around the walls.  The work I am helping Victor with is really meditative for me.  I’ve felled dead trees, which I’ve used to help build a roof, collect firewood for the cold days, learned a little bit of carpentry and plumbing, re-dug and maintained a few of the irrigation ditches, dug and erected a flagpole, learned how to cook a few things, and lots of other smaller projects.  It seems daunting, but in reality, we drink more local wine than work, talking about all the crazy ideas Victor has and on my spare time, I read or head into town for groceries/wifi. 

Victor

Nearby hieroglyphs 

Hiking near Uspallata

I've seen some cool ancient rock paintings and have gone on a few great hikes, including a big one that had no trail to follow; it was fun using the compass and land features to find my way to the summit and back to my bike.  I really want to climb Aconcagua, but can’t get over the grand it costs JUST for a climbing permit.  Even trekking to the basecamp will run you almost $100 plus food and figuring out a way to stash the bike.  Argentina definitely capitalizes on its abundant nature, as we saw in the north.  A friend of Victor’s offered me a job as a raft guide, which was very difficult to decline as I am really eager to see what kind of energy Santiago has to offer me.  I would still like to complete a Vipassana meditation course while I can, but the one near Santiago in December is waitlisted.  Fingers are crossed for an opening!  After nearly 40 days of resting, including only 4 legitimate days of cycling, we’ll see how much my fitness has declined as I tackle the high-mountain crossing over to Chile…  As always, thank you for your support and I’ll see you in Chile!