Tom and Dave’s BIG Ride

Hi all,
 
We hope you´re all well and enjoying the snow in good old England! thanks for your emails back and comments on the website too. It´s always good to hear your comments on the mailouts. Well… It´s been a tough few weeks since the last update in Mendoza, so here goes!

Mendoza was a nice rest for us. We did the now routine eat, sleep, repeat to start with! We were fortunate to find hostel Life House, which had a courtyard with an pool which was nearly essential in the heat! It was nice to meet some other English speaking travellers too. Firstly we met Ian the Canadian, then we heard a familiar and disticntive accent, Danielle and Emma from neighboring Essex. We all went out for a meal that night to a nice pasta restaurant (lots more upmarket than the budget affair we usually hunt out!) The highlight of the night was after Dave and myself, the greedy creatures we are, were eyeing up a basket of bread on the table next to us, the girls thought nothing of saving it from going to waste and stealing it for us. We definitely seem to attract lots of what I´m going to coin as ’sympathy feeding’! We Organised a trek/asbseil/climbing day in the local mountains the next day. The highlight was the particually challenging 20m(60ft) rock face we were climbing. Very tiring but very enjoyable.

Unfortunately the day we left Mendoza Dave was hit with a sickness bug, that turned out to be just the tip of the iceberg, as within two days i followed suit. If only we knew what the next few weeks were to be like…
What you may or may not need know is that toilet talk became a very prominent theme in much of our conversations. We found it very important to compare notes on our current situation. The bug we had really did sap all our energy and morale, however it did rouse some good entertainment! My personal comedy highlight came after waiting at the road side for Dave to finish his business in a tunnel. Watching him waddle out a broken man I questioned ”No good?”,as sensitively as I could. Dave just looked down at his now slightly less clean shoes and just shook his head. No words were needed.
 
Right, moving on much more swiftly than our bowels, we needed to rest ourselves. Riding in this heat, both ill, was dangerous and stupid. We managed to hitch to La Rioja with two chaps in a delivery van. George and Christian, two pharmaceutical delivery men from Buenos Aires, were extremely kind and tried to make us as comfy as possible. They even rearranged the boxes in the back so Dave could lie in there and get some sleep. They tried speaking English with us too and were very interested in our trip. We were very tired, and despite their offer of trying to find us a cheap hostel, we settled for the hotel they were going to. The room had air conditioning, which was bliss in our state and with 40c temperatures!
 
After 3 days rest we thought we were ready for the road again. The heat was incredible on the road. We stopped at Chumbicha and were literally pouring sweat! We found a municipal swimming pool which allowed us to camp there. The pool water was green however, so we were reluctant to swim. This was a shame as in the shade Dave´s thermometer read 47c which is utterly intolerable to rest in! We had a very fast ride to Catamarca covering just under 70kms in two hours without a break. Unfortunately that morning we had to eat cold porridge and water as the fuel had ran out. This seemed to upset my gut gremlin greatly and caused him to complain. I was feeling very ill again by the time we got to Catamarca and Dave wasn´t far behind…
 
So, from Catamarca we were feeling slightly worse for wear after a nice Roquefort cheese pizza (probably not the best idea given the recent activity of the gut gremlins!) WE managed about 15km before Tom was feeling pretty bad and we luckily stumbled upon a very reasonably priced campsite where we camped up, showered and slept for the princely sum of about 80p! Best of all, there were toilets!!!
 
From the campsite at El Portezuelo we made for Concepcion: about 100km ride. the conditions were good so we pushed on as best we could inbetween breaks for Tom to stop feeling sick. It really was a tough days ride and by the time we reached Concepcion, and a little hotel with air conditioning (WOW!), we were absolutely shattered. Straight away we headed to the doctor where we were prescribed some medicine to finally banish this awful gut gremlin from our systems. We left with a spring in our step, knowing that in a few days we´d be right as rain… Or so we thought! On the 3rd day i started to feel bad again so went back to another doctor, telling him what was wrong and showing him the pills i´d been prescribed. He looked at them, looked at me, then let out a disapproving grunt, telling me that these drugs were absolutely useless for my ailments and they never should´ve been prescribed in the first place!!! Excellent! Thankfully this guy did know what he was doing and over the next few days, and with the help`of some more antibiotics we were both ready to hit the road.
 
So, feeling good and craving some good riding we hit the road for an epic 1650m climb to Tafi del Valle, a little town up in the mountains. The first 30km were flat, then  we slowly began winding up through green countryside until, all of a sudden, we found ourselves in temperate rainforest. Trees draped in Lianas leaned over the road providing some much needed shade and the lush vegetation was just what we needed to get us back into riding. A few Kms into the climb, which turned out to be around 40km in length, we saw a river and jumped in fully clothed as a few bemused tourists watched before having a snack and being given some sandwiches by some passing motorists. Still the generosity of the Argentinian people never ceases to amaze us!
 
The rest of the climb was absolutely stunning, winding up and up through the forest until we emerged into lush green hills, reminiscent of the English Lake District, and to Tafi del Valle. This place really is as beautiful as the guidebooks say. The rolling hills and beautiful rainforest were such an amazing contrast to the last few weeks of dry barren wilderness! 
 
1000m more climbing took us to El Infernillo. This little hilltop hut doesn´t really live up to it´s name. The translation comes out as something like “Little Hell” but actually it was just a couple of artesan stalls, a few token Llamas and a sign saying we were at the rather impressive altitude of 3042m. That doesn´t sound like hell at all! From there it was almost all down to Amaicha where we camped up again before heading to Cafayate and some of the nicest wine we´ve tasted to date. The roads were lined with vineyards, vines heavy with thousands of lovely grapes which made our mouths water for the last few km.
 
Cafayate itself was a nice little town, but nothing compared to the road leading out of it towards Salta. The Quebrada de Cafayate winds 82km through some of the most stunning formations of terracotta-red rock you´ve seen. It really was amazing! Even the headwind was made bearable by the scenery.
 
One more day´s ride saw us in Salta knocking at the door of no 1414, Calle Vincente Lopez. This lovely place is the house of Ramon, a really kind, bike-mad guy who has opened his house up to any passing cyclists. We´re just 2 of over 300 cyclists that have been treated to the hospitality of this really kind family and their menagerie of crazy dogs and countless cats. We´ve been here for 2 days now and have been fed well and all of our bike-related issues have been sorted, including having a new custom-made rack built! Excellent!
 
And that brings us up to the present… Over the next few days we´ll be climbing back up to over 3700m at Tres Cruces then  up again to Potosi at 4060m. It´s sure to be a tough ride but from what we´ve heard the scenery will just get better and better!
 
So that´s about it from us for this update. Keep a lookout for the mext one winging its way to you all from the heights of the Bolivian Altiplano!