Ephemerica

That’s what the posted signs told us when we crossed the border into Argentina at La Quiaca. We’ve traveled pretty far in total so far, but we’ve only biked just over 7,000 kms up to now, so we’re going to need to be a little more disciplined (and luckier) than we have been so far on the trip. The border crossing itself was without incident, except that we almost didn’t make it through before they closed because our bus on the Bolivian side had to stop for repairs several times on the way. We enjoyed our first Argentinian milanesa (yum!), had a nice thick Quilmes Stout (also yum!), and then had our first nights sleep in Argentina.

The next day we started our 5-day trek to Salta. As we slowly started to bleed off our altitude from the altiplano, we were treated to great views in an arid, colorful rocky canyon called the Quebrada de Humahuaca. The only problem was that once we entered the canyon, we faced a horrendous headwind that really sapped our strength, even though we were going downhill most of the time! It was almost as if the Andean goddess Pachamama herself were trying to keep us from leaving the altiplano… Another highlight of the trip to Salta was staying in Purmamarca, which is home to the famous Cerro de los Siete Colores (Seven Colored Mountain), a large rock that, well, has seven different colors in it. To be honest, Purmamarca itself isn’t that spectacular—there is a small plaza where handicraft vendors wait for the occasional tour bus to come through and unload tourists on them, and not much else. But we had gone so far the day before (over 130 km), and the wind, which we had hoped was a one day fluke, was still gale force in our face, so we made a short day of it and rested in Purmamarca.

A couple of days later, we finished our journey from 3400 m at the border to 1200 m in Salta. As we finished our descent, we suddenly became aware of two things: how green it was, and how hot it was. Our last day riding into Salta, we were able to take a bypass highway between El Carmen and Salta that was a little hilly, but was uncrowded, shaded by vegetation most of the way, and quite beautiful. We then finally arrived at the casa de ciclistas there, where Ramon and his family were waiting for us, including our Spanish cycling friend Jose, whom we met at the other casa de ciclistas in Trujillo, Peru. After we chatted and rested a bit, Ramon showed us our Christmas present to ourselves—new Schwalbe tires! On the recommendations of Jose and countless other cyclists on the internets, we bought some Marathon XR tires to replace our aging Specialized Hemispheres (they were especially showing their age on the dirt roads of Bolivia). The German cyclists we met in Peru, Martin and Nadine, said that their Marathons last around 10,000 kms and they have hardly any flats, so we’re hoping for the same luck with ours! We’ve had some experience with Schwalbe road tires, and we know they make a good product, so I think this was a good move for us. They were costly though—between buying the original tires (which are expensive), shipping to Argentina, and paying customs on the packages (50% of declared value!), well, they’re probably the most valuable part of our bikes now

Ramon’s family was kind enough to include us in their Christmas celebration. I have to digress a little here about some changes we had to make in entering Argentina. Everything here happens MUCH MUCH later than we are used to in the US. We usually finish our bike rides here in the early afternoon, and when we roll into town, it’s like entering a ghost town. People take the siesta very seriously here, and it’s because they are up until 2AM (or later) every night! OK, back to Christmas. We went with the family down the street to celebrate Christmas eve mass at 10:30PM. Then we had our Christmas dinner at 11:30PM. We contributed a little bit of smoked salmon (sent by my folks) to add a little NW flavor to the dinner. Then we went out to Balcarce, the clubbing section of Salta. The bars were all open, and the streets were full of people! Ramon assured us that not many people were out, since it was Christmas after all. Then we came home at 4:30AM, and the next day Ramon told his mom that we had an early night! I’m not sure that we will ever truly adjust to the Argentine lifestyle, but we have made some more practical arrangements in the meanwhile…we’ve started buying empanadas (little pastries filled with meat and potato) the night before to eat for breakfast the next day, and we have been taking midday breaks on our rides to stop for lunches at restaurants, in order to hold us over until the restaurants reopen at 8-9PM.

After a relaxing few days in Salta, it was time for us to say goodbye to Ramon and his family. We also had to say goodbye to their collection of cats and dogs, including two litters of recently born and very cute kittens (we really wanted to steal one to take home as a playmate for Sera). As our way of saying thank you, we made dinner for them before we left. We couldn’t think of anything really typically American to make, so we made chili and cornbread. We spent quite some time at the supermarket buying stuff, and it was a bit touch-and-go for a while, because we had to substitute for some things that you can’t find in South America. In the end though, both turned out well, and Ramon’s mom was particularly impressed by the cornbread, so we gave her the recipe we got from the internets. The chili recipe is one I copied from a Martha Stewart Living magazine, and is really good; if anybody wants it I can email it to them

We are now starting to enter Argentine wine country. We rode two days to Cafayate through another canyon, the Quebrada de Las Conchas. This ride was very beautiful…or at least I think it was. The day we rode through the actual canyon, the heat was incredible, up to 46 C (115 F) according to my bike computer, and I think I may have had a small brain meltdown along the way. The Quebrada has lots of famous rock formations like the Devil’s Throat, the Amphitheatre, and the Toad. There were plenty of tourists in cars stopped along the way to mark them for us, but we only stopped at a few to take pictures, being much more interested in where the next shaded place was for us to get out of the heat for a few minutes. The thing to do in Cafayate is visit wineries, of which there are at least six in town. Unfortunately, this isn’t the best time of year to do tours. With this being the holiday season, most of them were closed to the public for New Years. The one we did manage to get into was completely dead since grape harvest season isn’t for several months yet. So we took a 15 min tour through the machinery, tried some less than spectacular wines, and called it a day. The wine highlight so far of Cafayate has been the wine flavored sorbets (they have a cabernet and torrontes, a local style of white wine).

Our path to Mendoza will keep us close to the Andes and hopefully at enough altitude to keep us somewhat cool. We are also hoping that we have better luck at the wineries in Chilecito and Mendoza than we had here in Cafayate.

Posted by Matthew on January 1st, 2008 | Filed under: Argentina