Sicuani - Cuzco

Leg Distance - 143.35km
Leg Time - 8:28.13
Total Distance - 4081.41km

"Count your miles from the lightning,
rest your tired eyes.
Count your blessings against the thunder,
kiss the years goodbye."

Jeffrey Foucault - Miles from the Lightning

Well, I found those missing 20km. I was about 40km out of Sicuani when I saw the sign saying "Cuzco - 100" and froze, staring at it in a mixture of anger (my map and the two policemen I had asked in Sicuani had all said 110km) and worry that I would not make it. Normally I would have stopped the night somewhere, but I couldn't imagine not making it to Cuzco on the same day after looking forward to it since leaving La Paz, so I (stubbornly and, perhaps, recklessly) decided that it would be Cuzco or bust. Six hours plus later I rolled into Cuzco at rush-hour with the setting sun in my eyes, much like I had done in Valparaiso 3 months ago. Of course, in Valparaiso I hadn't run into the back of a mini-van like I did yesterday (for future reference, white vehicles that brake suddenly: impossible to see with the sun in your eyes), but neither Toops, me nor the van's fender showed signs of any damage. After the driver had come out and mumbled something at me I continued on to the hostel.

My hopes of a celebratory beer later that night were dashed as I was so exhausted that I was on my bed asleep by 9 with nightmares of loose pannier racks and missing allen keys, now relegated from genuine waking worries.

Shortly before leaving the Falklands someone had asked me what my hopes and expectations of the trip were. Returning alive figured pretty highly on that list, but other than that I couldn't think of anything concrete. In many ways, however, this trip was complete for me the moment I left Puerto Varas and set out on the Ruta 5, everything else since has been one long, beautiful bonus.

Highlights: Literally too many to mention. Crossing the Andes was very special, predictably, as was rolling into Valparaiso, or my first day as I mentioned above. However, the moment that sticks out in my mind is reaching the Abra del Condor at 4000m on my way to Iruya. It came after a 50km climb (30 of which of rough gravel) and by the time I reached the top I was mentally and physically exhausted. The view on the other side, however, was breathtaking, and for one egocentric second it seemed as if all those millions of years of geological forces had been staged solely for me to experience that moment.

Low points: Being stuck in La Paz, my morale slump around Arauco or general loneliness were all pretty shit. However, the lowest point (and one which almost led me to ditch Toops) came straight after one of my highlights. I had been stuck at the Chilean - Argentine border post for three hours courtesy of a semi-strike, so I was forced to spend the night in an (overpriced) empty hotel in Puente del Inca. Worn out from two days of sheer climbing, I had bought a beer to celebrate the crossing. As I opened it in the hotel room I felt the anti-climax of having none of my friends and family to celebrate with and felt the whole brunt of the cyclist's loneliness. Of course, I was hungry, exhausted and spending my first night at altitude, so I was far from thinking straight. By the time I got to Mendoza two days later I was gunning to go again.

As I awoke this morning I realised that I wouldn't have to prepare rolls for the day's ride, fill my camelback and go through the (by now, reflex) motions of packing the panniers and loading the bike. At first I felt relieved, but the more I thought about it the more it broke my heart to think that I wouldn't have to.

I got up to discover that Toops had a flat back tyre and couldn't help but feel a little sad that it should look so ungraceful after the epic journey. The road yesterday had glass everywhere, so I had (fearfully) checked the tyres on a regular basis. The last check had been no more that 5km from home, and both tyres had been fine. Logic would suggest that the puncture occurred in those last 5km, but, at the risk of sounding wet, I would like to think that Toops simply held out.

As I started to change the tyre (more out of respect than necessity) this morning I felt myself well up with gratitude. It's difficult to explain it, and even more so for people reading this to understand it I suspect, but I doubt anyone will ever know how difficult the trip was at times, or how rewarding, like Toops does. I admit it was probably down to chance, but it often seemed that when things got tough, encouragement always came by way of Toops. Similarly, Toops always made sure to bring my head down from the clouds when I got ahead of myself. It's such a cliche, but Toops has proved so much more than a means of transport: my travel companion, my hindrance, my confidante, my friend. My Tupelo Honey.

Santa Rosa - Sicuani

Leg Distance - 66.88km
Leg Time - 4:05.47
Total Distance - 3938.06km

Pucará - Santa Rosa

Leg Distance - 79.52 km
Leg Time - 4:43.13
Total Distance - 3871.18 km

Puno - Pucará

Leg Distance - 109.71km
Leg Time - 6:34.55
Total Distance - 3791.66km

As you can see I changed my mind on the 45km stage today, the reason being that soon after writing my post yesterday I was reliably informed about Juliaca (the town I was planning to stop in) being the drug smuggling capital of Peru and one of it's most dangerous cities. Instead I decided to power on Pucará, which actually makes more sense as now I will have two decent sized stages tomorrow and the day after before my final 120km to Cuzco on thursday (all going well).

In other news, I have posted more photos from the last few weeks, you can see them here

Juli - Puno

Leg Distance - 81.66km
Leg Time - 5:20.22
Total Distance - 3681.94km

I actually arrived in Puno yesterday, but didn't get round to posting the info up. Anyway, I am now in Peru, my fourth and final country. I am planning to finish the bike ride in Cuzco, although as I have mentioned before I am now on a bit of a tight schedule and hope to make it there by Thursday. It's going to be pretty tough as it is, but worryingly, there seems to be some ambiguity in the distance between Puno and Cuzco; my map claims it's some 360km, whereas my Footprints guide (99% of the time on the ball) and several Peruvian websites think it's more like 388km. Not much of a difference, I hear you say, except that it is. Or, at least, it may be. You see, my leg tomorrow is a measely 45km, which means I will have to cover 100+km a day for the following three days. If the 28km difference is spread out over the three legs, it won't be a problem, but if I find myself having to cycle 130km in a day as opposed to 110km at 3500m above sea level, then it could be a problem, particularly cycling westwards and with the sun setting at 6pm (after 5 it becomes nigh on impossible, even with sunglasses). And there is also a pass at 4251m during one of the 100km legs, so all in all, it should be a trying final strech. Good-oh.

Plus, there is also the added pressure of having to make it to a town in time to have dinner. Peruvians, it would seem, eat early (5-6pm), so getting a meal at a restaurant in small towns at 8pm is pretty much impossible, as I found out the other day. Instead, I had to make do with some (frankly, suspicious) fried chicken and some weird giant corn thing from a street vendor. Fortunately, it didn't have the effects that most street vendor produce had in La Paz (and the details of which I shalln't go into here...), but I couldn't help but feel that a meal served in a plastic bag (no, really), isn't quite the satisfying feast a cyclist needs.

Copacabana - Juli (Peru)

Leg Distance - 61.73km
Leg Time - 4:37.48
Total Distance - 3600.28km

Ahorita...

As the more keen among you will have noticed, I am back on the road. As the even keener among you will have noticed, my plans to have "Toops fixed and back on the road as soon as possible" didn't really materialise. Or at least, the second half didn't - Toops is indeed fixed but after two weeks that involved having to have a new derailleur hanger sent from Spain at considerable cost. I should have probably come to La Paz straight from Uyuni to sort out the bike rather than have gone to Potosí and Sucre, but that's hindsight for you. The silver lining to all this, however, is that the last five weeks since leaving San Pedro have been great fun (fretting about bike parts notwithstanding) and it has been great to do the classic backpacker thing for a while. Obviously biking and backpacking aren't usually easy to do at the same time, and I probably wouldn't try again, but it has been a great experience and, now that I look back upon it, probably an itch that needed scratching.

However, the main upshot of my extended stay in La Paz is that I am now pressed for time to get to Cuzco, so my total cycling experience of Bolivia will be reduced to 3 days and I will be crossing the border to Peru tomorrow. Probably as a result of the time limit, I'm not as sorry to be leaving Bolivia as I was Chile or Argentina. The one thing I will miss, however, is hearing "ahorita" (right now) after every question asking when something opens, arrives or leaves. Predictably, it can mean anything from "in 5 minutes" to "next year" to "probably never", but almost never its original intended meaning. Frustrating at first, but eventually it got plain hilarous.

I will not miss the stale lard smell of coca leaf being chewed. Not so much in La Paz, but anywhere else in Bolivia that's at altitude it's difficult not to see someone selling it, stuffing it into the side of their mouth or simply letting it rest there and looking like cartoon characters do when they have toothache. Apparently it helps with the altitude and staves off hunger, so much so that the miners in Potosí get through their 12 hour shifts with nothing but that and the odd bottle of Coke or Fanta. And of course, the infamous Alcohol Potable, a 96% alcoholic content drink which is (sadly) ubiquitous in the poorest areas of Bolivia. Think I'll stick to my ham and cheese sandwiches for the bike thanks.

Huarina - Copacabana

Leg Distance - 73.97km
Leg Time - 6:25.33 (including lake barge crossing)
Total Distance - 3538.55km

La Paz - Huarina

Leg Distance - 57.10km
Leg Time - 3:02.16
Total Distance - 3464.68km

Bolivia

Apologies first of all for not having posted anything for two weeks. As predicted, I haven't been on the bike since leaving Chile, but it has been an obligatory break rather than an optional one. As you may remember, at the time of writing the last post I was about to embark on a three day jeep tour through the Salar de Uyuni and into Bolivia. And embark I did. Unfortunately, our guide (well, I say guide, he was little more than a driver, and other than a lengthy description of the wonders of the area after he'd had a few too many on our first evening, he barely said much) was a little over-zealous when strapping Toops to the roof rack on the second day and bent the rear derailleur hanger. This basically means that the gears don't work as they should, and to try and cycle through Bolivia with limited gears is foolish to say the least, sufficed to say that the words "Shit Creek" and "Wire Canoe" spring to mind.

Of course, it's unfair to blame the guide for it, because I should have either been overseeing or strapped it in myself, but you live and you, painfully and frustratingly, learn. There is a silver lining to all this though, and that is that since the jeep tour I have had to bus around as other lowly backpackers do and have probably met more people in the last two weeks than I have since starting. Around the time I got to Argentina, I had given up hope reconciling the bike experience with the infintely more social travelling experience, so it has been a pleasant surprise to find myself in this situation. Still, I'm very glad of the fact that I can't wait to get to La Paz tomorrow and get Toops fixed so I can get back on the road as soon as possible.

So, there's your update, sorry it's a bit scant on information. Hopefully I will have a chance to upload photos and write a bit more about where I have been when I'm in La Paz this week.

Farewell Chile (again...)

Apologies for not having written in a while, the reason for it is that I haven't been on the bike since Jujuy. I crossed into San Pedro de Atacama last thursday, this time by bus though - it would have taken me at least 3 days to do it by bike, probably 4, carrying water and food. Plus, given that a fair bit of the pass is at 4500m plus the chances of getting altitude sickness were good to likely, so a bit risky to do it on my own. Of course, I cursed my cowardice as I looked out of the bus window, but that's to be expected.

San Pedro de Atacama is the tourist gateway to the Atacama desert, and fittingly, there seems to be little else here other than restaurants, hotels and tour companies. Nonetheless, the authorities strive to maintain the decidedly Andean culture and, to this end, have banned dancing (yes, dancing) in public places and throughfares. How dancing, and not the myriad of pizza houses and cafés that are allowed, would diminish the local culture is totally beyond me. It's not as if the village pre-columbine civilisations used to sit down and discuss the vagaries of alpaca rearing over a hot slice and a de-caf capuccino.

Still, Bolivia tomorrow. I had hoped to cross on the so-called train of death that used to run between Calama and Uyuni, but after being reliably informed (or rather, unreliably informed numerous times and then being reliably informed) that it didn't run, I am now crossing over on 3 day jeep tour and getting to see a fair bit of Southern Bolivia before being dropped off at Uyuni, so it's in fact probably better than the original plan.

No, I'm not crossing into Bolivia by bike either; if the crossing from Jujuy would have been risky to do on my own, then this one is reckless verging on suicidal. In fact, there's a good chance I may not be able to get back on the bike until La Paz (combination of bad and dangerous roads and lack of population centres). Until then I will keep you posted as to my meanderings, but it's the bike that makes it worth writing for me so don't expect much.

I have put more photos up by the way, these have been on facebook for a week so most of you may have seen them already. It's the same album as last time, you'll find them at the end.

Farewell Argentina

"What is it that you lose when you cross a border? Every moment seems broken in two; melancholy for what is left behind and at the same time, the excitement of entering a new land".

Che Guevara - The Motorcycle Diaries

As I will be leaving crossing the border in a couple days, I suppose it's time for a little reflection on Argentina.

Those of you who have visited Argentina will know that it's a country obsessed with change. And I don't mean change in the socio-political sense of the word, but in the monetary sense. When the Argentine economy took a nose-dive some years ago, coins (and in particular 1 peso coins) were more valuable for their metal than for their symbolic worth, and you can guess what started to happen. As a result small change is really worth its weight in gold, and as I said the country is obsessed with it. Except for in large supermarkets and department stores, you will almost always be asked for the correct change and, in the event that you don't have it, be given penny sweets instead of your 10 cents. In smaller towns it's even worse, and if you try to pay for something that costs 5 pesos or less with anything larger than a 20 peso note, you're likely to have to try two or three shops before you find one with change. To make it worse, cash machines only pay out 100 peso notes, which is the equivalent of cash machines in the UK only paying out 100 pound notes. Now, I may be guilty of over-simplifying the situation but, is it any wonder there's a shortage of change?! Or should I say, a perceived shortage of change. That's the thing, someone must have the change, they must, otherwise nobody could buy anything and the economy would collapse. People are just obsessed with it and would rather turn away business (no joke!) than let go of their precious 10 peso and 20 peso notes.

Argentine Spanish is according to some, beautiful, according to others, grating. Much like the Chileans, they have developed their own imperative verb tense, but unlike in Chilean Spanish it's only one and they stick to it. When you ask an Argentine an a question they will probably use a minimum of six words to answer it, the last of which will be the answer. The rest of it is a collection of words including some or all of the following

Este (esteh) - Literally means "this one", used in the same way as "well..." is used in English. The last syllable is dragged out for a few seconds.
Si (see) - Yes
No (noh) - No
O sea (o seh-ah) - That is to say
Por ahi (Pore-a-ee) - Thereabouts. Again, last syllable is dragged out for a few seconds.
Quizas (Key-sass) - Perhaps
De repente (De repente, duh) - Suddenly

So for example, if I asked someone, as I often did, if there was many hills in a particular road, the answer would often be: "Esteeeee, si, o sea, no, quizas, por ahiiii, de repente, este, no." And from this I would surmise that no, there aren't many hills on the road (or rather, that the person believes there to be few hills on the road. One thing that is not exclusive to Argentina is that non-cyclists know very little (read: fuck all) when it comes to hills and regularly underestimate them. I have learned this the hard way and cursed many a well-meaning stranger as a result, so now I try to get a hard altitude figure whenever possible).

I have to admit that my first impressions of Argentina were not great, largely because I didn't want to leave the comfort zone that was Chile, but I am now as sad to be leaving it as I was Chile. I was also somewhat apprehensive, having lived in the Falklands most of my life I wasn't sure how it would go down (Spaniards aren't traditionally the most popular here either, so I'm a bit of a twofer for Argentine xenophobes). I needn't have fretted. People were admittedly bemused, but not once did they react negatively. One or two, of course, couldn't resist making the odd joke to the tune of "so you live in Argentina then", but I've heard that one from every nationality of traveller I've met (British included), so nothing that would require a showdown at ten paces.

The one thing that has surprised me is the embarassment the Argentine people feel about the Falklands war. Embarrassment for the reasons (the immediate political reasons at least) and for the, largely incompetent, way it was carried out. Embarrassment or not, however, it is patently clear that not one Argentine believes the Falklands to belong to anyone but them, even if they were often too polite to say it out loud.

But, overall, it really has been special. Some of you have already begun to ask whether I prefer Argentina or Chile, and I don't think I could go out on a limb for either. However, there is one thing that threatens to tip the scales in Argentina's favour, it has the best empanadas.

Tilcara - Jujuy

Leg Distance - 85.82km
Leg Time - 3:47.49
Total Distance - 3407.48km

Humahuaca - Tilcara

Leg Distance - 42.34km
Leg Time - 1:43.33
Total Distance - 3321.76km

The end of the road

Only in Argentina mind - although I will be stopping in two other towns on my way back to Jujuy, Iruya is the northernmost town I'll visit in Argentina before getting the bus across to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile (if you're wondering why I'm not cycling across, it's because there's nowhere to get water for 300 odd kilometers).

As it turned out, the trip to Iruya was a more than fitting way to bring my time in Argentina to an end. Some 25km out of Humahuaca the road turned to gravel and stayed that way for the remaining 50km. As if that wasn't enough, I had to climb to 4000m (I'd started at 3000m) before dropping to Iruya at 2600m. To say that the going was tough is an understatement (see my leg time), more often than not the "gravel" turned into boulders or sand that made it nigh on impossible to cycle on, and in even those rare stretches where the road surface was, ahem, good and I could reach a breakneck speed of 10km/h, it wasn't long before I found myself stopping to catch my breath on account of the altitude.

The descent wasn't as much fun as you'd expect either, Toops can't half gain some momentum when loaded, and even with the brakes on for the entirety of the drop she took such a battering that its life expectancy has probably been halved. Needless to say, I ended the leg quite worse for wear too; aside from the physical exhaustion, my toes and the balls of my feet were completely numb, my fingers and wrists were so sore that I struggled to take the panniers off afterwards and my crotch felt like a pack of feminists had taken turns at it with a baseball bat. Indeed, if I ever get an erection again it will be the most unlikely feat of gravitational defiance since Howard Hughes managed to make the Spruce Goose airborne.

But of course, that's not why it was a fitting farewell to Argentina. Upon reaching the pass at 4000m (the highest I've been so far), the descent to Iruya was nothing short of spectacular. The road hairpins it's way down the hillside before bordering a canyon and passing dramatic cliff faces and mountain sides. Iruya itself appears out of nowhere 20km later, almost hidden in between walls of rock. I will put up photos soon but as you can imagine they will barely do justice to what has probably been the high point of the trip so far.

Humahuaca - Iruya

Leg Distance - 73.75km
Leg Time - 8:03.34
Total Distance - 3279.42km

Purmamarca - Humahuaca

Leg Distance - 69.65km
Leg Time - 4:27.56
Total Distance - 3205.67km

Jujuy - Purmamarca

Leg Distance - 65.97km

Leg Time - 5:14.28

Total Distance - 3136.02km

People and stories

"You pass through places and places pass through you,
but you carry them with you on the soles of your travelling shoes" -
The Be Good Tanyas, The Littlest Birds

I meant to put up this photo while in Salta, but never got round to it. These two guys (Gustavo and Edgardo) were two Argentine doctors (heard that one before) that were also cycling around Argentina. It doesn't take much to get chatting to fellow cyclists for obvious reasons, but these two guys were extraordinarily friendly and within half an hour they'd invited me to join them for the Asado (an Argentine barbecue for those of you who don't know, the Argentine national dish by a long way and almost definitely the main reason for the high incidence of pancreatic and colonic cancer here) they had planned for that evening.

Gustavo and Edgardo explained that they were trying to make their trip about people and stories rather than places, and were carrying around a video camera with which to record them. Apparently a Spaniard from the Falklands was something of a rarity from their point of view, so I was more than happy to oblige and face the camera to tell my story before we ate our weight in beef and killed off a couple of bottle of wines into the early hours (see bags under my eyes). Gustavo surprised me at one point by asking me how I coped with the loneliness. Evidently an experienced tourer, he knew full well that there was little point in asking whether it was a problem or not and jumped straight to how I dealt with it. Caught off guard somewhat, I simply replied: "I don't, really. I just try and avoid it", to which he simply nodded knowingly.

In other, more cheery news, the observant among you will have noticed that yesterday I passed the 3000km mark. It's not much of a milestone this far down the road admittedly, except that when I was, ahem, "planning" the trip 3000km was around the total distance I expected to travel. More as a result of underestimating distances than a goal that I'd set, I hasten to add, but nonetheless enough to make me reflect and find myself somewhat surprised, it's difficult to explain just how distant this seemed the day Toops and I first set out on the road some 3 and a bit months ago. Other than by "3000km away", of course.

Salta - Jujuy

Leg distance - 95.77km
Leg Time - 5:42.35
Total Distance - 3070.05km

La Viña - Salta

Leg Distance - 86.87km
Leg time - 5:25.40
Total Distance - 2974.28km

Cafayate - La Viña

Leg Distance - 104.29km
Leg Time - 5:11.47
Total Distance - 2887.41km

Amaichá del Valle - Cafayate

Leg Distance - 66.23km

Leg Time - 3:02.48

Total Distance - 2783.12km

Avid followers of my times will have noticed that yesterday and the day before were pretty slow days, the reason being the 2600m climb to the Infiernillo (Little Hell) Pass at 3000m that I'd mentioned in my last post. The climb itself was over some 80km, so on paper around the same as Andean crossing in difficulty, but I must admit I found it considerably easier - what a difference not carrying 4 extra litres of water and food to camp out makes.

Sadly, a woeful road on the other side of the pass robbed me of the one thing that makes climbs all the more bearable, the promise of hurtling down the other side. For about 20km I had to keep at below 20km/h (on a good road I'd be descending at at least 45km/h) and even then, pretty much every screw in the racks and panniers had been shaken loose and Toops was creaking like a 2CV by the end of it.

On a bit of a side note, a lot of you seem to be asking whether I've lost a lot of weight since starting. Some, but not a huge amount, and I thought going through what I ate yesterday would be quite a good way to illustrate why:

Breakfast

- Cheese & ham roll (more like 5 inch sub, actually)

- 2 danish-like pastries

- 1 coffee (which I got in a local cafe, a cafe that apparently serves 2 mini-croissants with coffee, and who was I to refuse?)

Mid-morning

- 1 Salami and cheese roll (as above)

- 2 bananas

- 2 chocolate biscuits

Lunch

- 1 and a half salami and cheese rolls

- 2 bananas

- 2 chocolate biscuits

Upon arriving at hostel

- Half a salami and cheese roll

- Half a packet of M&M´s

- 1 chocolate biscuit

Mid-afternoon/evening

- Danish-style pastry

- Half a Mortadella and cheese roll (It was supposed to be for today, but it didn't fit in my tupperware box, what was I supposed to do?!)

- Best part of a carton of orange juice

Dinner

- 1 Milanesa Napolitana and chips, a milanesa napolitana being a breaded thin but large (30cm by 15cm or thereabouts) and topped with tomato sauce, ham and cheese. And I don't mean a few strands of grated cheese, this one had a lake of cheese on top.

- 1 Basket of bread served with the meal.

And I still went to bed regretting not having ordered desert. I was going to say that yesterday was a bit excessive given the climb from the day previous and yesterday, but after thinking about it I don't actually think it was that much more excessive; give or take a few pastries there and a couple of empanadas here, that's pretty much my diet for a riding day. On rest days I usually take advantage of cheap set menus, so while my diet then may be more wholesome, it's probably not that different in terms of calorific content; my body seems to think that every day is a cycling day and the appetite doesn't drop accordingly. As you can see, it's not really that easy to lose weight when you're cycling 6 hours a day because you have to eat like, well, you're cycling 6 hours a day.

Now, if you'll excuse me, all this talk of food has left me famished and I'm off to find a croissant or three.

Tafí del Valle - Amaichá del Valle

Leg Distance - 55.02km
Leg Time - 5:44.23
Total Distance - 2716.89km

Monteros - Tafí del Valle

Leg Distance - 60.56km

Leg Time - 6:33.39

Total Distance - 2661.87km

Tucumán - Monteros

Leg Distance - 58.74km

Leg Time - 2:50.50

Total Distance -  2601.31km

La Rioja - Tucuman

This "leg" was about 381km, but I did it by bus. Why? Well, it's all pretty flat in between so it makes for pretty dull cycling and I didn't really see the point of wasting time and money stopping in towns that I didn't really want to see. I did plenty of that in Chile and while sometimes it was fun other times it was anything but (see Arauco), so I decided to take the easy route and take the bus. I use the word "easy" in the losest way possible mind, getting Toops and all my bags onto and off a bus is by no means simple and usually involves taking the wheels off, paying excess baggage fees (yes, on buses...), slipping the baggage assistants a few pesos so that I don't have to pay as much in excess baggage fees as I would have to if they stuck to the letter of the law and keeping my fingers crossed for the duration of the trip so that a wayward bag doesn't come down crashing on the bike or wheels.

Yes, I know, that's still a breeze compared to cycling 380km, but with a 2600m climb coming up this week (the Andes one was 2200m) I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

Aimogasta - La Rioja

Leg Distance - 114.68km
Leg Time - 7:25.18
Total Distance - 2542.57km

Schaqui - Aimogasta

Leg Distance - 62.83km
Leg Time - 3:21.36
Total Distance - 2426.89km

Chilecito - Schaqui

Leg Distance - 105.52km
Leg Time - 6:20.10
Total Distance - 2364.06km

Miraculously surprising

The last five or so days have been slightly eventful, so I'll start from San José.

Shortly before arriving in Mendoza, I'd begun to hear a worrying noise emanating from the front wheel, like a piece of metal giving way or being stretched. On the way to San José it got worse, so before leaving the next day I decided to investigate and checked the spokes and rack screws. It was as I went to tighten one of these that it broke off in my hand (well, on the allen key, but you know what I mean). Fortunately, one of the screws that I'd kept from the mudguards was exactly the same size and thread, so problem solved. Not quite; to put this replacement screw in I had to loosen another of the pannier screws, and when I went to tighten this one up again it got bent and it too snapped. Only this one snapped clean off at the frame, leaving half of it inside the fork and no way of getting it out. A couple of bike shops and a car mechanic later I found a metalworker who could take it out, but not until that evening, so I had to spend another day in San Jose. Eventually I left for Huaco, which is not even worth describing, it's not so much a village as a collection of houses and the only reason I stopped there is that it was too far to get to Villa Union in one go.

The next day I made haste for Villa Union, which is, according to the official tourist signs, "miraculously surprising". Now, I have tried to work out what this means but to no avail, if anything it's disparaging. I can only wonder how they came up with it:

"OK people, the printer needs the proofs in half an hour and we're still short of an adverb to show just how surprising Villa Unión really is, it's time to think outside the box"

"I have an idea, you know how miracles are like, really good?"

Anyway... I can't remember whether I'd mentioned before about how the first two or three hours of pedalling are when I cover the most distance as it's when my legs are the freshest and I don't normally have to stop to eat. There are times however, when they are inexplicably difficult, I can't get warmed up and into a rhythm and it's like cycling uphill for the rest of the day. Five minutes out of Villa Unión it became clear that yesterday was one of those days, and if that wasn't bad enough I got a puncture one hour in. Changing the inner tube is not much of a problem, but unloading the bike, re-inflating the tyre (sounds pathetic, but getting a 4.2cm tyre up to 85psi with a hand pump is not a quick or easy task, try it) and re-loading the bike takes its time, and it was twenty minutes later that I got back on the road. It doesn't sound like much, but it's more than enough for the legs to get cold and my stomach to start rumbling, so half an hour later I had to stop to eat, and if I had little chance of getting warmed up after the puncture, then this stop crushed it altogether.  

Some 10km down the road the road turned into gravel, at times so soft that the bike just would not roll down hill, and knowing I had a pretty big climb ahead of me, by the time I got to Tambillos at lunchtime I had decided to thumb down the next pick-up truck.  In the time it took me to have lunch not a single vehicle passed, so I decided to start pedalling and wave one down as it passed me.  Vehicles that passed me in the next hour and a half: one scooter and one car, the latter literally as I reached the 2020m peak.  

Of course, now I am incredibly glad that I did pedal the entire leg (admittedly the 30km after the climb were all downhill...), but the fablesque moral aside, about half an hour into the climb I actually started really enjoying myself.  Partly because I'd resigned to hitching a lift I guess, and in the same way that a tennis player plays his or her best tennis when he is two sets and 4 games down, I had nothing to lose and, to quote two avid followers of this blog, "stopped being a girl".  Plus, I was rewarded by some spectacular scenery on the other side, although it's all subjective; after finishing a 1000m climb a field of decaying dog carcasses can seem like the Garden of Eden itself.  

I eventually arrived in Chilecito to be greeted by a largish sign claiming that "Las Islas Malvinas son Argentinas", I wanted to take a photo but it was right next to a police checkpoint, so I thought better of it, let alone taking out my marker pen and correcting the blatant factual inaccuracy.  Still, calls to the Falklands are billed as national calls here so delusion has its advantages too.  

Villa Unión - Chilecito

Leg Distance: 112.87
Leg Time: 8:35.16 (Courtesy of a puncture and a 1000m climb on gravel)
Total Distance: 2258.54km

Huaco - Villa Unión

Leg Distance: 121.09km
Leg Time: 6:35.11
Total Distance: 2145.67km

San José de Jachal - Huaco

Leg Distance: 41.57km
Leg Time: 2:16.39
Total Distance: 2104.10km

50km out of San Juan - San José de Jachal

Leg Distance - 97.86km
Leg Time - 5:19.26
Total Distance - 2062.53km

No, you haven't missed a post, I was in Mendoza at the end of the last leg, but I got the bus to San Juan. Why? Well, towards the end of the tour in Chile I decided that there wasn't really much point in wasting days and money cycling through regions in which there was nothing to see and believe me, there is very little to see between Mendoza and San Juan; once you've seen one Pampa... Besides, I had to stay a day more than I had planned in Mendoza after a visit to several wineries went on quite a bit longer than expected. Didn't see that one coming.

And why 50km out of San Juan? Well, there are 150 odd kilometers between San Juan and San Jose, and only a couple of abandoned villages between them. Originally, I was going to try and do it in one go, but the owner of the hostel in San Juan warned me against it believing the road to be too hilly. So, the only options were to try anyway or to wild camp, which would me having to carry 10 litres of water plus food and waste a day. Then he kindly offered to give me a lift all or some of the way, as he was doing a tour in this direction anyway, and if the other passengers didn't mind there was plenty of room in the pick-up. It was too much to resist, and so this morning I found myself doing the first 50km with a lovely old German couple and their even lovelier buxom niece. She couldn't understand why I was cycling for the last 100km and sounded genuinely worried that "they were abandoning me". As I stepped out of the pick-up to get on the bike she asked me to reconsider and get a lift all the way to San José. If cyling across the Andes was a feat of willpower, it was nothing compared to the one neccessary for me to get on my bike today.

I've put up some photos of the crossing by the way, you can see them here

Crossing the border

And to think I almost did it by bus.

Since starting the trip I had been told by three cyclists that the crossing from Santiago to Mendoza is as spectacular a bike route as one could ever hope to see, so despite the fact that I hadn't cycled for two weeks and had probably lost some shape, I decided I would never forgive myself if I didn't try it. However, with a 2200m climb in 64km it was never going to be a breeze. Fortunately, having never even come close to that sort of climb, I didn't have the slightest clue of how difficult it was going to be and was therefore able to convince myself that I would be able to leisurely meander upwards, perhaps even sipping a petrol station take-away cappuccino and cheekily winking at girls in bus stops as I sped on by.

As Waylon Jennings infamously sang: wrong. The first 34km were fairly tough, but after that it just got stupid. Needless to say, it wasn't so much a leisurely meander as a clumsy wobble as I drank frantically from my Camelbak and periodically flicked my shifter in the vain hope that another lower, magical gear had materialised on my freewheel. No such luck, and by 5'o clock (I'd set off from Los Andes at about 11am) I was destroyed, my legs felt like jelly and when I saw a sheltered clearing by the river it was all the excuse I needed to set up camp for the night and collapse.

I can't have slept more than four hours that night, but after whipping up a king's breakfast of porridge with dulce de leche on my Trangier I was ready for the road (and yes, I know the Scottish purists among you will be up in arms that I didn't cook it with water and salt, but quite frankly I'm loath to follow the traditions of a country whose second most important contribution to world cuisine is this). I got back on the road and it can't have been more than 10 minutes before I was ready to head back for Los Andes. At one point I actually turned the handlebars around and convinced myself I could try again in a couple of days. Only I knew I wouldn't. Now that I had seen the climb it was never going to be easier (unless I morphed into Lance Armstrong overnight), so if I headed back down I would only do it again by bus or car. Even in my downbeat state, this seemed a little ridiculous a mere 14km from the top, so I turned the handlebars back around, put in my headphones and probably let out a five-second cat-like whine.

But it wasn't a mere 14km. It was 14km of snaking roads and hairpin bends (30 to be precise) that climbed the best part of 1500m. Despite barely averaging 5km/h while cycling I made it to Chilean customs and 4km after that I caught my first sight of the tunnel that leads on to the Argentine side. 14km in four hours, hardly Tour de France winning times but enough to make me well up as I finally reached flat ground at the top.

Annoyingly, a three hour wait ensued on the other side as Chilean customs were on semi-strike (yes, Chilean, it's an integrated customs post) so I had to spend the night at Puente del Inca rather than Uspallata. As it turned out, the hotel was next to an army barracks and I awoke to the sound of courtyard drills and the unnerving realisation that in the mind of most of those soldiers they were training for one war and one war alone.

Welcome to Argentina.

Uspallata - Mendoza

Leg Distance - 122.18km
Leg Time - 6:38.43
Total Distance - 1964.67km

Puente del Inca - Uspallata

Leg Distance - 69.23km
Leg Time - 3:55.58
Total distance - 1842.49km

I'll write more about the epic Andean crossing when I have more time in Mendoza. For now, I think the times of the previous two legs give a pretty good indication of how tough it was, but for those of you in need of hard figures: 800m (or thereabouts) to 3185m in 64km.

Somewhere on the road to the Chilean Border - Puente del Inca (Argentina)

Leg Distance - 35.18km
Leg Time - 5:53.32
Total Distance - 1773.29km

Los Andes - Somewhere on the road to the Chilean border

Leg Distance - 49.65
Leg Time - 6:00.05
Total Distance - 1738.11km

The wanderer returns (to wandering)

I know how the last couple of weeks have been nigh on meaningless for you on account of not having my regular grumbling about saddle sores and the like, so I thought I'd climb on the blog horse again before heading to Argentina tomorrow.

As promised, there has been extensive resting over the last couple of weeks, here in Santiago, La Serena and the Elqui Valley, and I am now fresh and itching to get back on the bike. Although Toops didn't accompany me to La Serena, she too is looking good as new after her visit to the bike shop. Better than new, in fact. I have taken off the cumbersome bar bag and put on new, wider tyres. Only wider by 5mm mind but still wide enough to rub against the mudguards, so off came the mudguards too. At the risk of putting aesthetics before convenience, I have to say that Toops is looking pretty sharp for it too, more like a bike that you'd cross a continent in and less like something you'd cycle to scrabble club to on. Hers is the new found confidence of a girl that's cast off her frumpy dungarees and donned the string bikini ready for a bout of mud-wrestling.

Although I will probably be crossing back into San Pedro de Atacama further on down the road, I feel I should write something of an epilogue about Chile. I think the one thing that I will remember about Chile is the language. Now, I'm no linguistic imperialist and I actually enjoy all the different versions of Spanish that have evolved in Latin America. All but one. I'm not alone either, Chilean themselves admit that their oral communication is sloppy to say the least. If a word ends in a vowel, the last consonant is rarely pronounced, nor is it if it ends in S. No end of slang and idiomatic expressions are used, take for example a sentence from a magazine I read last week: "...anda dando las castañas con manos de gato", which roughly translates as "...he is giving away the chestnuts with cat hands". Answers on the back of a postcard please.

Huevon (an idiot, wanker, bastard etc.) is any Chilean's favourite word par excellence and can cover the entire spectrum of insult severity depending on the context. It has various derivatives, most importantly huevear (to take the piss or tease) and huevada (pronounced huevá, of course, collective noun meaning something akin to malarkey or shit when used in that context).

Then there are the second-person verb tenses, which I was going to try to explain but I'm not sure I understand how it works. I'm not sure many Chileans do, actually, it's a Holy trinity all unto itself.

Regardless, I am sad to be leaving Chile, particularly now that I have just begun to understand people. I will miss its cazuelas and pichangas, hearing the word "poh" in every sentence (don't even get me started), and the way every other foodstuff has enough sugar in it to keep a Cadbury's factory running for a day. Predictably, what I will most of all is the people, and in particular the way they have reacted when I have told them of my trip: half disbelief, half wonder, faces have lit up almost everywhere I have been in a way that will be difficult to forget. Almost as difficult to forget as their bastardised version of the Spanish language.

Santiago

I'm probably not going to write much (if anything) over the next couple of weeks, so I thought I'd post a little map to show you a rough outline if what my route has been so far.

I arrived in Santiago by bus yesterday, which was a relief to get on for about 10 minutes, after that I couldn't shake a feeling of guilt. Fortunately that didn't last once I realised I had to cycle some 15km ride across Santiago during evening rush hour. Come back Ruta 5, all is forgiven.

Sadly (not to mention ironically), Toops did not did survive the bus journey unscathed. As I took her out of the luggage hold I realised that the handlebars had turned a complete 180 degrees and were facing back. As the bicycle minded among you will know, this is impossible in most bikes as the brakes hit against the down tube. Precisely. One of the brake arms had been bent back, which doesn't stop the brakes from working, but it does mean that the brake shoes are now out of line by about half a centimetre, which doesn't help either. To add further injury to injury, the kickstand finally gave and snapped as I loaded the bike when I arrived. It wasn't much of a surprise as it was obvious the weight of Toops fully loaded was too much for it to take from the start, but a nuisance nevertheless. Still, hopefully she will be good as new for the next leg; as I type, she is in a bike shop having her bearings greased, gears cleaned, cables replaced, brakes tightened, wheels trued and being all-round spat and polished. And nice as the rest is, I can't wait to get her back on the road.

I've also put up some more photos, same address as before: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=224005&id=866160056&l=3331bd7cce

Road signs and saddle sores

"For all the shut down strangers and hot-rod angels,
rumbling through this promised land;
Tonight my baby and me are going to ride to the sea
and wash these sins off our hands"

Bruce Springsteen - Racing in the Streets

About that 113km... Theoretically, the real distance between the two cities is no more than 90km. However, I did cycle some 10km down the wrong road and have to turn back at the start of the day. I refuse to take more than half of the blame for this: San Antonio and Valparaiso, the two largest container ports in Chile, you would have thought there would be ample signs between the two towns showing the way, but there aren't, at least not until you are so far down the right road that you can't get anywhere but Valparaiso. Knowing that I had to go towards Santiago part of the way I followed the signs that said Santiago and, well, you can work the rest out yourselves. I should have checked the map better I guess, particularly given that in Chile all roads literally lead to Santiago (they've got signs for Santiago as far south as Puerto Montt, but heaven forbid they should think of having signs to Valparaiso a mere 90km down the road).

The bizarre thing about this is the distance shown in the distance grid on my map is 112km (oh how I laughed when I looked at it, checked the distances on the map and thought "that's way off!"), which can only mean one of two things: 1) They worked out the distance using an old route that happened to be the same as my odyssey yesterday. 2) They have made allowances for the idiot factor and assumed that people will go the wrong way for roughly the same distance as I did before realising (which, if true, as the smarter ones among you will have realised, means that I am 0.975km slower than your average idiot, but we shan't dwell on that).

The episode only served to prove how deceptive time can be on a bike though, for the most part it is slow, almost unimaginably so (as a rough guide: one hour by car = a day's cycling), but you cycle a mere 20 minutes down the wrong road and your day is lengthened by 25%. Add to that the fact that today was by far the most I've climbed in a day (the accumulated climb feature on my watch has a mind of its own, so I can't say it's reliable, but by the end of the day the figure had doubled from the previous day), and the result is some spectacular saddle-sores, sufficed it to say that they were that bad that putting cold E45 on it felt like they were being rubbed with sandpaper.

Regardless, Valparaiso is no mean milestone and even though it does constitute shameless self-backslapping, with eight weeks and 1600km behind me I'm sure you won't begrudge my indulging in a little retrospective. I suppose the one of the things you're all wondering is would I have done anything differently. Where do I start? I would have liked to have spent more time in the far south, perhaps done some of the Carretera Austral; I should have definitely gone to Chiloe; I could have spent more time in the Lakes region, perhaps even crossed to Bariloche; I could have gotten a bus from Temuco or Chillán to here to give me more time for the rest of the trip; I could have camped more (or at all)... I could literally go on all day, but I guess (nay hope) that most of my regrets are the fruit of hindsight and not outright bad decision making, so it's pointless to be second-guessing myself now. And I use the term "regrets" very loosely, because although part of me thinks I should have done some things differently, another part wouldn't change a single kilometer, a single puncture, a single rank B&B, a single red-raw saddle sore. As Douglas Adams wrote: "I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be".

San Antonio - Valparaiso

Leg Distance - 113.95km
Leg Time - 6:52.10
Total Distance - 1688.46km

Lago Rapel - San Antonio

Leg Distance - 81.69km
Leg Time - 4:35.51
Total Distance - 1574.84km

San Fernando - Lago Rapel

Leg Distance - 86.66km
Leg Time - 4:41.15
Total Distance - 1493.15km

Links in my previous update have been fixed!

Curicó - San Fernando

Leg Distance - 52.30km
Leg Time - 2:32.54
Total Distance - 1406.49km

See below post for update, don't know why it published it before this one...

Pichangas and punctures

I haven't written much (or indeed, anything) for a week and I have some time to burn so I thought I'd write an update. Not that there's much to tell mind, since leaving Concepción it has been more a case of moving rather than travelling. For one there is considerably less to see within easy reach on bike or public transport around this part of Chile, so there's not much point in lingering around, and also time is pressing. Hopefully I will be in Valparaiso by the end of the week and take a much needed break of two or three weeks. Physically I feel fine, but it has all gotten a bit tedious over the last couple of weeks, and if I don't spend some time away from the bike I can see myself ditching Toops for good within a month. I know this may sound a little negative but it really isn't; if you recall after completing my first day's ride I spoke about how that would be one of the easiest rides because it was still new and exciting. I can't say the cycling isn't exciting anymore, but many things surrounding it aren't, not least the scenery.

North-West Argentina beckons afterwards, and although I'm still undecided on the route a few cursory glances at the map suggests that I will have to camp quite often. Despite my initial reluctance to do so, I am no looking forward to it as hopefully it will make things more interesting. Besides, the prospect of having to wait two hours to cook dinner on a Trangia in the freezing Argentine desert is considerably preferable to some of the places I have had to stay in over the last two weeks.

So, where have I been? Ideally I would have kept meticulous and perceptive notes on the places I'd seen and people I'd met, but I haven't, so I'll just have to reel off from memory what I remember most about each place (if you don't like it, go buy a Bill Bryson book), here goes:

Contulmo - Contulmo was a nice little town on the edge of a lake that I can't remember the name of (seamless travel writing, I know), but it may as well have been on the edge of the Niagara Falls; the one and only thing I will remember it for is that the owner of the B&B I stayed in was the spitting image (physically and phonetically) of the Yes Guy from the Simpsons. I could barely contain my laughter everytime he spoke.

Lebu - I had been riding for the best part of 5 hours in 35 degrees, I had been chased by an angry dog (wolf, I reckon), I was exhausted and my water had run out, but when I cycled over the last ridge and down into Lebu I entered a thick sea fog that felt like heaven. I'm not spiritual, but I cannot think of a better way of describing it. Heaven; no more, no less. Lebu is also known for it's spectacular beaches, beaches which I only saw from afar as I cycled away having spent the best part of a day bedridden having fallen foul of the local sea produce.

Arauco - Worse accommodation of trip so far, best pichanga so far. Days of honey, days of marmite.

Lota - The strip of coastline running from Lota to Lebu constitutes the Costa del Carbon (Coal Coast), which until 1996 was Chile's coal mining heartland. Like most coal regions it has also been traditionally poor, and but for a stunning landscaped park (the whim of a coal magnate's wife) Lota is as close to a slum town as I have seen in Chile. The park, the abandoned mines and the owner's mansions now form a part of a museum circuit that goes some way in describing the miners', by all accounts, grim existence. Many would start working in the pit at 8 (years of age, not a.m.), work 16-hour shifts and if a miner living in company accommodation died, the company would give the family a coffin, four candles for the funeral and an eviction order.

Concepción - Chile's second largest city, Concepción is a student city and felt like a city. I loved it.

Chillán - It was at the B&B in Chillan that I met Steve and Sarah, from Tunbridge, and after my slump in Arauco, the company of fellow English-speaking travellers was a godsend. However, Steve did ask me that dreaded question: "Have you had any punctures?" Steve, if you are reading this, you weren't the first to ask it so don't worry, but you were the one that broke (or started, even) the malefice - over the next three days I had two. Like I said above, I'm not spiritual so I'm sure it was just a coincidence, but just in case you do have precognitive powers, next time you meet a cyclist ask him if he has gotten laid yet.

Parral - Birthplace of Chilean poet and Nobel Laureate Plablo Neruda. Do they have anything to commerate it? Do they fuck.

Talca, Curicó and San Fernando - Not to much to report (other than it's wine country and the home of Gato Negro, I felt humbled!), so that's all until Valparaiso folks.

Talca - Curicó

Leg Distance - 67.93km
Leg Time - 3:24.32
Total Distance - 1354.19km

Parral - Talca

Leg Distance - 93.13km
Leg Time - 4:59.53
Total Distance - 1286.26km

Chillán - Parral

Leg Distance - 65.93km
Leg Time - 3:19.29
Total Distance - 1193.13km

Concepción - Chillán

Leg Distance - 102.38 km
Leg Time - 6:16.42
Total Distance - 1127.20 km

Lota - Concepción

Leg Distance - 41.97km
Leg Time - 2:01.31
Total Distance - 1024.82km

I think the below photo says it better than I could.

While I'm on the subject of photos, I will no longer be posting photos on flicker, because they take forever to upload, so I will just be posting them on Facebook. Those of you who aren't members can see them here , you needn't register or become a member. Enjoy...

Arauco - Lota

Leg Distance - 36.89km
Leg Time - I have no idea, forgot to stop the timer, reckon about two and a half hours
Total Distance - 982.85km

After doing the best part of 400km in a week I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that I am feeling like shit today. Of course, not having had a good night sleep since, oh I don't know, leaving the Falklands (uncomfortable beds, polyester blankets that I am allergic to, barking dogs, snorers, air raid sirens... take your pick) and a mild bout of food poisoning in Lebu that kept me bedridden for the best part of a day has all taken its toll. Unsurprisingly I'm not in the best of moods either, the last couple of places have been quite unremarkable by previous standards, (the only exception being Lebu, but as I mentioned I had limited time to appreciate much else aside the ceiling of my room and the toilet), so I seem to have fallen into a bit of a depressing downward spiral of wanting to move on - having to rest - spending more time in shit places than I'd like to - wanting to move on etc etc.

I should point out though that the catalyst to this was without a doubt the place where I stayed last night, both the most expensive and the worst place I have had the misfortune of sleeping in (and believe me, the bar was already pretty low after Osorno) since arriving in Chile. A bathroom straight out of Japanese POW camps doesn't really bother me that much though, I always knew I was on a budget so I shouldn't be surprised, but it never ceases to piss me off when places are run by miserable bastards who obviously hate other people, like yesterday's was. As some sort exercise in irony, this one had "friendly family atmosphere" on their sign - compared to where, Mathausen?

It probably wouldn't have even bothered me a week ago, but I'm considerably more irritable than I was last week; part fatigue, part impatience to get to Valaparaiso and Santiago, part not knowing what route to take in Argentina and Bolivia and I suppose part loneliness too. Still, I'll be breaking the 1000km mark on my next leg, so things could be worse.

Lebu - Arauco

Leg Distance - 87.20km
Leg Time - 4:50.19
Total Distance - 945.96km

Contulmo - Lebu

Leg Distance - 90.59km
Leg Time - 5:19.49
Total Distance - 858.76km

I discovered another maximum speed today, my top sprinting speed. Alas, I don't know what it is, all I know is that it is faster than a marauding German Shepherd. Bastard dogs. How did they ever pass as intelligent? "Oh look, a horizontal shape moving along, it must be another animal, I'll just cross these two lanes of traffic and chase it down furiously and try to maul it, that will be a laugh". Where's a juggernaut when you need one?

It was exactly what I needed half an hour into a 90km leg, a 250m sprint to run away from an angry dog. Toops, bless her, is no race bike, and I'm no Lance Armstrong, (having said that, try winning your 8th tour de France carrying 40kg with you Lance, then come talk to me about whether or not it's about the bike) so by the end of it I could barely stand up. To add insult to near injury, the owner was there, and what did he do? He called it. Well obviously he responds to that, why don't you try dangling a sausage on a fishing rod like in Tom & Jerry cartoons while you're at it? Two words: choke chain. Actually, three words, choke chain then pentobarbital. And yes, I know it's not the dog's fault but the owner's for not training it to not chase beyond its territory, but still, stupid dog...

Either way, some anti-canine counter measures are in order, so feel free to come up with suggestions (I've opened up the comments bit so you don't have to sign in any more). I will consider anything that doesn't kill or injure (the dog at least, can't say the same for the owners), but if you can come up with any of those by all means send them as I will enjoy reading them. So much it worries me.

Bonking

I'd read and laughed about it before starting the trip, but I never thought it would actually happen, particularly as it's down to not eating enough, three words that I've never had to use other than at free buffets (but then, it's never enough). I am of course talking about bonking . Yes, it's also an euphemism for the art of human congress, I know, but let's be mature about this and please don't make me have to moderate the comments section, I don't want to be that guy. The day started pretty well, all things considered: I was cycling into a head wind and it was up and downhill for the first 50km, but nothing unmanageable. As luck would have it, Chile is undergoing something of an Indian Summer at the moment, with 80 year records being broken only 60km north of where I started. I'd had a fairly good breakfast and half of my (by now staple) ham, cheese and avocado roll by the 30th kilometre or so, but when I stopped for lunch around kilometre 50 it was 35 degrees and I couldn't stomach more than the other half of my roll, a banana and a nectarine, so I left the other roll tucked in my pannier and cycled off into the searing heat.

Twenty minutes later it was like I was cycling through treacle. I actually stopped twice because I was convinced that one of the tyres was flat or the mudguards or brake shoes had been bumped and were rubbing against the wheel. Then I thought it was the wind, but the leaves on the trees were't even moving. By the time I realised what was happening I definitely couldn't stomach another roll, so I forced down a couple of handfuls of scroggin and waited five minutes, but to no avail. It was surreal, my legs didn't feel tired (at least no more tired than they had done for the last 3 hours) and I wasn't in any pain, but I just couldn't put any force down on the pedals. To make matters worse, I was crossing something of a mountain range at the time, and although the first 10km had been in the flat valley, the rest were decidely uphill. I would have struggled to cycle up its entirety while fresh, so yesterday it was impossible and I had to walk up. Every now and then I would try and pedal in the hope that I had recovered, but I could never manage more than 250 metres.

Fortunately the last 4km too, were decidedly downhill. It was meandering downhill, sadly, so I still couldn't determine my terminal velocity, but I did inch tantalising close to the coveted 65km/h after reaching 62.7km/h. Gravity, it would seem, is as forgiving to cyclists as it is cruel.

Traiguen - Contulmo

Leg Distance - 82.37km
Leg Time - 5:14.44
Total Distance - 768.17km

Victoria - Traiguen

Leg Distance - 37.21km
Leg Time - 1:43.09
Total Distance - 678.80km

Temuco - Victoria

Leg Distance- 70.2km
Leg Time - 3:13.45
Total Distance - 646.59km

Villarica - Temuco

Leg Distance - 82.9km
Leg Time - 5:05.35
Total Distance - 576.39km

I had been cycling for about an hour and a half out of Villarica when I bumped into Carl having a bite to eat on the side of the road. Carl, from Oxfordshire, had been on the road for five weeks having started in Bariloche and we were both heading to Temuco, so we cycled on together. A couple of hours later we stopped for a break when Patrick, from Switzerland, rolled up. He was also going to Temuco so he joined us and to quote Kris Kristofferson, we had ourselves a convoy. (Patrick, it later transpired, had been on holiday to the Falklands not three weeks ago. My first questions: "Did you go to the Vic? Did you see the daylight clock?" I was beside myself with glee (pride almost) when he answered yes to both.)

In the evening we headed out for a food and a much-needed beer and talked bike for hours: the annoyance of dogs that chase, the sheer genius of petrol station air pumps where you can preset the tire pressure, gravel and tarmac roads... We are all on our first tour and all too keen to share our fresh experiences of touring with other cyclists - there aren't many non-cyclists whose attention you can keep for long with the eternal debate of 26" versus 28" wheels, I can assure you. But it was much more than comparing battle scars, it was validation of sorts, and short of sacrificing a goat and drinking it's blood, it was probably as close to an initiation rite as we were going to get. We will all be going in different directions tomorrow, and even though it has only been one day I for one will miss the company, but having all started independently we all have different routes, different budgets and more importantly, different expectations, so probably for the best.

Either way, Temuco has proved a milestone of sorts as I will have been on the road for 4 weeks tomorrow and have now passed the 500km mark. Another 800km (maybe more) to Valparaiso now (depending on the route I take), which all going well should take me 5 weeks or so (Carl is going by bus tomorrow, it will take him 10 hours, I still get surprised by the sheer difference in time scales when travelling by bike). There I will have to make some decisions about my route, which won't be easy as at the moment I'm changing my mind on a daily basis.

On another note, I will be posting less often from now on. At the risk of tempting fate, I think I've found my stride and there is less for me to, well, whine about, so the blog will probably all the more interesting if there is more time and events in between updates. I will still be posting the leg data on a regular basis for those of you who are interested or simply taking bets on my progress and need the distances to alter the odds accordingly. Winks, remember what we said, fifty-fifty on all takings.

Pucon - Villarica

Leg Distance - 25.42km
Leg Time - 1:24.32
Total Distance - 493.49km

I may be gone for a while...

I was actually adamant on not coming to Pucon when I started, for the simple reason that it is a bit touristy. And when I say a bit, I mean entirely. With two volcanoes and two national parks a stone's throw away, the town is something of a mecca for river sports and trekking fans in the summer and ski-types in the winter. Every imaginable activity that can be done on or around mountains, lakes and rivers is available here and the streets teem with businesses offering them, and it was this that had put me off it originally.

However, I was on the road to Villarica when I realised that other than cycle and rest and the odd national park day trip, I haven't really done much.. Given that I'm Pacific bound again after this, I probably won't have much opportunity to do so for a while, so I decided to go on to the well-trod and beaten track and indulge. And what was the first thing I did? I hired a mountain bike and went cycling in the hills. Not much of an indulgement given the nature of my trip, I know, but I'd originally arranged to go on a two hour downhill ride (completely different kettle of cycling), which got cancelled, and by then it was too late to go on another excursion. I did feel a bit guilty to be cheating on Toops with what to all intents and purposes was a bike-prostitute, but it was nice to cycle for the fun of it and be able to go off road without worrying whether the fork is going to break in two. Don't get me wrong, it's not as if the other cycling isn't fun, but it comes with the constant stresses of kilometre-watching, trying to not to miss turn-offs, lorries skimming your ear, eating and drinking enough... Fun yes, relaxing no.

The main attraction (or at least the most imposing) in Pucon however is the active 2847metre Villarica volcano, and after my busman's holiday of the previous day climbing it seemed like the catharsis I needed before heading for the coast and bright lights of Concepcion. Sure enough, it was a great experience, particularly climbing over ice and snow for the last couple of hours. Sadly, the day turned cloudy and ruined the view from the top; you couldn't see 10 metres in front of you and had it not been for the odd sulphurous cloud, it could have been anywhere else but Volcano summit.

I should point out that "climbing a volcano" probably sounds more dramatic than it is, and the ice-picks and crampons notwithstanding it was hardly Scott of the Antarctic stuff, but I shan't be telling girls this when I re-tell the story. I dare say the terms "near-death" and "crevasse heroics" will be used liberally.

Lican Ray - Pucon

Leg Distance - 54.43km
Leg Time - 3:29.47
Total distance - 468.07km

I thought I better put the latest leg up, lest the more impatient start sending abusive mail. I did cycle on from Lican Ray the day after my last post, but I decided to continue on to Pucon rather than Villarrica. Unfortunately I don't have much energy to explain why or indeed describe the wonders of Pucon tonight so I shall leave you safe in the knowledge that I managed to leave the god-forsaken place that was Lican Ray - you literally couldn't see me for dust.

Panguipulli - Lican Ray

Leg distance - 36.01km
Leg time - 1:58.48
Total distance - 413.64km

I opted for a short leg today having decided to visit Lican Ray, a small and picturesque village on the Lago Calafquen. I wouldn't say it was a wasted day, as it was northbound progress after all, but I would rather have continued on to Villarica had I known what it was going to be like. Not that it's hugely unpleasant, far from it, it has two big beaches overlooking a stunning lake and volcanoes, but it's a resort town. An expensive, over-rated, dust bowl (one paved road) of a resort town. And the kind of resort town that not only knows it's a resort town, but also knows that none of it's attractions (the lake, the view, the sun...) are the product of its own merits as a town. It's depressing enough to be in now, during the tail end of summer, one can only imagine what it's like in the winter.

Not that you'd notice that it's the tail end of summer mind. Gone are the clouds and cool breezes of the southern lakes, it has been 30+C practically every day since leaving Valdivia - what a difference 400km make. Not ideal cycling weather, admittedly, but it's the mosquitoes that are proving the biggest annoyance. The bastards are having a veritable feast with my ankles and I don't have any insect repellent (there doesn't seem to be any in the whole of Lican Ray, either, just when it couldn't seem any less appealing). I've half been considering coating myself in Savlon antiseptic spray, which I do have, or even toothpaste. Either way, I'm expecting a night befitting of the shit-hole town that is Lican Ray. Bring on Villarica.

San Jose - Panguipulli

"The night's busting open, these two lanes will take us anywhere" - Bruce Springsteen, Thunder Road

Leg Distance - 78.39km
Leg Time - 4:50.18
Total Distance - 377.63km

You'll be glad to hear I have managed to download some photos, which you can see on Flickr ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/35127291@N05/?saved=1 ) or on my Facebook page. There are a couple of things I should point out about them: Firstly, there aren't many of them, at least not as many as I would have liked to have taken. This is because photo-taking has not really been a priority up until now, and the last thing you want when you're cycling is stopping every five minutes to take snaps. Secondly, the vast majority of them are of roads or taken from the road or in a similar vein. For the most part, these photos were taken not because of their aesthetic qualities but for what it was like for me to see those places, which obviously the camera can't transmit. The one of the motorway on the first day, for instance, probably seems like any motorway anywhere in the world, but at the time it seemed I could see the whole of South America before me. Besides, giving a camera and an open road to a Bruce Springsteen fan (and I apologise in advance for this simile) is like giving a paedophile a camera in the swimming pool changing rooms.

Finally, and because I know some of you will point it out, I'm not in any of them. I don't like taking photos of me with my camera, and I don't understand what possesses some people to think that a photo of say, a still lake with a volcano in the background, would be improved by them in front giving the folks back home a goofy thumbs-up - it's not like they're going to demand evidence (quite frankly, I think it's a bit egocentric. Bah humbug, I'm a joyless bastard, I know...). However, I will try pander to all requests and purloin a mini-tripod so that my dishevelled mug will soon be appearing on a computer screen near you.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy them, it's as nice for me to put them up as for you guys to see them, particularly as it's the only way for the non-English speaking friends and family to follow my misadventures.