Leg Distance - 62.83km
Leg Time - 3:21.36
Total Distance - 2426.89km
30 April 2009
27 April 2009
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.
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
Leg Time: 8:35.16 (Courtesy of a puncture and a 1000m climb on gravel)
Total Distance: 2258.54km
23 April 2009
50km out of San Juan - San José de Jachal
Leg Distance - 97.86km
Leg Time - 5:19.26
Total Distance - 2062.53km
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
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
20 April 2009
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.
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.
18 April 2009
17 April 2009
Puente del Inca - Uspallata
Leg Distance - 69.23km
Leg Time - 3:55.58
Total distance - 1842.49km
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
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
Leg Time - 6:00.05
Total Distance - 1738.11km
14 April 2009
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.
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).
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.
01 April 2009
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
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
