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.
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