Hoping to be in Cafayate by Sunday.

May 27, 2011

It has been a few weeks now since I've felt the cold at night. Sleeping lastnight well until waking at 2.30, then the rest of the night I past slumbering in and out of disturbed sleep while feeling the encroaching cold. My sleeping-bag is rated to -7 and has an extreme rating of -17; supposedly at that temperature it'll save you from freezing to death. I drew the drawcord tight closing the sleeping-bag hood up around my eyes with just a hole to breath through, while curling-up with knees to my chest in order to conserve body heat.

As I write on Friday morning approximately 225kms South of Cafayate a town I hope to reach on Sunday afternoon. The distance I'm guessing as I don't have a map nor does my cycle-computer work any longer. The road I'm presently on I rode in the opposite direction five years ago. It is a smoooth newly build road as the previous time it was under-construction and I rode a dusty unsealed service road.

Riding dressed warmly with full-finger gloves against the frosty morning and sneezing up frem caused by the cold, Is expecting to come to where the new road had not yet reached; and sure enough after 20kms from where I'd camped, I came to major road-works. The new road under-construction is a wide brown path with yellow machines working and is cut through the middle of the valley ahead; whereas the deversion is a track going up and over every hill to the side.

Reaching the top of a hill, I feel the back-wheel go wobbly. The rim pressing down and bouncing on a soft tyre. By the roadside is a wide area cleared so cars can park as there's a vista from this hilltop. I push the bike off to the side here to repair the punchure away from the the dust of passing vehicles. I eat lunch here too. I have barely covered 25km and think I won't be reaching Cafayate by Sunday afternoon.

What a palavaer fixing a punchure is with a Bob-tailer!

Progress in the afternoon is slow as the road surface in one of protruding rocks which the bike bumps and shuddered over. My lock together with mounting bracket falls off, the screw holding it having worked itself lose with the shaking.

At two o'clock I descend down to the village of Haulfin. At this time of day there are few people about. I fill up with enough water for a couple of days as there's no telling where the next water is at.

The rest of the afternoon continued laboriously up and over every lump to the side of a broad allmost dry river and with glimpses down upon the graders, rollers and trucks on the new road being built. There were many small streams which I'd to ford where the road dipped steeply down and rose up on the other side. Later much of what I'd in the trailer including the tent I found were wet.

Saturday 28th May: on waking the tent fluddered and shook in a brisk wind. The great thing about this tent is it's design as it withstands the wind so well. Yesterday the wind was light and from behind. In the night it had increased in strenght and shifted direction so that this morning it was blowing in through the tent openning. Because of the wind, I used the stove inside the tent which is an advantage of gas. An advantage of petrol however is it's availabily and it's usefulness for cleaning the chain and cassette. Petrol cannot be bought without a proper container which I don't have resulting in a dirty black chain and cassette which I'd like to wash as a dirty drive-train is harder to pedal. The alternative is a produce called Bensina Blanca but difficult to find.

Today I battle with the wind for the first hour. I know now I won't be making Cafayate by Sunday. But then, just as I gladly reach where the road onwards is paved, the wind drops. Ahead the road is straight and long towards hills which I never seem to make any progress towards.

At lunch time along a track off to the side, a car drove along and halted just as I'd finished and was packing up to leave. The driver asked through the open window how I was and the usual questions, where I'd cycled from and where I'm cycling to. I just replied from the nearest town behind to the next town ahead which he nevertheless seems to think a near impossible undertaking.

The wind picked up in the afternoon and progess was slow again. Eventually at three o'clock I reach the hills which I'd been cycling towards since morning. Here the road slipped away down through a gap: the descend I pedal hard because of crosswind. Below the road levell out in a valley with brown hills close on either side and easy access to the riverbank with good camping possiblities all along, so I decided to stop early at four with the sun still high in the sky.

Sunday 29th May: is another morning in which I awake shivering cold. The water in bottles are lumps of ice with just enough unfrozen water to boil for breakfast of oats and tea which I do enclosed in the tent: the stove providing a glow of heat within the tent. I wore the dunnjacket around my feet. I wore my raincoat and warm hat and got my gloves ready for going. I like gloves which don't restrict dexterity as handling metal tent-poles and nylon tent fabric with bare hands isn't nice when it's in the region of minus eight.

I had camped thirty-seven kilometres before the town of Santa Maria which I could've easily pressed on and reached the evening before. Five years ago I would've and staid in a hotel, but then Argentina was cheap; since then prices have risen steeply and Argentina is relatively expensive now. Hostels are still great value at forty to sixty pesos (£6-£9) bed and breakfast plus free wi fi, and you get to meet over travellers.

It took me all my time from nine o'clock to after midday cycling to Santa Maria as the road past through a string of villages with narrow streets where the surface was rough and patchy with cracked and broken ash-felt which was as bad as the unpaved road of a few days ago.

I quickly find that Santa Maria doesn't have a great selection of eating places. I had been looking forward to eating something different and more interesting than what is possible while camping. Cycling around the plaza, I find but one restaurant. There wasn't Empanadas de Carne when I asked, so I order Empanadas de Pollo instead. When they came. the pastry was somewhat cardboard-like, and the filling wasn't chicken: I don't know what the filling was. The Locro (stew) I'd ordered was dry and bland. I left feeling as if I'd wasted my money and I didn't feel full: if anything it left an unpleasant acidy after-taste.

It was but another fifteen kilometres to Amaicha and in hindsight, if only I could've known the distance was so short, I would've waited as I found there to be lots of eating places around the plaza in this village. I stop and have four Empanadas de Carne washed down with beer which got rid of the unpleasant taste in the mouth.

Monday 30th May: not taking chances, I slept with the dunnjacket on.I sweated to begin with so undid the zip to cool down. On waking this morning Is comfortable if only a little cold, yet it was another morning in which the flysheet was stiff and white with frost. It was the first morning ever I rode wearing dunnjacket with raincoat on top and both gloves and windproof mitts to keep my hands warm.

I had camped a short distance from the scattered settlement of Quilmes: the people whose ancestors were forcefully removed from their land during the Spanish Conquest and have only recently in the twentieth century won back the legal right to their ancestoral land.

Not having much food left this morning, breakfast had been light and Is soon hungry again. I stop at a bakery in a village farther on and buy facturas (sweet pastries). By chance they happened to taste realluy good when I stopped to eat a second breakfast by the roadside. It was warming-up now and so I removed the warm clothes before riding on.

In a short time Is in wine country with row upon row of vines behind the roadside fence.. There were placards with names like "Etchart": a wine from Cafayate in the provence of Salta where wine is produced from grapes grown at over two-thousand metres altitude; notably the highest vineculture in the world.

Approaching the town of Cafayate, I see cycling towards me a western backpacker couple on hired bikes on a tour of the vineyards. The girl to the fore greets with an Hola when I nod, whereas the boy to the rear neither greets nor makes eyecontact and is all shorts, whites legs, Panama-hat and riding as though not having ridden in a very long time.

I rode into Cafayate at one o'clock on Monday: sometimes, wind and other factors hamper progress, but Is only half a day later than what I'd envisaged and I still had the rest of the day to prepare for the ride onwards tomorrow. Today Is intent on having a good lunch so I rode to a Comidor called Juanita which I used the last time I past through town last Ausgust and I also checked into the same Hostel as the last time.

Today's ride: 222 km (138 miles)
Total: 15,225 km (9,455 miles)

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	0
Comment on this entry	Comment	0