Near Uspallata: The world is a very small place for cycling tourists

March 19, 2018

We weren't going to have a chance to have a late lie in this morning. Check out was at nine am and five minutes later the electricity to our room was switched off. Nice! We wanted an early start because we expected the day to heat up so we weren't too put out.

Potrerillos had a feel of a Little Karoo town.

The route out of Potrerillos followed the course of the Mendoza River and ran alongside the old railway track for the whole way. This meant that even though we had a net altitude gain of four hundred and fifty meters most of the gradients were very gentle. There were a lot more downhill than yesterday when we climbed constantly for about thirty kilometers so we had a chance to take a breather every now and then. A stiff headwind picked up whereas yesterday we had a helping hand from the wind on our backs so we had to work a bit harder today.

Today's route was through rugged valleys following the old train tracks.

We rode next the old train tracks for the entire way.

The rugged hills reminded us of the Cape Fold Mountains in the Western Cape and Little Karoo.

The traffic was pretty heavy at times but not as heavy as yesterday. The worst moments were when a stream of vehicles had backed up behind a slow moving heavy truck. South American drivers don't seem to have grasped the benefits of exercising a safe following distance so the first vehicles behind any larger vehicle have little chance of seeing vulnerable cyclists clinging to the fifteen centimeter wide shoulder. Bus drivers seem to be the worst offenders. For the second time in my life I was clipped by a passing vehicle. The first time was in Thailand last year by a slow moving car in tight urban traffic. Today it was a bus traveling at high speed. All that was hit was my rear view mirror but my elbow must have been millimeters away from being broken. To my embarrassment, I let out a prolonged stream of really disgusting expletives but I guess my outburst did help to calm my nerves. Despite the scary incident, we really enjoyed today's ride, thanks to the lovely views.

We stopped for lunch at around one o'clock so that by the time we started cycling again the traffic had calmed down a bit due to the siesta hours. The wind had also dropped a lot and did so even more once we moved into a wider valley. Today's lunch stopped had it shade provided by some high voltage electricity pylons.

Today we passed one of the biggest shrines to Difunta Correa. Today's route had one every few kilometers or so. I've cribbed the whole paragraph below from the Wikipedia entry on her.

"Difunta Correa (the deceased Correa) is a semi-pagan mythical figure in folk-religion, for which a number of people in Argentina and Chile, especially among the popular classes, feel a great devotion. According to popular legend, the husband of Deolinda Correa was forcibly recruited around the year 1840, during the Argentine civil wars. When he became sick, he was abandoned by the Montoneras [partisans]. In an attempt to reach her sick husband, Deolinda took her baby and followed the tracks of the Montoneras through the desert of San Juan Province. When her supplies ran out, she died. Her body was found days later by gauchos who were driving cattle through. They were astonished when they saw the dead woman's baby was still alive, feeding from her "miraculously" ever-full breast."

Mark, the German cyclist we had met yesterday had told us of a good hostel just outside Uspallata so we pulled into the Hostel Cerro Cobre. We got a family room at a reasonable price - and they were happy to accept Chilean pesos which was a Godsend because I am running out the Argentinean pesos and I doubt if I will find an ATM before we leave Argentina.

Late in the day a large group of French cyclists with a meat wagon arrived. It was the same group who had been with us at El Mosko in Villa O'Higgins two months back. They had cycled northwards from there following the coast once they had reached Puerto Montt. They had come over into Argentina over the Andes today using the route we have planned. Their stop in Uspallata is just for tonight - what are the chances of us meeting here ?

Today's ride: 49 km (30 miles)
Total: 2,394 km (1,487 miles)

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