March 20, 2005
Cycling To Iruya And A Lift Back To Salta
Monday 24 August.
At last I am on the road. The traffic out of Salta wasn't too treatening. The day sunny and warm which goes without saying in this part of the world. The road north, old Route 9 which predates The Inca, follows a dry riverbed with parched bush clad hills either side. The village of Caldera at 25km on the opposite riverbank is accessible via a long rusty iron-bridge. It is a place I've made many day excursions to previously, so I didn't linger today, but suffice to say, the principle street is lined by white adobe colonial era houses where aftrenoons are spent in easy-chairs in the shade of verandas. And to add to the New Spain origin, there came a plopping sound of horse's hoofs up the street as a procession of horsemen in wide brimmed hats and long flowing ponchos rode past.
The road, a smooth blacktop meandered under overhanging branches and vines most of the way. There was one long straight as a ruler stretch though, which ran all the way slightly downhill before turning a corner and climbing up past a resevoir called "Digue Campo Alegre"; and a few kilometres further, I crested the hill and past a sign which read "Arba Santa Laura/ Limite Salta/ Jujuy"; thereafer, the road plunged in a long run of sweeping bends, down into the next provence and eventually by day's end I'd reached the provincial capital: San Salvador de Jujuy.
The guide-book referred to Jujuy as Salta's ugly sister, though the tourist information office in The Plaza didn't necessarily say that. Instead they gave me a brochure full of text which talked the place up, and glossy photos which showed off the city to good effect spread along a river with wooded hills and a mountain backdrop. They also packed me off with a street-map and a map of the provence; useful for the road ahead.
Tuesday 25 August
The owner of the guesthouse, also found through tourist information, was very helpfull as he too is a cyclist. He gave me yet another map and with it open and spread-out on the kitchen table, pointed out everything he thought interesting: everything on Route 9 and an alternative back road up to Santa Catalina on the Bolivian border. He also rode with me this morning; seeing me safely out of the city, where he wished me "svarte" before turning back home.
It seems much warmer today; most likely due to yesterday's road being enclosed by overhanging bush much of the way, whereas today, the countryside is bare dry rio, cactus and rocky quebraches: a very colourful country with brown cultivated fields in the valley contrasting with striped orange, purple, brown and yellow on the hillside.
I sat in the shade of a bus-shelter to lunch and then checked my bike; sweezing the rear tyre, I thought it could do with a little more air. Though I most have put a little too much air in the tyre, as a short time after, it went bang as I approached a police checkpoint startling the olive uniformed officer stood by the roadside. Lucky was I and fortunate too that the tyre had only a small hole which I was able to patch-up; not the big rip that I would have expected after such a bang. The rest of the afternoon I cycled with fingers crossed, hoping my repair would hold.
Wednesday 26 August.
Today there is quite a bulch where the tyre blew-out. It is looking like I won't get as far as Iruya (my planned destination), but I'll keep going as far as possible. Apart from that, it was a short day's ride; only 24km from Pumamarca to the municipal campsite in Tilcara where I'm now, having arrived a little before eleven, so avoiding the warm midday sun. Asking then what there is to do, an English couple told me of their enjoyable walk this morning around The Pucara Ruins; so after lunch, I had a tiresome warm walk up the hill out of town to walled remains of a citadel centred around the hilltop. It is believed to have been in continuous habitation since about 1000BC to 1500AD; but abandoned not long after with the arrival of the Spanish Conquistadors.
Thursday 27 August.
When looking about for a place to eat, I seem apt at finding the wrong place. Yesterday evening for example, I finished off in a restaurant eating fine regional fare albeit expensive, and with live-music going on in the corner; but with just me and a French couple the sole clientale there was no atmosphere; then, when returning back around midnight, I realised the retaurant on the campsite was the place I should have eaten, there being wonderful melodic folk-music and dancing and lots of people having a good time.
This morning was bitterly cold as usual until the sun had risen over the campsite eucalyptus trees, which is owing to Tilcara being at an altitude of 2500m. Huamahuaca where I'm now is at 3000m and I expect the temperature to plummet after sundown.
I arrived at about one; another short day as it is only 42km north, and straightaway I found another tourist restaurant where I had a bowl of Locre, which is a regional speciality, a lamb or goat soupy stew. I refreshed the thirst with good regional wine. Out in the street afterwards, it most have been the wine combined with warm sun which made me feel heavy and drowse though not quite drunk. It was a relief to find that the campsite was only a short way away, over a bridge, where I didn't bother putting up the tent but found a place in the shade of a tree, lay-down and slept.
Friday 28 August.
Having cycled the tough road across the mountain, from Huamahuaca to Iruya where I am now, I feel lucky the patched tire has held out so long. It was a ride in which even before starting this morning, I lay in the tent dreading it, and wished it was evening already having got here somehow or other.
The mornings are so cold as said and so I don't get out of the tent until around quarter to nine when the sun is hight enough to provide a degree of warmth; it is therefore often after ten when I set out on the road. Today it was midday and I had only cycled 23km north on Route 9, when I turned right onto Route 13; where there at the roadside was a roadsign which never fails to lower the spirit as it has the foreboding message; "A 200m Fin Pavemento";meaning the end of the smooth tarmac; the road ahead is anything from gravel to lose dusty sand; that was followed by a rust splotched green sign which had "Iruya 54km". I reckoned that I may make it before dark. The front wheel rocked along over lose stones and symmetrical crosswise ridges on the first lengthy stretch towards low dune-like hills; then made a series of turns, going up-over the hills to a steep rundown the other side into the a place called Iturte, a humble scattering of ramshackled adobe houses all over the lower slope I'd come down. There were no vehicles of any kind. This was a place where the pace of life hadn't changed in hundreds of years, and the children stirred as I cycled along the dusty main thoroughfare. I found a shop and the small indian woman behind the counter therein waited patiently while I took ever so long over choosing bread, salami and cheese; there was no fruit in this out of the way place. With a smile the indian woman excepted my five pesos payment; back outside the children that had gathered round the bike, scattered on seeing me approach. I cycled a short way away as to excite no further attention, and sat in the shade of a big dry-stone wall; part of a network of enclosures alongside the road anwards.
The afternoon ride saw the way twist round dunes, rising up, then dropping down along the bottom of a valley, where more enclosure stone-walls stretched up the hillside. A clear stone strewn stream meandered along; running across the track at two places, where I'd the excitement of splashing-in and pedaling through the water while trying not to lose my balance which would have resulted in wet feet. It was then while slowly rolling on, just on a curve where the valley narrowed into a gorge that out of the blue came a thumping ping from the rear-wheel. A spoke had broke. My heart beat fast and was in my mouth with panic and then I relaxed. It was nothing which hadn't happened me previously; breaking a spoke, a long way from anywhere. As expected, when I spun the rear-wheel, it wobbled and turned in, passing very close to the chainstay on each slowing revolution. But otherwise the bike was perfectly rideable. And it wasn't so noticeable on the slow track. Very soon anyway, all remaining anxiety was shelved as I faced a wall of a mountain which the road marked a zig-zag trail up.
On the climb I felt short of breath and had to stop and sit down to rest ten to fifteen minutes each time on three occasions. Though with the final two switch-backs in sight, I pushed on up to a saddle below rocky crags, where the sign-board by the side read "Arba El Condor 4150msnm". From these heights with a cool breeze, I took in the view far and wide to a far off blurred horizon before I set off again.
The track curved and stretched out round a near vertical precipice, making a number of sharp shitch-backs down to the next level for what most have been three or four kilometres, until the hard braking steep road eased off, and the road continued a zig-zag down a gentle mountain meadow of mature grass. The bottom of the valley below was a deep trench which the long slope and road reached and so tipped over the edge to face yet another section of steep switch-backs down to where the first houses of Iruya were scattered along a river.
Saturday 29 August.
Now that I've had a walk around and have seen Iruya, there isn't really a lot to do here. The people are nice enough, except for one at at a Cafe Mate. Dispite the name, this is a campsite on the other side of the river. The owner said abruptly when I walked thence investigating, it's private, we don't open till Spring. This evening in the only comidor in town, as I got up to leave after eating, Analia who sat with friends round a table at the door caught my attention and asked me would I like a lift back to Salta tommorrow. My response was a resound yes.
Analia is a pretty girl that waved at me from a caminetta which past me on the road down the mountain yesterday afternoon. She is staying at the same hospidaje as me along with her driver and guide Mario, and his wife Ana. She approached me rightaway when I arrived, amazed to see me cycle here. I was flattered by her warm smile and beauty.
Sunday 30 August.
The caminetta is a large white Mercedes mini-bus and as we are only four, there is plenty of room to sweeze my bike in between the seats and slide the trailer and other bits in behind. Mario said to Ana "you been to English classes so today you speak English". Ana's English was a few words sprinkled into usual Spanish, and in anycase, she seemed very tired as she lay-down in the double seat behind me and would sleep for the duration of the journey.
The incredible road away from Iruya was scary from my seat behind Mario. Strange, while cycling down the mountain on Friday I wasn't in the least scared, but now I wouldn't like Mario's job holding the caminetta on this narrow mountain-ledge with a combination of grinding gears and revving; every hole in the track and every curve round and up upon the stretch of road above has to be taken extra slow. And then there is meeting other vehicles, where either we or they have to reverse to a place wide enough to let one or either of us past. For a while, looking out the window, it seemed this side of the caminetta was over the edge as if in mid-air; and I'd a feeling of vertico as I saw the road already driven far below, curled like a defensive snake. I estimated that if I'd cycled it would have taken at lease well into the afternoon to reach the top of the pass and perhaps I would have broke another spoke. I would likely not make it back to Huamahuaca till after dark. Now I could sit and relax knowning I'd be back in Salta this afternoon.
Back on smooth Route 9 and rapidely motoring south. We did stop at a YPF service-station where Mario picked up a discarded CD of Argentine Folklore off the cement. It struck me how much better this road is southbound. While cycling north last week, the sun was ahead glairing me in the eyes; but today going south, the sun is to the rear revealing the landscape at it's best in sharp vivid colour: ochre and reds contrasting with deep blue sky.
Meanwhile on the radio, in the interlude between twangy Argentine Folklore songs, the woman presenter's voice was song in itself. Her beautiful pronounciation of Jujuy, sounded phonetically like "hoy-who-hey"; fat and round and deliberate. And the musical tone in the summing up "......La Fiesta Santa Rosa: esta fin de semana: La 30 Augusto"; before the following track began.
Sometime later, on the autopista round Jujuy capital, Mario took a call on his mobile from his daughter; she wanted to know where he was and would it be much longer until he'd be home as dinner is soon ready. Finishing off the call he then invited me home to dinner, an offer I readily excepted.
Mario explained to Analia and me that for practicality we wouldn't be going via the scenic cornice route through the hills to Salta, but instead, because time was of the essense, he would remain on the autopista. The fast alternative rolled down from the mountain valley out to the warm plains where a haze of smoke loomed over large areas and the roadsides were blackened by resent conflagations; the trees though scorched were spared the grass-fires. Further on Analia asked what the large plots of a leafy green crop was. Mario answered Tobbaco, and proceeded to talk on it's cultivation from planting to harvest, drying and processing.
The next town was General Guemes where the main thoroughfare had lots of men on horseback in Sunday-best decorative ponchos and neat black hats. Traffic was being directed by policemen in high-vis orange and light blue shirt-slieves. Mario pointed saying "Mirar. Es La Fiesta Santa Rosa".
The first houses of Salta is where Mario turned off on a branch autopista, which past round the lofty hills to the east of the downtown; then climbed over a low saddle and descended to Barrio Belgrano where the family live on the third floor of a white terrace block.
Two trail dust covered mountainbikes were leant in the hallway on the way into the appartment from the stairwell, and silver cups and cycling trophies filled cabinet space in the living-room which Mario explained, some were wins from his racing days, the others the present generation, his son's wins. The double windows opened out upon a balcony where Analia was already drawn to a birdcage, which was inhabited by a boiterous green parrot that said something I didn't quite get, but it most have been funny as it caused mush laughter from the others. There were framed cycling photos on the walls; one of what looked to be a younger Mario on the winner's podium downtown in front of the Guemes Monument. "That's my son when he won the 1st of May Grandprix a few years ago" Mario interjected when he saw me looking at it.
In all the family consisted of a 12 year old son who spent most of the time at the computer; the daughter that was preparing the dinner, aged about 20; and the son in the winner's podium photo, aged about 24, who perked up when his father mentioned that I'd cycled to Iruya, but that I'd broken a spoke. At once he turned on his foot, going away and returned moments later clutching a bundle of spokes. We talked a bit. I said how the wheel had done many thousands of kilometres and could perhaps do with rebuilding the complete wheel with fresh spokes. He disagreed, saying it would probably be find with just the broken spoke replaced and the wheel correctly trued.
Dinner was served: milanese, rice and salad. Mario opened a bottle of Cafayate red wine and proceeded to pour glasses liberally. The others had already eaten before we arrived, so cycle-racing son borrowed the caminetta keys in order to go out and down to look at my bike. Not very long later, he returned wheeling the bike through the door with back wheel repaired, running straight and true. I was happy. I mentioned money but he wouldn't have any.
The wine still poured and Is unable to refuse a fourth glass. Analia dug out her lap-top and began showing photos of family and friends. Shortly after we were back in the caminetta driving through Sunday-afternoon Salta streets as racing son drove me and bike back to Backpackers in Calle Buenos Aires.
Wednesday 2 September.
I've realised this last few days that Salta isn't a place to dash around; rather to walk in a slow laid-back in no hurry way as the locals do. Not unlike the traffic-light-less intersections, the vehicle-drivers know by code of eye-contact, when to drive and when to giveway.
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