Mendoza to Difunta Correa to San Augustin de Valle Fertil
10.6.09
Hola,
As I write this we are camped next to the Rio Las Tumanas. It seems like the first 'wild-ish` creek/river we have seen in a long while.
The river is excellent. It probably isn't drinkable but does look clean - I wouldn't drink it without pumping via the water filter but it is running over rocks and boulders making a lovely burbling sound.
After a great deal of indecision we finally chose a spot as close to the river as possible. The indecision being driven by the fact we are basically camped on an overhang and one big flood of water will surely collapse the lot. Indeed as we stepped up to the fence some of the ground compressed about 50mm making our camp feel even more on the edge.
But why not have our campsite mimic life. We have been riding on the edge for days now.
We arrived at Difunta Correa safe and sound to a government run and relatively empty and expensive hotel (140 pesos ~ 50AUD). It was clean, quiet, with a brilliant view of the mountain range and the weird concoction that makes up the town Vallecito and the Difunta Correa shrine.
It provided a well earned respite from the long road. Over 200km in 3 days. We ARE getting stronger but about 10km from the Difunta and after nearly 25km of climbing, Anita cracked a hissy fit so she clearly rode to the edge and didn't like what she saw down there... :-) Add to that, after all my persuasion that there were no pumas in this area Anita finds a dead cub with a mangled face on the side of the road. The evening was closing in and her frustration of not been able to get over that hill away from `puma' territory got to her.
But what a shrine Difunta Correa was. We were expecting (from photos we had seen in books - most particularly Eleanor's Llamas and Empanada's - excellent read BTW) a big tree with a mountain of water filled coke bottles. What we found was actually very different - a cross between a bhuddist shrine in Asia and Christianity but actually seemingly quite pagan.
There were multiple buildings covered in plaques with people's names thanking the Difunta. Inside the buildings were photos of people's houses, the race horses, trinkets from their houses, even model houses.
And then up the covered walkway to the top there was an amazing quantity of number plates, donated I suppose by the truck drivers. 1000's of them, all neatly mounted. As you walk up the hill to the top of the shrine there was a veritable model of Valparaiso (hilly city in Chile). If you were about 30cm tall you would have been a king for all the choices in accommodation you might have.
AT the top there was a fire gutted tree and numerous candle sticks and a river of frozen wax. It obviously gets hot up there at times as the wax river flowed about 5m down the hill.
All in all, it was definitely worth a visit. There was a whole town built up around the shrine and clearly the place gets many pilgrims during peak times (when? We don't know but clearly not mid week).
We spent a whole day there and a second night resting up. We could see the highway from our patio outlook and it seemed as though 90% of the trucks and buses stopped in there on their way. We also repaired the rear wheel of my bicycle, unfortunately I had two broken spokes on the drive side. We are only carrying 3 spares for each side of our rear wheels. Only one spare now for the drive side so will need to find more soon.
We left the DIfunta on Friday June 5 and had an excellent day of riding. Little wind, lots of flat or downhill. We covered over 80 km, a personal best for us.
We learned in Mendoza that the people of the nearby Cordoba Province are known for their particularly unusual sense of humour. It struck us however that the people of San Juan province (where we are now) also must have a curious sense of humour. We are riding around the Parque Provinciale - Valle Fertil and the area is decidedly UNfertile. The area is more like the Flinders Ranges in South Australia. Absolutely dry creek beds, scrub bush and trees that look similar to the super hardwood trees in the outback (when there is a tree).
But the land is not dead and it does have a certain desolate beauty to it. We saw a (herd - sorry can't recall the correct term) of wild horses. The black stallion - why are they always black - brought up the rear and kept a keen eye on us until he bolted away.
We saw many more condors soaring across the landscape. Closer than before but still not close enough to really are them well. We saw a few solo cows, a few herds of goats and a fugitive of some sort.
The fugitive was the scariest of all as he was sneaking along parallel to the road but about 30m into the scrub. When he saw us he ducked in behind a bush to hide. Hmmmm.
We kept on rolling until we came to a tiny tidy village called Marayes. We stopped at the local Kiosco and asked the lady if we could camp in her back yard. She obliged and gave us the donkey's stable, basically 3 walls and a roof.
It was blissful, relatively clean, quiet and SAFE. No pumas or fugitives to get is in there. We cooked our dinner and pumped our water to the interest of a couple of the 7 children. We were so very impressed with the way the family worked together with little fuss. Everyone had their jobs and got on with them. The next morning Oscar, the padre, showed me his 1966 Valiant and we had a simple chat about how excellent 1960's Valiants are. His was green, and he was impressed that I had a creme one. Fortunately we didn't spend any time discussing the compression ratios, and the best fuel/air mixtures for maximising performance. We took their photos and they were very keen to see themselves in the LCD screen of the camera. We took their address and hope to send them a photo - although we are dubious that there is even a mail service to that town! :-)
We were almost sad to say goodbye to la famillia Herara and within about 10km as the road turned north into a strong headwind we really regretted leaving. Saturday June 6 turned out to be one of our most challenging days since the Andes. The road signs said it was a minimum 65km ride to the next village. As we often struggled to maintain 10km /hour in the head wind we began to get desperate. The road was incredibly quiet. Possibly 1 or 2 cars every hour. The desolation, the dryness, the fear, the loneliness, the thirst all began to weigh heavily on our minds and upon our legs. There is nothing more frustrating than pedalling into an interminable headwind.
At lunch, as we sat in the wind chewing heavily on our stale bread I was certainly trying to remember why I love cycle touring. Indeed, I couldn't help but recall someone asking me if I would ever ride a bicycle around Australia and I said No Way! The distances are too far and the land too empty of people. Funny how your words can come back and haunt you sometimes. I told Anita about this conversation and then remembered that Graeme McLeod went walk about many years ago. I recall he spent some time in some back water roadhouse flipping burgers. I can imagine you stopping somewhere out here Graeme. I'm sure the people you met out there aren't so different from the people you would meet out here.... :-)
But we rode on and once again the mileage distance signs were wrong but for once in our cycle touring life, the road signs were wrong to our advantage and at the 54 km mark, thinking we had another 10km to go, we arrived into a little village called Chucuma. Ahhh, what a relief, running water! We couldn't find a Kiosco that was open so we knocked on the door of the Policia station. Horhay said we could camp about 3 km down the road but we said we were too tired(Mi piernas muchas cansada!), could we camp at his police station. He was OK with this but as it turned out we probably should have rolled on. The town seemed nice but the back of the police station was not so well kept and when we found a couple of used syringes: we were less than impressed. Ah well, Horhay seemed legitimate so we ate our dinner and we were glad to have a sleep in a relatively safe environment.
The next morning we still had a strong head wind so we packed up the tent without any motivation and rolled out of Chucuma. The wind wasn't so bad though as there were many hills. We saw the campground Horhay mentioned – it looked nice but it was only 6km down the road so too early to stop. We stopped for 12 Empanadas in a town called Astica. An excellent little town. Clean, tidy, friendly. But again, too early to stop. At the 27km mark we came around a corner to a river crossing and the Rio Las Tunamas and a camping area. Glorious! We both knew straight away we had hit gold so we pulled in and stopped for the afternoon and evening. We ate Chivoto Milanesa (kid goat schnitzel) for lunch with a bottle of vino tinto (red wine) and then had a fire and more red wine bottle next to the river and watched the sun set and the full moon rise. It was a fantastic day and evening and a perfect honeymoon setting – such a stark contrast from the day before!!!
We awoke the next morning to a relatively windless morning and a relatively cruisy 30km into San Augustin de Valle Fertil. What a great little town and definitely worthy of a visit if in Argentina. The people are super relaxed, no one locks up their bikes, there is one ATM (whew!), lots of Chivito, lots of small supermarkets and best of all we happened upon Hotel Rustico run by Mario and Maresa. They are a wonderful couple that have opened up a tiny 'bed and breakfastl' hotel in San Augustin about 2 years ago. Mario and Maresa have made just about everything themselves and it is all perfectly rustic. It is by far our most favourite accommodation here in South America so far. From the handmade welded wood fire stoves to the clothes hooks made from desert hard wood trees and railway bolts. Hand made chairs, tables, lounge chairs, windows, doors. Absolutely fabulous. Their english is excellent and Mario has given us some great tips for our trip north towards Salta, Jujuy and Bolivia.
Tomorrow we head north to Valley of the Moon, the photos we have seen suggest it will be a highlight of Argentina. And then we are onto the Ruta Cuarante (route 40) the most famous of highways in Argentina. It runs about 5000kmn along the east side of the andes. It will be tough and there will be little internet or BlackBerry coverage so you will probably only hear from us at Chilecito, Cafayate and Salta.
Lots of love and warm regards,
Stuart (and Anita)
PS
* Thanks to Ian - the photos are SAVED!
* The Where We've Been section has been updated from Santiago to Mendoza.
* this post has been brought to you by Provincial Parque Ischiguslasto. We are here for a few days and what do you know - they have WiFi internet and we are in the middle of NOWHERE! Brilliant.
Sent via BlackBerry® from Vodafone
Posted byStuart Kane at 7:55 PM
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