Cafayate to Humahuaca
18.7.09
Photo links:
1. Cafayate & Cachi Photo link
2. Cafayate to Salta Photo Link
3. Salta to Humahuaca Photo Link
Hola,
As I begin to type this update on the BlackBerry we are camped next to a river about 190km from the Bolivian border. And we are only about 100km before we pop up onto the Puna/Altiplano just beyond the town of Humahuaca.
We left you last at Cafayate in the province of Salta.
We relaxed in Cafayate's tourist mecca with numerous backpackers and Argentine tourists. Good food, beer, and another cycle tourist James to chat with.
James was staying at the same Hospadaje. We shared stories and a meal. He had also met Luis and Olivier on his own travels. And I had even written his name down from the book at Rosa's Hospadaje back in Pituil. James is an Italian with a Kiwi mother and had ridden from Buenos Airies to Mendoza and then up the Ruta 40. He got stuck at the same patch of dirt road as our honeymoon from hell day but didn't have a tent so got himself a lift in a truck out. His intentions are to ride to Mexico but when we left Cafayate he had some issues back home so who knows if we will see him again.
We also met a nice backpacker, Mariella, on an excursion up to a place called Cachi and the Cactus national park Los Cardones. We had some good conversation and best of all she educated us on the Cocoa Bean, and the fact that it is white and only goes brown when roasted and that some swiss dude managed to design THE machine to make chocolate up to the new swiss/world standards. But I'm sure that is old news to most of you...
The Cachi trip was up the Ruta 40 but entirely on dirt road. It was a massive 14 hour day of driving. We were nearly car sick a number of times being cooped up with 16 other people in a relatively small van. But we were always grateful that we were NOT riding our bikes up that road. It would have taken 5 days, easily. Plus going over the 3400 off metre pass. No thank you!
We saw many cute little villages, national treasure churches made in part with cactus wood, cobble stone streets, and plaza's with green grass and cacti. There were strange colonial style doors on the corner and groovy street lights. Oh yes, and the pancakes in Cachi were delicious. Pity they were on July 2 instead of Canada day...
The highlight for me (Stuart) however was Los Cardones. And the highlight of Los Cardones was this one monster Cactus that was about 14 m tall. Very cool. We were lucky and got some great shots being cactus huggers. Not quite as nice as being a blue gum tree hugger but you have to take what you can get in South America for substitutes.
We left Cafayate the next morning to ride north to Salta on the 'pavimento' rather than the 'tierra'. The Quebrada de Las Conchas was brilliant. A wonderful valley that most certainly was best viewed from a bicycle. With names like Los Castillos, la Ventanas, la Antiteatro, and Garganta del Diablo (I think that was the name), it was two days of pretty blissful riding with views that were too plentiful to photograph appropriately.
Near the end of the first day, we met Ezra. We ended up spending an evening with him, cooking and chatting by an excellent fire. Ezra had ridden himself all the way from Austin, Texas. He was a fairly small fellow at about 60kg but what he had missed out on in weight he substantiated with his mouth. We were astounded at the mechanical wonder of an individual that could speak at such length. He hadn't even been on his own that long, his Canadian mate had just split with him...they had different riding styles Ezra said....I neglected to ask him about Ryan's (Canadian fellow) speaking style.
He was a passionate pot smoker and seemed to be very well read on the 'drug war' and the waste of time and money that it constituted. He had some very cool tatooes and piercings and a black leather 'cycling' helmet that probably got some use at groovy sado-masochistic night clubs in the big cities along the way. But that is only my supposition rather than his admission...
All in all he had some great stories to tell. No problems in Columbia except for the police and army one night nabbing him for wild camping - they thought he was a drug smuggler. They pointed their guns at him and escorted him to their base for the night. From then on he simply camped at army bases. And in Honduras an attempted knife point robbery from which he managed to narrowly escape.
We were pleased to have met him and we were relieved to have nothing but the wind in our ears the next morning as we wondered whether he actually learned anything about us... ;-)
We rolled on towards Salta and met ANOTHER two cyclists. A couple out for a month to ride approximately our route to Mendoza. Cedric and Maria had spent 5 months volunteering in Mexico and were now on 'holidays'.
The landscape became greener and there were actually trees growing withOUT irrigation. Very nice for a change.
Salta was a great little town but we seemed too busy getting jobs done to really enjoy it. We did however stay four nights in a excellent little bed and breakfast. Thank you to Babs and Dave for finding the place and paying for the first night. And thanks to Anna, Brenda, Glen for paying for the other three nights. The B&B was a celebration of Anita's birthday and a reward for achieving the 2000km mark on our honeymoon. It was most definitely a wonderful splurge.
At the bike shop in Salta where we got Anita's rim fixed we met Sebastian who took me out for an MTB ride with his Brazilian Ironman triathlon dad Raul and some other fit mates. I had an excellent day with them. Lots of laughs and made me homesick for those northern beaches MTB and road rides. It was pretty cool to have some conversations with them in Spanish and have Sebastian there to cover the gaps as a translator. Sebastian had spent three years in the US and 3 years in NZ and had only returned home 4 months ago.
Unfortunately despite the sign saying otherwise, the Post office was closed on Saturday, the day we left, so we had to lug about 13 extra kg to Jujuy (100km). (it had also been closed Thursday for Independence Day and then Friday for Admin) The extra volume and weight was nearly the straw that broke our backs but we slowed our pace and survived.
It was nice to go slow as there were REAL forests to ride through, lakes to camp near and families to picnic with. Some of the road was exquisite to roll on. Narrow, barely 1.1 lanes wide, it gently descended at a gradient that had us at 20-30km/h and allowed us to sweep around each bend. We savoured it as we soared through the trees. We both thought of the south coast and Kangaroo Valley from the south of Sydney.
On our second night from Salta near a town called El Carmen we stopped at a campground near a dam. It was packed full of Argentines having their Sunday Asado (BBQ). All eyes were on us as we rolled in and we were just sizing up our camp spot when eagle eyed Anita said, 'we need to watch our things here, that fellow has been watching us non stop'. And just as she finished, another fellow, named Santiago, approached us and invited us to spend the afternoon with his family. They fed us some of their Asado, and picnic, we chatted in Spanish and via their son in law Martin who spoke English and Spanish and played Volleyball. It made our hearts glow receiving such warm and spontaneous attention. Graciela (Santiago's wife) invited us back to their home but unfortunately it was 20km away, the sun was going to soon set, and it would have added 30km to the journey the following day. We (hopefully) gracefully declined and set up our tent in the campground that was quickly emptying out as it was Sunday evening. As they drove out I pointed to our tent called 'mi casa, mi castillo' (my house, my castle) which they found amusing.
We arrived in to San Salvador de Jujuy the next day but it was 1:15pm and the siesta had begun so we resigned ourselves to staying in town and a hotel for the night so that we could post our 13kg that evening and the next morning. It worked out well as it gave us time to be RUTHLESS with our baggage. We shipped off a box to Lima, Peru (8kg), some gifts for family in Australia and a 2kg box of things to we didn't want to throw away to Keith in Sydney.
The next morning after the Lima box was gone (international packages greater than 2kg need to go through customs and they only work from 9-12pm!) we sat down for lunch. We were a little nervous as our bikes were in the hotel foyer but we couldn't quite see them from the attached restaurant. Anita kept eagle eyeing towards the bikes, (Amazing how her neck is like an owl when she is on the lookout) when both of us saw a fellow dashing out the door into the corridor adjacent to the restaurant. He had a bag in his hands. Instinctively we both leapt to our feet and bolted to the street to head off the 'ladron' (thief) at the end of the corridor before he could get away.
We did indeed best him to the street and as we turned into the corridor to confront him there was just a man hurrying with a big steel box. Indeed, a grease trap box. He was hurrying to minimise spilling it. We immediately slowed our pace and nonchalantly walked past him. He was none the wiser but the people in the restaurant were certainly curious about the whole circus act as we attempted to walk back to our table with some measure of composure! Pretty embarassing but highly amusing.
From S. S. De Jujuy we rode with a tail wind to a little town of Tumbaya. We only rode just over 50km but climbed nearly 1000m (970m on the altimeter). It was an amazing day. Anita was very impressive.
When we arrived we did the usual of stopping at the local Kiosco and after a number of attempts we were led to Charlie's place.
Juan Carlos Tejerina (Aka Charlie) was 76 years old. Retired from S. S. De Jujuy after working for the Banco Nacional. His wife was away visiting their children in the city. His dog, Julietta, was 6 months old. He moved up to Tumbaya when he retired. He had 3 children, 12 grandchildren. We shared our dinner with him. He had 'agua caliente' (hot water) ready for us in the morning. He was a beautiful old fellow and we treasured our time with him. He only spoke Spanish so it was excellent to be forced to work things out with him. We were sad to say goodbye...
But it was onto Purmamarca with the 7 Color Hill and the toilet of disaster... Purmamarca is a cute little tourist town tucked into a narrow valley with corresponding narrow streets and a big technicolour (7 different colours in fact) hill standing over it.
As we rolled to the edge of town there was a tourist bus stopped with the usual souvenir sellers and a bus load of tourists taking photos and considering purchases. Unfortunately for the souvenir sellers we became a spectacle ourselves. It seemed the entire bus was fascinated by our arrival (they had probably only passed us 10 minutes earlier). We had about 5 people come up and ask if they could have their photo with us. One rather wide lady wiggled her way between us and nearly knocked me, the bike and Bob (the trailer) over. Only once she was well snuggled in did her husband then ask if he could take a photo. Hilarious stuff.
We weren't sure whether we felt like movie stars or simply curious objects.
They all ooohed and aaahed when they learned it was 'nuestra luna de miel' (our moon of honey or honeymoon) although I did notice a number of people looking at Anita with a mixture of respect and pity... :-)
We managed to extricate ourselves from this unusual situation so that we could get into town and find some accommodation. After looking at about 5 different places (with tourists on every corner taking photos of us) that were either too pricey or unfit for habitation we settled on a hostel that seemed OK. It was OK although on closer inspection we slept in our sleeping bags rather than use their sheets. And while the shower had hot water the bathroom was no where near clean.
The next morning, after a very below average sleep, I was up early to use the toilet. This bathroom was terrible. The taps all leaked, the floor was filthy, the toilet was empty but foul. There were inches of scum everywhere. The young male manager clearly neglected this part of his hospadaje. The seat was broken although I had no desire to sit on it anyway. After some hover time my legs were tiring so I flicked the seat up to try Asian style on the bowl. After all the bush camping, Asian style is pretty comfortable. As I did I held onto the basin which moved and I immediately wondered if this was how Malcolm had actually cut himself up in Cuba. I was about to laugh to myself at the thought as I got one foot up but before I could get the second foot up the whole horrible toilet came off its footing and I fell off the bowl back onto the floor...thankfully onto my feet.
Needless to say I was no longer interested in the task at hand as almost immediately of course water (fortunately clean) started pouring out on the floor. I quickly briefed Anita on our situation and we hurriedly finished packing and bolted out of the hostel with a flood coming out the bathroom door way and into the common area. Fortunately the lazy manager didn't really catch on to what was going on. He simply mopped up the doorway and didn’t even really go into the bathroom to investigate the cause. But that is probably why the place was so run down and average in the first place. We were pleased to see the back of that one!
We had a cruisy day from Purmamarca to Tilcara at 2460m with a nice tail wind and an excellent 'wild' camp next to a river just to the north of the town. The views in this valley are very nice and Anita has been very patient with me wanting to stop to take photos every 5 minutes. I can understand her, I mean how many photos of mountains, cemeteries, and cactus can you take.
I stopped to take a photo of a house with corn drying on the roof. A Quecha lady came out of the house so I asked if I could take the photo. She said No and wagged her finger at me. I was a little taken aback as I wasn't taking a photo of her but after our experience in Purmamarca I respected her wishes, put the camera away and moved on.
Yesterday we rode to Humahuaca at 2939m with a nasty head wind. The altitude is now starting to affect our riding, and sleeping. We are resting here in Humahuaca in an excellent, super clean, warm hospadaje for 2 nights to acclimatise. From Humahuaca we head towards a town called Abra Pampa which is the start of the altiplano or puna. We have to go to nearly 3700m before dropping to 3485m at La Quica and the Bolivian border.
The climbing is certainly more forgiving than back in Chile to Argentina. More gentle, more towns, more warm. We are taking it easy from here as Bolivia is only 165km away and we won't be dropping below 3000m again until we are in Peru. We may get an update in before leaving Argentina but if not we do want everyone to know how much we have enjoyed this country. The north west is an excellent place to visit. The people are so very beautiful, friendly and honest. The scenery is so grande, stark and beautiful.
As we have travelled north we are beginning to feel that if we still want to keep going after Quito that we will probably continue north rather than come back south. It is therefore entirely possible that we won't be back to Argentina for many years. While this is sad we are excited about leaving some destinations in Argentina incomplete so that we do have a reason to return in the future.
Regards,
Stuart and Anita
Posted byStuart Kane at 6:54 PM
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We continue travelling with you; and now happy because Anita has seen the guanacos!!!...
Diana y Gustavo.
From Rosario - Argentina.