Estoy Alto (I´m High)

          

         No not like that, I am high in terms of elevation (and im pretty high on life), I am currently sitting at 3000m (10,000ft) in Tupiza, Bolivia and got up to about 4000m (13,000ft) on the way here. Sorry for the delay in this blog entry, internet acess and speed leave a bit to be desired in northern Argentina and Bolivia. I got to Cordoba planning on spending 2 or 3 days there, but I was having so much fun catching up with Evan (OG bum dog and one of my riding companions in southern Chile and Argentina) that I ended up there a bit longer than planned. It was great to see him and we certainly made up for lost time partying every night like it was our last days on earth. Robin even made made the trip up from San Martin giving us 3 out of the 4 original bum dog members (te extranamos Greg!) so needless to say in standard bum dog fasion 2 days turned into a week. I finally get back on the bike and start my run at the Bolivian border, the ride from Cordoba to Tucuman was uneventul, shitty, and dangerous. The road had no shoulder, tons of truck traffic, and generally not much to see.  This one sunset photo is about the only cool thing in the 600km (400miles) from Cordoba to Tucuman. 



I get to Tucuman and check into a local hostel and go for a walk around the city, Tucuman has a lot of history, it is where Argentina declared its independence in 1816 and this is its ¨House of Independence¨

After talking to a few locals I decide the best way to get to Salta is the back way through the Great Chaco Rainforest. Seemed interesting, The Great Chaco Rainforest is the second largest ecosystem on the American continent after the Amazon. It was quite a bit furthur and had 2 massive climbs but I was promised it would be worth it. And it was, the rainforest was a welcome change after the weeks of riding in nothing but deserts, this is the start of the first climb of about 50k (35miles)

and about half way up going through the little town of El Indio, which I think has the best empanadas in Argentina



I get about 15k (10miles) from the top when it starts to get dark, and decide that my only option is going to be camping in the rainforest which was nice but very cold and very wet. I camped along this little river, pictured here.





The next morning was pretty brutal, it was raining and absolutely freezing cold, packing up my tent and getting everything in order brought back memories of those 5am hockey practices where your hands are too cold to even tie your skates, I realize the only way to warm up is going to be getting on the bike so I suck it up and get moving, I knock the last 15k (10miles) of the climb out and pop out into a nice little valley where the sun is shining and its warm. You can see the clouds in the left hand side of this picture, thats where the rainforest ends and the high alpine valley starts, weird little inversion effect they got going on there. I load up on supplies in the little town pictured (Tafi de Valle) and think im in for an easy ride to Quilmes.

Oh how wrong I am, the clown at the hostel told me that as soon as I hit Tafi de Valle its just rolling hills until Salta, he forgets to mention that after the big 50k climb through the rainforest to Tafi its about 10k (6miles) of flat riding before another massive 35k (25miles) climb bringing you up over 3000meters (10,000ft). Bike touring is as much a mental game as a physical one, and when you get a huge unexpected climb it can be rough, I struggle to the top in the baking hot sun quite a differnce from the day before where I was climbing in the cold and rain and rip down the other side into Amaicha de Valle.

 I meet Leo from the Rio (Leonardo from Rio de Janiero, Brazil) on the way down, Leo´s a fellow bike tourist who has ridden here from his home in Rio and we camp and trade war stories in Amaicha, both pretty amped up from the awesome last couple days. We wake up the next day with the plans to take in the Ruinas de Quilmes which despite the shitty 5k dirt road climb to get there was quite worth it.

After taking in the ruins we continue north on the Ruta del Vino (wine road) towards the wine making town of Cafayate, we camp in Cafayate with no idea that the next day would be one of the more amazing days of our entire trip. The Quebrada de las Conchas is a small canyon road following a river through some absolutely spectacilar scenery, we only manage to ride 50km (35miles) because we are literally stopping every 2min to take photos. Here are a few

We stop to check out some natural amphitheaters along the road with loads of people coming though on busses to do the same. We decide the amphitheaters are so nice that we may as well camp in one, we head down to the river and gather a bunch of firewood and get a nice big fire going in the middle. We sit around the fire eating, drinking wine, and listening to Brazillian samba curteosy of Leo´s laptop. I must say falling asleep while watching the orange colors from the flames dance off the amphitheaters walls in perfect rythem with the brazillian samba is something I will not soon forget. Without a doubt this was my favorite campsite of the trip.

We get to Salta 2 days later rest up and recharge a bit before hitting the road to Jujuy. We meet a couple awesome girls Sheryl (a Kiwi) and Cath (a Aussie) who are bike touring from Tafi de Valle to Bolivia and end up having an awesome week of riding with them before they hop on a train to La Paz. Leo had some school stuff he needed to do so the girls and I leave Jujuy to head up into the hills to ride a loop to some hot springs (Termas de Reyes) we had been hearing good things about. After an afternoon spent lounging around the hot springs we start the long dirt road climb up to Yala.

We hit the top and are on our way down when we come across some massive mud slides, the road is absolutely gone and it takes us a couple hours to unload all our gear and ferry it across the area where the road used to be.

 Now at this point its dark, so we camp in the middle of the road between 2 massive slides, we could hardly make it though with our bikes so camping in the middle of the road was no issue as there was no way a car or anything else was getting through, we spent a nervous night camping between the 2 huge slides hoping that a third doesnt come and sweep us down into the valley. We wake up and rip the downhill into Yala having an absolute blast doing some real deal off road riding for the first time in weeks. This is the trail we came down

We load up on supplies in Yala and hit the road for Tilcara, going up yet another big climb

and by some pretty funky colored mountains.

We spend the night in Tilcara and get on the road early the next morning heading for Humahuacha, just outside Tilcara we come across a pretty cool sign

We are now offically in ¨The Tropics¨ pretty cool to think that I have ridden my bicycle from the southern most city in the world to the Tropic of Capricorn. If only it felt like the tropics, while camping that night I go to get a drink of water only to realize all my water is frozen solid, some first night in ¨The Tropics¨. The day following we climb up to the 4000m (13,000ft) town of Tres Cruces and ride along the altiplano towards Abra Pampa where we have a little farewell party as the girls are getting on the train the next day, we spend the night playing gin rummey and drinking Fernet, bummer they had to leave but theyll at least have all the cool mountain biking trails around La Paz dialed so Ill know whats good as soon as I get there. ¡Buen viaje y mucha suerte chicas! I have an easy 70k (50mile) ride to the border the next day and Boom! Im out of Argentina..

Onto the last frontier, Bolivia, the poorest, most unexplored country in South America. Feels great to be here, had a mellow 95k (58mile) ride from the shitty border town of Villazon to the rad little western town of Tupiza where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were killed in a hail of bullets in 1909. Just before reaching Tupiza I stop to take some photos when a guy on a Vespa pulls up, turns out its a fellow Norte Americano (North American) Sean Jordan who is riding around the world on of all things a Vespa moped, we check into the same hostal, drink a ton of beers and trade travelling stories until the wee hours, check out his site at www.vespa360.com

I am a little apprehensive about the next 200km (120miles) of riding to get to Uyuni where the famous salt flats are, Ive heard multiple reports that its the worst riding of the entire trip, guess there is only one way to find out for sure, Ill keep you all posted. Thanks for reading

pampas pampas y mas pampas

pampa grande (big desert) is not just the name of a town

        How could I forget to mention, the bicycle is a good invention? a fitting song to be playing in the hostal in Mendoza, Argentina as I packed up and prepared to get back into the saddle after a few weeks off the bike. I reached Ushuaia, Argentina a couple of weeks ago thus concluding my southern riding leg of this adventure and now it was time to get back to Mendoza where 3mos ago I began riding south still a soft, bike touring newbie. Only problem was Easter, everyone is travelling and everything is booked, so instead of easily jet setting back north on a cheap flight I had to endure 2 weeks of sitting around in Ushuaia and finally Punta Arenas before I could get on the 2 day bus ride back to Santiago, Chile. Santiago was good fun, stayed with a buddy in Las Condes and ripped around on the MTB trails above Santiago everyday

But it was time to get back to the vagabiking life, something strangely appealing about travelling and not knowing where you´ll be sleeping, what you´ll eat and how you´ll get there each and everyday. So I hopped on a bus to Mendoza, Argentina no need to do this again

This is Portillo which sits on the Chile and Argentine border is the oldest ski resort in South America and is just a stones throw from Aconcagua (6959m or 22,831ft) the highest peak in the world not located in Asia. Nat dragged me up this climb in my first week of bike touring when we rode from Santiago, Chile to Mendoza, Argentina beautiful scenery but I felt no need to ride it twice. By the way the photo above is only taken from switchback number 16 out of 34.

     Once back in Mendoza I sorted out a few last minute things, bought some maps a knife and some food and was off. Got a pretty late start getting out of Mendoza and after getting lost twice I didnt make it all too far. Apparently in Argentina they dont believe in road signs so trying to find your way around can be difficult, throw my shitty spanish into the equation and it can be down right impossible. Its starting to get dark so I ask some locals for directions and the most I can gather is to take the next paved road on the left. Easy enough, I take the next paved road on the left and end up with a dog hot on my heels, well nothing strange about this, dogs love to chase people on bikes so I stand up on the pedals and try to lose him, well the next 4 houses I pass also have dogs that like to chase people on bikes. So now I´ve got a total of 8 dogs chasing me, its like Im the Pied Piper only instead of children following me around vicious amimals do. I lose all the mutts and guess where this road ends up? no not the direction to Cordoba like I would have liked, it dead ends at the town dump. Which is really just corn fields with burning trash everywhere. Great, its now almost pitch dark out and there are 8 hungry dogs on the only road out of here, looks like Im camping at the dump my first day back on the bike. I try to get as far from the burning trash piles as possible but in the dark dont notice the one still slightly smoldering

In case you dont know, burning trash smells just fantastic. I end up waking up several times throughout the night thinking the smell sure is strong but must just be coming from the piles down the road, only the next morning do I realize I put my tent right next to the fire pit. I awake early, because well I couldnt really sleep with that awful smell to a nice sun rise over the corn fields

I hit the road early thinking maybe Ill do a little fishing as Ive noticed that Rio Mendoza is just down the road, that was a big no go..

Day 2 on the bike was uneventful, I can definitly feel all the time I took off ie. Im fat and slow and prone to cracking like an egg on long days like this one, so just when Im starting to crack a bit I roll by a family parked off to the side of the road having a little imprompto BBQ. I wave and one comes running out into the road holding a bottle of Fernet yelling ¨¿quiero?¨ (do you want?) well hell, twist my arm. So I pull off and eat a bunch of chorizos (sausages) and drink far too much Fernet with these awesome folks

Fernet  is a type of amaro, a bitter, aromatic spirit. Fernet is made from a number of herbs and spices which vary according to the brand, but usually include myrrh, rhubarb, chamomile, cardamom, aloe, and especially saffron, with a base of grape distilled spirits, and coloured with caramel colouring. Ingredients rumored to be in fernet include codeine, mushrooms, fermented beets, coca leaf, gentian, rhubarb, wormwood, zedoary, cinchona, bay leaves, absinthe, orange peel, calumba, echinacea, quinine, ginseng, St. John's wort, sage, and peppermint oil.*     *taken from Wikipedia

  I get back on the bike poco borracho (a little drunk) from all the Fernet and continue on my way, stopping to fill up bottles and eat some ice cream in Encon. Which unbeknonst to me at the time would be the last town I see for over 200km (120miles) despite my map saying otherwise. I camp 35km outside of Encon thinking Ill be hitting a few towns the next day. Now I can carry plenty of food, its water thats the problem. So after getting to a few of these so called ¨towns¨ and realzing there is nothing Im starting to get nervous, Im almost out of water and still over a day and halfs ride from the next place I know to have water. I get to the top of a hill and see some hitch hikers who confirm my fears that the next place to get water is still 124km (75miles) away. I ride another couple km´s and see a glorious sight..

This is the Difunta Correa that saved my ass, and yes those are all full bottles of water sitting next to it. ¨According to popular legend, Deolinda Correa was a woman whose husband was forcibly recruited around the year 1840, during the Argentine civil wars. Becoming sick, he was then abandoned by the Montoneras [partisans]. In an attempt to reach her sick husband, Deolinda took her baby child and followed the tracks of the Montoneras through the desert. When her supplies ran out, she died. Her body was found days later by gauchos that were driving cattle through, and to their astonishment found the baby still alive, feeding from the deceased woman's "miraculously" ever-full breast. The men buried the body in present-day Vallecito and took the baby with them. Once the folk tale became known, the inhabitants of the nearby areas started visiting Deolinda Correa's grave, building after time an oratory that slowly became a sanctuary.

The cultus to the Difunta Correa is that of an unofficial popular saint, not recognised by the Catholic Church. Her devout followers believe her to perform miracles and intercede for the living. The survival of her child would have been her first miracle. Cattle keepers first, then truck drivers, disseminated the figure of the Difunta, creating small altars in several routes throughout the country, with images and sculptures of the Deceased. They there leave bottles of water as votive offerings "to calm her eternal thirst".¨ *taken from Wikipedia

    Well Im not 3 days into bike touring solo and Im already relying on divine intervention to make it through. I load up on water (Sorry Deolinda, Ill get you back!) and continue on down the road, and no Im not worried about drinking that water because 24hrs of UV light will kill anything that may be in there, and those bottles have been there for a long long time. After a bunch more of this (not much to see out here)

I hit Lujan for a much needed fillup on suplies, stay in a nice hotel and wash my clothes and take a shower for the first time in 6 days (much needed!) and since Im obviously not getting enough physical activety go for a hike up to here.

Sunrise was cool too.

Cool little city Lujan is

The next few days are pretty standard until Villa Dolores where I plan on speding the night but everything is real pricey so I get a cool reccomendation from a friend (thanks Tai!) and head up the hill out of town and camp in a small little town called Los Molies overlooking Villa Dolores where, surprise surprise the sunset was again cool.

 The next day I begin the 100km (60mile) climb before Cordoba, I knock half of it out one afternoon and find a nice camp spot where I drink a little wine and watch the sun go down

I awake at 430am to rain, I havent been setting up my tent the last few nights the weather has been so good. That ended with a hurry as I scampered around the desert trying to get the tent up before everything was totally soaked. Not a great way to start the day, I hop back on the bike and knock out the last, much harder 50k of climbing in pretty awful conditions, that rain that woke me up at 430am only got worse and worse throughout the day killing my only scenic day in the last 750km (500miles) of riding, bummer. I get to the top and start the long cold descent about 80km (50miles) into Carlos Paz just a stones throw from Cordoba. I get about 20km (12miles) from town and come around a corner to a semi truck jack knifed in my lane, Im doing 40kph (25mph) down this hill and the roads are wet so I try to slow down to get around this thing when I realize the guy had destroyed his gas tank and there is a full on river of gasoline flowing down the hill. Oh fuck I think and before I have time to do anything Im into the gas river and the bike slides out from under me. Now if you remember that game you used to play at summer camp called ¨Slip n Slide¨ where you set up a long roll of plastic down a hill, cover it in water, and than slide down thats alot like how it was only in my version instead of plastic and water I used gasoline and asphalt. I get up to minor injuries, scraped up elbow, hip and shoulder (and let me tell ya gasoline in an open wound feels absolutely superb!) but the real issue is I am completely drenched in gas, its all I can smell and taste, its in my hair my eyes all over my clothes. So I drop down into Carlos Paz all buzzed up and with a splitting headache from huffing gas (and if their are any 12yr old reading this, dont huff gas.. not worth it in my opinion) find a hotel and the poor owner is like what the hell have you been doing? swimming in gasoline? pretty much I respond and after 3 showers I slightly get the gas smell off, not quite but almost. My clothes are another story, I would have simply chucked them out but they are the only ones I have so thats not an option, they have now been through the wash 4x and still smell terrible.. o well. Had an easy 50km (30miles) into Cordoba the next day which is where I sit now planning out my way north to Tucuman, Salta, and Jujuy. Ready for another few weeks of Pampas before I hit the mountains of Bolivia. Thanks for reading

    Matt

couple shots of Cordoba, they sure love their cathedrals

Locked up abroad

    So the day started off innocently enough, been riding for 10days straight kinda needed to stop and put the legs up for a day or so.. been trading emails with this fellow gringo loco we will call ¨SWRN¨ (someone who will remain nameless) whos on a similarily hell bent mission to ride a bike from north to south america.. Anyway, after a few weeks of trading emails we finally link up in a small town in central Argentina called Chos Malal..
        Like any self respecting bike tourists would do we procede to get bum drunk around the BBQ all in the name of good fun (total of 9.2liters of wine and 8liters of beer).. well we are new to Argentina and maybe we dont quite know the customs like we should, but here everyone and i mean everyone takes a siesta from  about 1pm till 4pm.. well being gringos and gringos who ride a bike all day we are not used to, or prepared for such a custom. Naturally we just sit around the BBQ getting hammered, well as you can imagine this causes quite a problem with the locals.. We kind of shrugged off their suggestions to be quiet naively thinking we were not being loud nor disturbing anyone.. this is where the problems started..
        ¨Officer Friendly¨ comes on duty at lets say 6pm.. and mind you hes not acutally an officer but mearly a security guard employed by the hotel ¨SWRN¨ is staying at (I am staying with the fireman because its free), so he comes out pissing and moaning about us being loud for the umpteenth time and keeping folks up during siesta, so us being the respectable gentleman we are kindly move our poco fiesta to the outside parking lot, and mind you this outside parking lot is at a minimum several hundred yards away from the hotel and plus by this time its after dark and everyone is awake anyway.
          Well apparently this is not enough for ¨officer friendly¨ and he comes out with the hose and soaks all of us and our gear and grabs said gear and hucks it over the fence out into the street.. well ho ho i say this will not be tolerated, so in my inebriated state i decide to pick up a golf club (just for protection mind you) and wouldnt you know it, ¨officer friendly¨ is quite keen on stick fighting, so he picks up a big ol stick and we square off.. well I regret to inform you I did not get the better of this situation and ended up out on my ass in the street with a nasty cut on my head from the stick.. and a nasty bruise on my arm (still not sure how that happened) so Im out on the street and my cohorts deem it a great idea to pour red wine all over a nice white classic car who we for sure think is the security guards.. turns out its not.. some poor bloke comes running out of the hostal absolutely full of piss and vinegar screaming (in spanish) ¨why the fuck did you pour red wine on my car??¨ all we can manage is ¨no entiendo¨ although we clearly did understand we deemed it best to just pretend we didnt..  so this is where the story gets good, ¨SWRN¨ decides hes had enough with this bullshit hostal and he will come stay with us at the fire department, so he tries to get his things and leave.. well wouldnt you know it officer friendly wasnt having that and they square off in the doorway, fortunetly SWRN knows some kung fu and gets the upper hand, even retreving his wallet that officer friendly had taken from him.. so it takes a good 5mins to wrestle SWRN´s bike out the hostal door but we do it and we walk back to the fire department to spend the night..
         So the story should end here, however it does not.. we get back to the fire department and SWRN realizes someone has messed with his bike, well hi ho we say this will certainly not be tolerated so we make our way back to the scene of the incident (just to retrieve the bolts mind you) and wouldnt you know it, officer friendly is there taunting us!! well SWRN pulls out his knife and rolls up to the door which was now obviously shut and begins to rap it on the window in quite the meanicing fasion, me being the clown i am think it a good idea to go ¨rev the engine of a motorcycle¨ parked out front, just to look tough you know.. well turns out this is not a motorcycle but rather a moped belonging to the local pizza delivery company and wouldnt you know it when u ¨rev¨ a mopeds engine the fucker just takes off!! so there i am, ive just ghost rode a moped into crashing rather severily (spilling pizzas and whatnot everywhere) my buddy SWRN is meanicing this security guard with a 8in blade and i realize perhaps we are in the wrong in this situation.
        So we all take off in different directions figuring someone has surely called the cops by this point and I make it maybe a half a block and see 8 policias coming right at me, ¨you gringo, on the ground¨ oh fuck i think here we go.. ¨que es problema??¨ I utter in my half broken spanish.. ¨you didnt pay your hotel bill¨ phew I think, im not staying in a hotel im staying with the firemen surly they have the wrong guy.. well turns out they are looking for SWRN who they mistake for me! Im cuffed and stuffed and once they realize im not the guy they were looking for they began to question me as to who my friends were, well being no stranger to dealing with police I simply said I do not know, I just met those guys.. Well this did not go over well, they chucked me in the back of the police car and paraded me around town for about 90mins looking for my accomplices.
           At some point we drive by the fire station I was staying at, well my friends were there and as soon as they saw the cop car obviously put their heads down, fortunetly the fireman saw me in the back and said ¨hey isnt that Matthew??¨ turns out it was, so now atleast my friends know im in the clink, they come try to bail me out to no avail (thanks guys) so finally im booked and tossed into a rather nasty cell, and meet one of the coolest people ive met in south america thus far, his name is Juan and he doesnt speak english so we dont quite understand each other, we become friends after a hand shake and a few words mainly him saying ¨policia es putas!¨ I agree and we get along fine, he uses the button of his pants and draws a rather gripping image of a police officer in the fetal position labeling it you might have guessed ¨policia es putas¨ so all in all a good nights sleep, didint have any water, food, or acess to a bathroom but i did have a shitty foam matress (no blankets)  so i slept okay, and the next morning after a bunch of paperwork i was relesed into my friends custody so after a rough and tumble night with the police and an overzealous security guard I can now declare with pride i have been ¨locked up abroad¨

Here we go...

         Its always strange to start something new, before i started this crazy adventure by bike I was nervous, scared, apprehensive, and didnt really know what to expect but once I got rolling it felt like the most natural and easy thing to do in the world..
           Im really hoping this blog venture will be similair, as I sit here, alone, half way through a bottle of pisco in a hostel in Chile Im kind of at a loss as to what to write about despite the fact I´ve been on the adventure of a life time the past 4mos. So bear with me and hopefully once I get rolling with this blog thing itll become as easy as bike touring did for me.
           Not to say bike touring was easy from the get go, I distinctly remember cracking like an egg 30k into my first day on the bike, and wondering what in gods name did I just sign myself up to do.. but after 3mos on the bike I thank my lucky stars not only was I afforded the time to do this but that I didnt give up on it like I REALLY wanted to those first few days, this will sound sappy but without the support from first and foremost my family (Don, Lynn, Janna, cousins etc.) and friends (Kam, Nat, Pilgrim, Mallory, etc.) I absolutely never would have got this thing off the ground.
           So a big thank you to everyone who supported this whole idea into becoming a reality, I honestly could not have done it without you.. It feels right after 3mos of riding (Ushuaia > Santiago) to let these folks know how I feel, Im sure you all do but I wanted to say it anyway, because honestly I wasnt quite sure myself thatd Id be able to do this so now that I know I can (and will) finish what I started I thought itd be a good time to say thanks to everyone who believed in me through the good and the bad.
          Anyway, enough with that, I must say Ive got some pretty interesting stories from the past 3mos of riding, arrested in Argentina, robbed in Lima, damn near frost bit in Tierra Del Fuego, but we will get to all that later.. for now I just wanted to say thank you and get this first blog post up and out there, like it (or dont) its mostly for me so I can remember the cool (and not so cool) parts of this trip. Feel free to comment and tell me what u liked (or didnt like) and ill try to make the next post more interesting than the last.. Thanks for reading..