La Quiaca – Wild Camp – Huacalera – San Salvador de Jujuy – Salta – Roadtrip with Sis – Rio Guachipas – Las Abritas – Cafayate – Camping Quilmes – Punto de Balasto – Hualfin – Londres – Salicas – Pituil – Chilecito – Wild Camp – Guandacol – Jachal – Parador Talacasto – Lago Ullum – Villa Media Agua – Jocoli – Mendoza

22 riding days   |   1706 kilometers   |   9.010 meters elevation gain

Chapter 1:
The Marathon To Salta

So where are we in this story? I just road the Salt Flats in Bolivia, celebrated Christmas with fellow cycling friends in Uyuni and now, me and my new friend for life Wasi, are heading to Salta because we want to celebrate New Year’s in the biggest city in the North of Argentina.

The thing is, Salta is around 400 kilometers away and we have 4 cycling days to conveniently arrive one day before New Year’s (since we don’t feel like arriving on the day itself). That means roughly 100 kilometers a day. Let’s go!

At least “Let’s go!” is what you would think, right? Not the boys, the boys are slowly waking up and deciding to check out what kind of street food Argentina has to offer. We roam the streets like hungry wolves, looking for beach umbrellas, chalk boards and round ladies standing behind steaming pans. The catch of today are humitas, empanadas and tamales. Next up: trying to get some cash at the Western Union*. We soon learn that it only opens at 12:00 so we first go back to the hotel, prepare the bikes, shoot into our cycling clothes before we go back to the shady looking window facing the street with the sign saying ‘Wester Union’. The guy hands out stacks of pesos to us that we cannot even carry. Hastily we put everything in our bags. And then to think that we only withdrew 100 euros. The devaluation of the Argentinian Peso couldn’t be more visual.

Finally, around 12:30, the boys set off for the horizon and for their first of four marathon rides. It feels liberating to be on the bike again, deep sighs escape from my body. The day itself can be described by two words: vasty and, of course, long. The few villages that we cross seem just as desolated as they were in the north of Chile, I guess the people here have made their way to the big cities just as well. Or is it just the siëstas that we’re observing here? Just before we reach our intended camping spot Wasi decides to scrape my back wheel and check out the asphalt from way too close.

* Since the economical situation in Argentina is bad, for foreigners it’s best to withdraw money with the Western Union bank as you can get more Pesos for your Euro than withdrawing from an ATM.

Luckily body and bike remain undamaged. Tonight we camp under the stars and in a dry river bed.

The next day we pass beautiful, colorful, by erosion formed mountain ranges near Tres Cruces. An hour later on a slightly downhill road we see two over fanatic dogs barking and running towards us from in the distance. We see them coming yet there is little we can do to keep them from coming. When they get closer we dig into our portfolio of scare-away-dogs-tactics. We use the ‘shouting angrily‘ tactic, the ‘pretend-to-throw-rock‘ tactic, we move to the other side of the road trying to avoid them. But nothing works. One of the dogs charges into Wasi’s rear pannier, pushing the bag into his spokes. Luckily no calf muscles are bitten, but we do find out later that one of Wasi’s spokes is broken now. Damnit. We cannot fix it ourselves as it’s on the cassette-side of his wheel. With a wobbly wheel we continue. Soon later I find out that my bottom bracket suddenly is very wobbly as well and I fear that it finally, after all these kilometers, has broken. Not our most lucky day to say the least. It makes me anxious to ride with a wobbly axle and in the first next town we try to find a bike mechanic but fail. I’m annoyed by all of this but luckily Wasi cheers me up with delicious street food and fresh juices. The town, Humahuaca, is beautiful yet too touristy for my taste.

With a strong headwind, a wobbly back wheel (Wasi) and a wobbly axle (me) we continue. In the next town we try to pitch our tents somewhere but we fail to find a good spot. We talk to some people and meet a friendly family on the side of the street in front of their house drinking mate. The most talkative guy invites us to stay at his uncle’s house. It’s a bit weird because the old uncle doesn’t say a lot and yet we are about to push our bikes inside. But the guy is very friendly and tells us he’s on a small road trip to meet long lost family. We get a shower, cook a meal in the kitchen and can sleep in the guest room that night. I don’t sleep very well because there are hundreds of mosquitos in the room and they are on a rampage.

On day two of our Marathon To Salta we wake up in the house of strangers. With some fresh mosquito bites and little sleep we say goodbye to tio Arturo and his family and hop back on the bikes. Soon after we find ourselves on the very busy ruta 9, with no shoulder and in the midst of a national holiday it is absolutely crawling with cars. And they seem to be in a hurry as well. Time after time the big buses push us off the road. We feel unsafe. Big trucks and pick-ups rush alongside of us, sometimes only separated by 30 centimeters of air. When the next bus pushes us off the road we throw our hands in the air out of frustration. There’s so little we can do, we feel helpless. The only thing we can do is move on.

To make things worse we are presented with a fiery headwind and it starts dripping. For some reason, probably the worrisome traffic, I forget to put on my rain pant. At some point we’re already too wet and past the point-of-no-return when it comes to staying dry. Fuck it. Dripping wet we begin ascending. We’re rushing down a highway with bad road conditions going 60 km/h right next to cars going even faster. The heavy rain bounces on the tarmac, the wind blows it into our eyes making it hard to see. I try putting on my glasses, but it results in even less sight. Only looking through my eyelashes kinda works.

We survive the descent. Once down, cars drive next to us through meter-deep puddles and splash us even wetter than we already were. But we long past the point of giving a fuck.

We arrive in San Salvador de Jujuy, a paradise with beautiful women, a hostel with a warm shower and bed, pizzas and a truckload of beers. Our room turns into one big washing line with wet clothes and by the minute the room becomes more and more stale. It feels like we just crossed the line of our Marathon To Salta, but the harsh truth is that tomorrow will be another 100km ride.

In the morning we slip into our still wet cycling clothes: the best feeling in the world (sense the irony?). We buy some last street empanadas and set out for Salta. The busy, cramped, annoying ruta 9 turns into a small, curvy, quiet and beautiful road. Suddenly we find ourselves amidst the Yungas of Jujuy, a transitional zone between Andes Highlands and the eastern forests. Within one day we move from dry desert-like landscapes into rainforest-like, lush green forests. Incredible.

We make it to Salta and get invited for some food and drinks by some cyclists that we meet at a traffic light. What a welcome! They ask me how much kilometers I’ve ridden in total. I check my odometer and to my surprise I see that I’ve just passed the 25.000 kilometers. We all cheer to that.

Time for rest, a celebration of a new year and spending time with my sister and her boyfriend that will arrive the fifth of January. We check into a hostel where we meet Theo, that we met on the Uyuni Salt Flats, and his friend Yan, short for Yannick, that we will start to grow fond off in the coming days. Together we cheer to reaching Salta.

Chapter 2:
Salta And A Road Trip

Wasi, Theo, Yan and me turn out to form a rock solid group of friends. We experience a wonderful last-day-of-the-year where around noon, during our breakfast, someone gifts us a bottle of Campari and we decide to open it immediately. Soon later we end up on the terraces in the city and are back at the hostel at 7pm completely drunk. There is no restaurant open anymore and we didn’t think about that at all so we make a few sandwiches from whatever leftovers we have. With growling bellies but in good spirits we go into the city and don’t return until the early morning.

I move into a four-person dorm with Yan and Thomas, where the fourth bed remains empty for a long time. It feels like I’m sleeping in a room with two brothers, we’re fooling around, being hungover together. After finding Yan asleep after smoking a joint with cookie foil and crumbles all over his body, we rename him to “Jean le Cochon” & “Our French Little Piggy”. The other days we do some chores, drink beer on the roof terrace and do some work on our bicycles. Theo is the first to leave the pleasant hostel, Yan second and Thomas will follow later.

In the meantime I wait for my little sister to arrive to Salta with her boyfriend Rob. I meet her on the fifth during breakfast. It’s so good to see her again and to give her a big hug.

I show them the best empanadas in town, they meet my cycling friends and we explore town a bit.

The next day they pick me up in their white Renault Logan rental car. My bike and most of my bags are stored in the hostel: We’re going on a road trip!

The first part of the road trip I’ve already seen by bike, well “seen” is exaggerated since it was raining and dark for most of it, but I don’t mind doing it again by car. Within the first hour of sitting in the back of the car I already get car sick. I guess I’m not used to sitting in cars anymore. The next moment we’re pulled over by the police at a road block. They tell us we have to pay a fine for not having our headlights on (during the day!). I enter the little police office on the side of the road and talk a bit with them. They tell me the fine is 10.000 pesos (10 euros). They tell me I can pay either at the big police station in town or right here, right now. I take a gamble when I offer them to pay 5.000 right now, but to my surprise they go for it. With a big smile I return to the car where my sis and Rob are anxiously waiting to hear the amount of the fine. Their anxiety turns into joy when I tell them the story of how I got my discount with the Argentinian police and that we only have to pay 5 euros.

We visit the cute towns of Tilcara and Humahuaca. We climb on a bad road, with a flashing fuel light, through a thunderstorm to the incredibly beautiful mountain range of Hornacal with fourteen colors. After that we drive to the border of Chile, past colorful lagoons with flamingos and vicuñas, past salt lakes and snow-capped mountains in the distance. We are faced with a dilemma since we know that we cannot cross the border to Chile with the car, but we do want to visit the desert of Atacama. From here there are no buses to take and hitchhiking is a bridge too far for my sis and Rob. So we decide to risk it, I mean “they probably don’t even know that we have a rental car” and “it’s only a matter of not being insured, a risk we can take” is the underlying sentiment. Little did we know..

Soon later at the border the first question they ask is if we have a rental car, “yes..” and if we have ‘the paper’ that states that we can cross the border with it, “no..”. Five minutes later we’re outside with the announcement that we cannot cross. Shit! What do we do? We decide to go full Marino-style, parking the car at a gas station close to the border and asking strangers that walk into customs if we can hitch a ride with them. The fifth group of people we ask decides to take us. A super sweet, young Brazilian couple. Cramped into the back seats with our luggage on our laps we drive the three hours into the desert of Atacama.

We spend two nights in the town of San Pedro de Atacama in a super nice hostel with swimming pool (a prerequisite for my sis).

We visit salty lakes in this barren desert with a tour operator and cycle the beautiful Valle De La Luna. An absolute highlight.

It is funny. My sister and Rob having been going out for 2.5 years now, they start to think about having children and spending the rest of their lives together. Yet, the majority of those 2.5 years I’ve been away and thus I haven’t spend so much time with Rob ever since. He turns out to be a super loving, caring, funny guy. I am glad to actually get to know him now and why not getting to know your brother-in-law than in Argentina?

The Brazilian couple drives the exact same route back the exact same morning as we plan to and thus we may take place in their backseats once again. How lucky we are! We make it back to our car and the tension really builds up in the last hour before our reunion with the car. Will it still be there? Will the wheels been stolen? Will the trunk be forced open and all our stuff stolen? A big relief vibrated through the car when we see our dear little Renault Logan with all its wheels and no visible damage. Pfoe!

After that we drive the beautiful gravel road from Susque to San Antonio de Los Cobres, fail to take a panoramic train as it apparently changed its schedule and make it back to Salta. We enjoy one more dinner and breakfast together and then say our goodbyes.

It was such a beautiful road trip and such a good time together with my sis and Rob.

Chapter 3:
Gang Of Three Through the Desert

I haven’t slept much, I have a grueling hangover, I didn’t succeed in withdrawing cash, all my debit and credit cards have been lost or expired, I have 50 euros cash left, I cannot charge my phone since I lost the adapter in Chile, it is 36 degrees, …

… but I am alive! I feel alive! God damnit I am alive. I am back on the bike, finally back on the bike. I feel pure joy rushing through my body. The excitement of being back on the bike is topped with the excitement of not knowing if I will make it to Cafayate with the cash I have.

The current situation in the Tour de Argentina is as follows: The break-away exists of Theo, after him a “chasse patat” consisting of Jean, shortly followed by Sarah and Julien, a one-man-peleton named Wasi and the “bunch” which is me. There’s a bunch of friends up the road from me and it feels good to still have the possibility to catch up with them.

I cycle out of Salta and everybody seems to be heading for a camping, lake or a river judged by the numerous cars with kayaks hanging out of their pick-up trunks. Alongside the road I see many parrillas with fumes steaming up from the grilled meat, I cycle past swimming pools filled with bodies. It is holiday and I feel it. Campings are a new phenomenon here in Argentina, I’ve never seen campings anywhere in Latino America, but here a true camping culture exists and the North is cheap enough to take advantage of it. It is getting hotter and hotter and I feel like I didn’t adjust to it quite well yet.

After a lunch in some kind of fair with stands of asados, empanadas and local music I make my way towards lago Cabra Corral where I find a small camping. The cost for a night is only 2 euros. The pool is full with splashing kids, groups of families between the trees are chatting and grilling meat and music blasts from every corner. The neighbor immediately greets me and gives me a plate of empanadas on my arrival. Soon later I get invited to eat meat and drink wine with another big family. I don’t think I have to get my little cooking stove out tonight. All the people are so incredibly nice, I am showered with a feeling of love tonight. Tomorrow is going to be great, I already know it. When I lay in my tent that night I can still hear people chatting and with a secured feeling I ooze away.

I depart way too late that morning, but it’s just too nice here. I get invited to drink mate with another family. They’re very interested in why I cycle around the world and I try to explain. They’re also very interested in my usual oatmeal breakfast and how I prepare it on my little cooking stove. I let them try it and (they say) they like it.

Another day cycling in an incredibly hot environment. I fall asleep in a little shaded bus stop. Once again the sun is draining all my energy. The last part of today is super beautiful with a nice contrast of green trees and red-colored bare mountains behind it. It is called the Quebrada De Las Conchas. Hundreds of green parrots are occupying the trees next to the road, they make an awful lot of noise. I camp on a small camping next to the road that night.

All the flies, mosquitoes and ants are driving me crazy the next morning. I quickly pack up and hit the road. In Peru (4.000+m) and Bolivia (3.000+m) the altitude was the biggest obstacle, here in Argentina (1.000m) I once again face other difficulties like the heat and creepy crawlers. The route today is incredibly beautiful, red, white and orange rock formations have been sculpted by the wind. The heat is making me drink a lot but there’s insufficient spots to refill my bottles. Luckily there’s lots of tourists driving this route by car and thus I find myself begging for water at one of the many parking lots. Luckily the people are very nice and giving and it doesn’t take long before my bottles have water again. I reach the wine city of Cafayate totally emptied and crash on a bench in the main park. Too hot.

Lots of people start talking to me in the park, interested about my trip. Then suddenly Rob and my little sis are standing in front of me and not soon later Wasi also makes it to Cafayate (he took a gravel detour). Wow! So good to see everybody again, even though it was only a few days. We drink a beer on the terrace before me and Wasi head off to find a camping together.

With Wasi and me it’s just like old times, two sides of the same coin, two of a kind, two peas in one pot, thick as thieves, partners in crime.

For the second time I see goodbye to my sis and Rob. Me and Wasi have a rest day, get some stuff sorted out and drink the cheapest wine with some other travelers on the main square in the evening.

We both entered Cafayate solo and are leaving together. Me and Wasi, reunited. We have fun on the road, we pass small villages with public swimming pools in the middle of the towns (?!), have the best baguettes with cheese and salami, have a tailwind and less hot sun in our faces. We find out that 10 empanadas is the perfect amount for a cyclists’ lunch. Life is pretty good. In two days we make it to a little town called Punta de Balasto. We have to stop here because after this there’s a stretch of 80 kilometers with absolutely nothing but desert. But that’s for tomorrow.

We pitch our tents in the garden next to the little church in this quiet town. Once again we find out that this little village has a public swimming pool that make for a great shower after a sweaty day. We get invited for a volleyball tournament in the night, cool! We retrieve to the tents to cook dinner, because we’re starving. A friendly moto viajero joins our little camp spot. After dinner we check out the little volleyball tournament. The people are so incredibly inviting. They make us feel comfortable, invite us to eat choripan and drink lemonade with them and invite us to play volleyball with them. Once again overloaded with a feeling of security and love we hit our beds at 3AM in the morning.

Of course we wake up late. And we depart even later because of a flat tire of Wasi. But it’s okay because the Colombian traveling by moto teaches me to play my harmonica and the people from yesterday swing by to say goodbye and give us some food for the road. We only start pedaling at 3PM.

The first 30 kilometers we have a raging tailwind and we fly. Then we have a roadside lunch and when we jump back on the bike we notice that the wind suddenly has turned 180 degrees and is now pounding into our faces. What the hell?!? How’s that possible? We didn’t change direction (the road is straight like a ruler), we’re in the same valley. I can’t stop thinking about the fact that the wind could change direction so suddenly.

Anyway, we go from 26km/h to 12 km/h with a raging wind suddenly trying to blow us off our bikes. We cycle behind each other and take turns. Luckily the road goes slightly down at some point and the wind becomes less strong as well. We make it to Hualfin were we stumble on some nice street food called Milanesa, which is like a sandwich with a breaded thin slice of meat fried and veggies. We each take two to still our hunger and have some beers on the street and talk to some strangers before pitching our tents in yet another camping.

Man, Argentina is so chill, let me explain why. First of all the people are incredibly inviting, nice, always opening the door with kind eyes and a smile and super relaxed. They are the kind of people that make you feel at ease right away. Numerous times after we talked to people we turn to eachother and say “what a cute lady” or “what a nice guy“. Incredible. Second of all, the amenities!! There are sooo many public toilets, campings, grills, benches, water taps (all the water is drinkable), even public pools! For us cicloviajeros that’s a real gem, because we tend to make use of a lot of these public facilities.

Today we try to depart early but fail. Around noon we start cycling. Lots of clouds, pretty boring day. For lunch we think we see a restaurant but it turns out it’s just a house, we talk to the lady of the house and apologize for disturbing her family lunch. But then we get invited in for spaghetti anyway! Such lovely people in Argentina. We say goodbye to the family, cycle some more and end up in Londres on a nice camping with lots of people.

Once again we try to leave early, once again we fail. It’s just that the vibe is too good at these campings. This morning we chat with so many people and share many cups of mate. We start pedaling around 1PM, another straight stretch through nothingness. It’s not the roads nor the cycling that makes this part of the trip, it’s the places we end up.

Like today. We end up on a camping in Salicas where the owner dramatically arrives standing up on a quad.

It’s hard to match his level of energy, because his is sky high and ours is blushed out. He shows us around and we follow like puppies, when he tells the prices for the night I guess he can see from our faces that it’s not for us. So he proposes something else. He tells us that an interchange of service is far more worthy than money so suggests that we work for him for an hour and as a return we can pitch the tents for free. Ha! What a guy! We shake his hand. The next hour, bare chested, we shovel dirt to pay for our stay tonight.

We decide to not make breakfast to break the spell of leaving late. There are plenty of villages in the first 15km to take some breakfast. The heat immediately is killing us, within the first 15km we stop three times, one time for empanadas, once for ice cream and the third is a necessary stop at a waterfall to go into the cold water to cool ourselves down.

After that it’s another straight stretch of 35km without anything. Half way we seek shadow in an abandoned house and unintentionally we take a little siësta.

We make it early to Pituil where we install ourselves outside of a local bar at the plaza and have some ‘refreshments’. Suddenly it’s dark and late and we have to find food, eventually we eat at 11PM. There’s a big party going on at the central park but still we decide to put our tents in the park. We’re so tired that the music and voices of people don’t bother us as we fall asleep immediately after hitting our pillows.

We wake up in the middle of the hussle and bussle of the central Plaza in Pituil. Always a funny moment. I wave at some people walking by. We make breakfast on one of the benches of the park in the shade, because its already freaking hot. We meet a French couple traveling on a tandem bike and chat for a long time. Then suddenly it’s lunch time already and we decide to go for lunch which takes another hour. At 3PM we finally set off for a 70km stretch through the desert. The headwind is killing us and we take turns drafting behind eachother. We make it to Chilecito dehydrated and tired but happy. We check into the camping where we get reunited with Yan a.k.a. Jean a.ka. Chanchito a.k.a. Our French Little Piggy. Finally we caught up with that bastard.

The next day we take a rest day in the super chill camping in Chilecito. We meet the friends that Jean already made. He has been here for five days already. No wonder we caught up with him. We go into town to fix Wasi’s bike at the bike shop. We end up lending some tools from the friendly shop owner because he doesn’t have time himself. Back at the camping one of the guests is a tattoo artist and Wasi decides to put his first tattoos on his body. And why not start with four at the same time?!

Another guest cuts my hair. We share wine and yet again we eat around midnight.

The pack grew. We are three now. We do some more shopping in town and off we are. Into the heat. Luckily it’s also super beautiful. We just make it to a beautiful wild camp spot just before sunset. We shower in the river and put our tents between red rocks and cacti.

It’s 37 degrees Celsius during the day and 21 at night. Luckily today is mostly downhill which at least gives us a bit of wind and cooling into our faces. In Guandacol we buy dinner and beer for the night but when we exit the store the sky breaks open and all hell breaks loose. We seek shelter under a canopy, drink our beer and practice Spanish with Jean. His level is very basic, mine is somewhere in between basic and intermediate, and Wasi’s is quite good. So we learn from each other. Soon later it’s 11PM and decide to just eat a quick bite at the main plaza and save our groceries for later. After which we pitch our tents at a free campground just out of town and take a shower under one of the little water taps on the terrain.

Jean’s Soundboard

I’m so fucking french man
“Guys, I have a question for you”
“Guys maybe i will do some snorkeling tonight” (snoring)
“Fuck, i think i have to poop guys”
Oh shit man! I have a flat tire in my mattres
“Me? I don’t care”

Another stretch of 80km of nothing, ab-so-lute-ly nothing. So we take as much water as we can and head into this fucking desert another time. With a burning hot sun in our neck and no shade anywhere it’s a hard day. I’m pretty done with these stretches by now. The sun is absolutely brutal and drains all my energy. I’m starting to long for higher altitudes and some good old Peruvian hail storms. Luckily for the last 30 km we are treated to a beautiful canyon and some climbing and descending before we reach the address of our Warmshowers contact. Iain himself is not at home but he left the keys outside for us. We sleep on our matts outside because inside it’s way too hot.

We wake up at our Warmshowers host, great night of sleep in the open air. We make use of the kitchen and prepare coffee. After having breakfast in Jachal centre we prepare for another stupid straight and flat stretch through the desert. Yan has a flat, Thomas discovers another broken spoke and I step into a big thorn that pierces right through my shoe and my foot leaving a stain of blood on my sock. We reach a small restaurant that has potable water and make it our stop for the night. We put our matts on the concrete floor of an abandoned building for the night.

Waking up in the open air is always nice. I see how the clouds are slowly moving if I focus on branches of a tree. Then I check out the ants that are crawling over the concrete floor of the abandoned building that we’re sleeping on. The same ants that have been crawling over my body in the night. I watch them crawl over Wasi’s feet.

On today’s menu: “half a rest day”. We deserve it. A relatively short ride brings us on the shores of Lago Ullum where we check into a nice campground with a swimming pool. Wasi get’s a haircut from Jean. Jean wants to make a real Argentinian “asado” (barbecue) tonight, so we take the bus into the first town to buy meat, Fernet and other goodies. We hitchhike back to the camping because the buses stopped going and by coincidence we find people going to the exact same camping. We have the best asado ever, play music, get drunk, dance, make stupid video calls and some fall asleep in the grass. I feel like I’m repeating myself, but, life is pretty good at this point.

With a hangover from our little BBQ party yesterday we wake up. Yan on his matt outside. Like always, a slow start of the day follows. Eventually, on the bike, with the wind in our face, the headaches become less. We make good distance but it seems we don’t have to put too much effort in it. Wasi has another flat, number 20 already since La Paz, it drives him crazy.

We have lunch in the air conditioned restaurant of the gas station (all other options are closed at this hour) and we wish we could just stay there. But we pick ourselves up and drag ourselves back out into the heat. We make it to the next village where we have some ice cold Aquarius Pomelo (our favorite) saves the day and then take some more gravel to Villa Media Agua. We pitch the tent at the camping municipal.

On the camping radio we hear the weather forecast: 41 degrees Celsius in the shadow. My god. The guy from the camping declares us crazy as we are about to set off on our bikes. He is right. We take one more dip in the swimming pool, make all our clothes wet and put ice cubes in our bottles to prepare ourselves for yet another day under the relentless sun. The road is not fun, too busy and too little shoulder. Multiple times we are startled by big trucks rushing alongside of us a little bit too close to us. In the afternoon we develop the following strategy: Jean (with rear-view mirror) cycles behind us and only has one job, to warn us if there’s traffic from both directions. If that happens we just steer into the gravel on the side of the road. Me and Wasi take turns in pulling the train at the front. These are days that you rather arrive to your destination as soon as possible. The little shop where we consume our traditional ice-cold pomelo also offers us to stay for the night. Super nice. On top of that the neighbors make delicious empanadas, so we’re covered for tonight. Tonight, once again, we sleep outside.

Via gravel roads we cycle towards Mendoza to prevent another day on the busy ruta 40. Friendly shop owners give us frozen bottles of water, a very welcome and warm gesture to beat the heat. Water from our bidons turns into boiling water soon after we start riding in the burning hot sun. We make it to Mendoza and it feels like we just reached a checkpoint like in a video game.

We arrive in Mendoza to charge our so-called batteries, but time after time learns us that all we do is drain our batteries in big cities like this. Coming from the desert, shitting in the bushes, showering in rivers and spending most of our days in sweat, dust and soot, cities like this are one big playground for us. The amenities are abundant, the food is abundant and most of all: the drinks are abundant. Do we care about that? Personally, no, I love it. But we should really stop saying that we come here to charge our batteries. We party, eat bad food and sleep little: A great time in Mendoza. Oh, I almost forgot that we actually do something healthy and active: we hike to the basecamp of the highest mountain in all of the Americas: the legendary Aconcagua.

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2 Replies to “Argentina I: Empanadas, Fernet & Mate”

  1. Wat een mooie verhalen en geweldige fotos weer, ongelooflijk! En die paarse bergen, alsof jullie in een andere wereld zijn. En wat leuk dat je besloten hebt om straks weer helemaal terug te fietsen naar Colombia via Uruguay, Brazilië, Suriname en Venezuela! 😉

  2. Geweldig ( lang) verhaal met 3 prachtige hoofdstukken .Heb het nog een keer gelezen en nog meer genoten van jullie avonturen
    Geweldig om je zus weer te zien en in Argentinië je schoonbroer Rob nog beter te leren kennen
    Er komen nog vele avonturen aan dus we wachten met smacht op je volgende verhalen Marijn

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