2UP2WHEELS in Argentina: Land of Birds

Argentina: Land of Birds

We have found a suitable campsite and are taking a day off from riding to do washing and writing. We landed in Buenos Aires more than a week ago and have been riding for the last 5 days, completing about 2000 kms on our route to the North of Argentina.

Fortunately the flight was not full so we had an extra seat to stretch out on the DreamLiner Boeing from Madrid. I have developed a painful heel and find it difficult to walk, but we have organised a shuttle bus and pre-booked hotel, just 3 kms away from the airport. With a Sim card inserted and paid for from the Telcom depot we are set to communicate, wherever we are. We learn that the motorbike is still in Toronto, so the expectation to collect the bike is dashed and we have an extra day in Buenos Aires, which is 30kms away. Making full use of the free shuttle service, we go back to the airport the next morning and catch the local bus number 8 to take us ‘downtown’. We enjoyed the 3 hour ‘round the houses’ route, chatting to Ekna, who is touring around Argentina by bus with her 70 year old father from Mexico. We are also fascinated by the array of facial features, South American Indian, Mexican, Argentinian, Spanish and Western European. Buenos Aires is a city in the state of change. We find a tiny ancient church surrounded by construction and demolition and traffic. B A is clean and calm and the people very polite, with an air of relax and respect and lots of catholic icons. We also saw some mattress and plastic street homes and mothers with breastfeeding babies begging in the subways. It’s a bit sad when babies and children are exploited like that and our hearts hardened as we passed by, not sharing our pesos. Walking became increasingly painful and hobbling up and down the city streets began to affect my hip and back. We stopped at a chemist and bought some gel pads on the card, which involved a long complicated passport identification process. This is when we realized that having ready cash in Argentine Peso might be a problem. We found an HSBC, but the card only works in the ATM at a cost! We skyped HSBC in the UK and asked about this cost, they suggested we use the card as much as possible for purchases, not cash, to save some charges. There are no facilities to withdraw a lump sum at the counter. Even though we had a lot of dollars, they are not accepted, so we exchanged those, also at a cost!  We get notification that the bike is now in Chile, off route and we need to stay another night. The hotel is full and the reception kindly phoned around to find us a room at ‘Ann’. We rested and read and looked at the map and the shuttle bus then took us to Ann. So far the bike has cost us two extra nights and a bit of anxiety, on the plus side my heel is getting a rest. We thought the charge for the simple room a bit extravagant, so when Ann indicated that we could help ourselves to tea/coffee and the selection of cakes and biscuits, we did. We also laughed when Ann asked if “I was a girl?” I replied, “yes” and B “is a boy”. My shaved head is growing a bit and I declined to explain the reasons for our matching hairdos. We have since found that in the heat of riding, a cropped head is perfectly cool and helmet hair is not a problem. We have been informed that the bike arrives tomorrow, 3 days later than anticipated.

As arranged, we meet J and S from Dakarmotos, who then inform us that the bike did actually arrive 2 days ago, but without any paperwork. The Air Canada system had gone down and no-body had really known where the bike was!! Always a good start for a year long motorcycle adventure, without a motorbike. Anyway, it all worked out , customs signed, sealed and bike delivered. On the afternoon of day 4, our riding adventure finally starts. The 70kms to the first campsite was very entertaining as we ride our way out of the city into the country. Car windows are opened and long friendly conversations in Spanish are directed at us, to which we nod, smile and point North. We discover that ‘hazard’ flashing lights mean that the vehicle is about to do something which is not really allowed, like pulling in/out or double parking or stopping/starting suddenly. The left turning traffic keeps to the right so that through traffic can go, but when the traffic lights turn red, then they can cut across your bows to turn left, because the left turn arrow is now green. We buy a detailed map and head for the town of Lobos, where the campsite is 20kms out of town at the Laguna. The gate-guy wants to charge us ½ a day because we arrived before 8pm, and then another full day because we are staying overnight and can stay until 8pm the next day. We explain we are leaving by 10 am and will wait outside the gate until 8pm tonight as we don’t want to pay for one and a half days. He changes his mind and offers, as a special favour, that we need only pay for one day, as long as we leave by 10am. All very complicated. He even suggests we can sell some of our belongings if we don’t have enough money. Astonishing, or what? We are very excited as we pitch camp for the first night of this trip and obviously so are the parakeets in the scraggly twig nest in the Bluegum trees above us. Fortunately they settle down with the sun and after a huge Argentine Steak which drips over the side of the plate (for £3) we settle down too. The campsite restaurant offers a breakfast of fruit, croissants, tea/coffee, cereal for £ 2 and as we have yet to go shopping we enjoy their services. On the table is a Tupperware of chopped leaves and a little yellow bowl with a metal straw. A teaspoon of sugar is ladled into the bottom of the bowl, then it is filled with this herby stuff and another teaspoon of sugar, then filled with boiling water. Not stirred and when cool enough sipped through the metal straw. Called ‘Yerba’, pronounced Sherba, it is a typical Arg drink. To our taste it is revolting, like drinking the dregs of a wet ashtray and cigarette stubs. One sip and I had a headache.

We pack up and move on before 10am, finding a road that is so straight, B can even ride ‘hands free’ on cruise control. We watch in amazement as we ride through this wonderland of wetlands and birds for over 200kms.  Muchos Ranches Grandes, many huge ranchlands filled with cattle and horses, vast plains of green, green pastures interspersed with flocks of flamingos, ducks, black neck swans, moorhens, black ibis, egrets, herons, storks and more that we don’t even recognise. We ride through various towns which are laid out in a square grid pattern, alternating the traffic one way then the other with big dips at the intersection to act as a water run-off and traffic calming. It works. We kept looking both ways at every intersection until we discovered little arrows on poles which tell you the direction from which the traffic is coming. One road left, the next right and occasionally both ways. The houses here are cubes of brightly coloured bricks/mortar, only front door plus lintel high. They are clustered in blocks onto the street in the towns, but the more affluent Argentinians have a swimming pool in the front yard, still with a low possibly 2 to 3 cubed structure. The town centres around a square/plaza of grass, statues, playgrounds and benches which comes alive after 5pm when siesta time is over. The shops re-open, motorbikes buzz around and life begins again. We found another bank to try and draw a large amount, but even their ATM would not oblige. The very handsome bankman followed us onto the pavement and as a favour offered to personally exchange our dollars into Pesos. Many places do not take visa, so having cash is very necessary. Turning off the main road we enter the semi-industrial town of Teodelina, occupied by large ‘cereal’ factories. We stop at a bicycle shop and inquire about a campsite. 3 blocks straight, 2 blocks left, we pull into a sports centre with football field, shabby ablutions and concrete picnic tables. “ Are we staying for the music?” asks the man in Spanish, “no, just camping, for one night”. “Then it is free.” How lucky. As we are setting up camp and start offloading the bike, we are surrounded by friendly, chatty onlookers. Our Spanish is improving by the minute. Carmen bounces over, introduces herself with a kiss on the right cheek, sits down and tells us a long story, to which we nod and smile and we manage to communicate in a mix of English and Arg Spanish. The family next tent along offer to take B to the supermercado to buy provisions and the sweeping squad suddenly appeared and swept around our patch. We are toasting ourselves with a late sundowner when an entourage of people arrive, armed with phone-cameras and microphones and tripods. This is the town council, plus the Communal President (mayor, a young man of 28 in his first month of office). We are interviewed, photographed and presented with a flag of the town as their first ever foreign visitors. Astonishing. There are many farewells as we leave the next day, doing 450 kms along more straight roads, cattle and horses plains and wetlands from Teodelina to Vendo Tuerta to Rio Cuarto to Alcira. At one section we turned off the motorway ( double orange lines on the map) onto a short-cut side road ( thin green line on the map). We discovered that thin green map lines mean unpaved, no tarmac. We gave it a go, but when the gravel turned into deep sand, we released some air from the tyres, turned around and managed to get back to the ‘asphalt’, before finding a camp ground at La Cruz. This campground was absolutely bursting with people, cars, tents, caravans, plastic dwellings all alongside a beyond-huge swimming pool and waterfall built within the fast flowing river. It was an overwhelming jumble of habitation and we just keep riding for about one kms hoping to find an area of calm or a turn around point. Luckily at the end turn point there was a gate with a welcome sign for more camping. The whole family of four generations welcomed us and helped us find the perfect spot next to the chicken coop at the top of the garden to pitch our tent. The chicken kiep-kieped gently as we set up camp on the neatly cut flat patch of lawn. It’s always good to shower at the end of the day’s ride and this place offered hot water, heated by an external fire source, in a breezeblock hut. We chose wet-wipes. The grandfather proudly offered to cook some home-made chorizo for our burger bun supper to have with our tinned creamed sweetcorn and vegetable mix.  Just like Boerwors, they were delicious. After family photos and google translate, thanking us for staying with them, we departed. The plains changed to hills as we approached Santa Rosa de Calamuchita, ignoring the sprinkle of rain as the temperature of 26⁰ and the wind dried us almost immediately. We stopped for lunch and an HSBC ATM in Cordoba opposite a church building, looking like a fairytale lego castle in ‘The Seven Colours’. We believe that the ‘Place of Seven colours ‘is up North and we hope to find it. Another long straight 90kms bound by green, green, green pastures that took us to Dean Funez, where we camped under the peppertrees and had a proper shower. The first since leaving Ann! Lining the routes are many manicured greens on dead level Golf Courses, watered from the heavens, something that Cape Town is in dire need of right now. We pass stalls displaying traditional clay pots, urns and ornaments, brightly painted in geometric designs. Argentina appears to be a land of sharp angles, even in their art and dancing. We are handed a brochure to ee a Tango show, but it’s not in the budget.

Sunday 28th January turned out to be a marathon day, partly because it was a Sunday and not much was open. Even the petrol stations in the towns were closed, so we back tracked to the motorway for fuel and provisions. The first station has run out of Super and with the fuel warning light on we just made it to the next one a few kms back down the road. Rule number one: if you see a fuel stop FILL UP. The distances between towns here are vast, more than 100kms, with nothing in between except cattle and horse, maize and sugar cane. Even though it looks very cloudy, with rain clouds ever present, we still ride North across the raised motorway surrounded this time by salt pans and mud flats. The bird life consists of buzzards and harriers and vultures-type birds-of-prey. The electricity poles support huge chaotic twig nests, with parakeets zooming around and also strange moss-balls/ staghorn fern growths. Beats us how the electricity works! We pass a  random herd of  goats wandering down the motorway, being shepherded by dogs, not people, which we only realise when one of the ‘goats’  barked at us to keep away. The salt /mud flats turn into thick dense shrubland, with thorny acacias (Elephant country in Africa). There is no such Big Five in Argentina. We get waved through a police check with the policeman/woman wearing their gorgeous shorts, in the middle of nowhere, 100kms each way from the next town, at a remote coffee place. We have a large black coffee accompanied by a  basket of dry bread and the favourite caramel spread, yummy for the quivalet of £2. Since starting riding, over the last 5 days our budget has worked out at just under £50 per day, excluding the extra fiasco costs at the beginning. Reinvigorated by a sugar fix we tackle another shortcut  over the hills ( indicated by a thin orange line on the map).We are assured that it is asphalt all the way, which it is until we get a bit lost in Icano and some mud. We turn around to find the sign behind us. This thin orange line emerges into a superpass for more than 100kms across the hills to Catamarca. The landscape is one of cactus, thorny swelling Baobab look-alikes, prickly pears and other spiky plants. We see aloes and something very similar to a suikerbos. We spot a black bird with a bright red head, possibly some kind of woodpecker. The higher we get, the mist turns into rain, so we stop and get suited up. Thank goodness we are now highly visible as the superpass get twistier and steeper, and we are riding through and above the clouds. Driving is respectful and we get many waves and phone camera videos from passing traffic/people leaning out of car windows. From the top of the pass we could see way down in the valley a big wide serendipitus brown river, spreading itself sideways. We made it into Catamarca city which was a great disappointment, dirty and full of litter. The Ministry of Waste Management seems to be on permanent holiday here. We cross a water causeway to get to the municipal campsite, which appears to  have been washed away as there are great donga on the way in/out and the ‘banos’ is full of mud. We type supermercado into the Garmin and head out of town. Even the Supermercado has a head scratch and  “ No”  to paying with the Visa, so the cash is disappearing. A very chatty lady takes a  phone photo of me guarding the bike and when she spots B in the shop, she proudly shows it to him! The Garmin says there is a campsite 60kms away, so we go up the motorway again, find a man on a scooter, who says, “ No Camping No”, we carry on to the next town, another 60kms away, “No Camping No”. By 8pm it is getting too late and we pull in to J.B. Albredi to re group ourselves. It has been a long 500kms day, and the waiter directs us to a hostal where we pay 660 pesos ( 25 pesos = £1) for  the night and the bike gets locked in their garage.

We plan a short ride for day 6, starting with one of B’s famous salami and sliced banana rolls. He developed a cold from wandering around BA in the rain, and we were issued with some tablets including anti-biotica, from 3 large pharmacists after a bit of a conflab. A day off will do us both a chance to wash clothes, write stories and rest my still painful heel and his snotty chest. We type HSBC into the Garmin and ride the100kms to the beautiful city of Tucuman, where the ATM is not working. Coffee and croissants and a chat to a smiling lady in a fancy traditional embroidered blouse gets us going again onto the next HSBC. I take a ticket for Premier customers, wait my turn , go to the counter, show my passport and get denied access to a lumpsum. The nice bank lady, in English, gives me a long explanation, but the end result is we can only use the ATM to draw out a limited daily amount at a cost!!! Of £9 per £90 withdrawal!! Oh Well, we try and pay as much as possible on the card, at a lower rate, but even the fuel stops don’t have Card facilities. It’s not a problem yet, but something to keep us on our toes. Rule number two: See an ATM, draw cash. It’s an easy ride from Tucuman to Rosario de la Fronteria where we find out that there has been very heavy rains, wash aways and the mobile data is down. B finds a friendly immaculate academic ‘Shakespeare English Institute’ where we use their Wi-fi to search for campsites on Google maps. Out of the 6 listed, only one is open, the others closed or the road closed. We realise now that each town has a sports centre, within which is a camp area. It’s perfect and so for 60 pesos per night we pitch, make BBQ with more Arg steaks, meet other travellers and rest up for the day. It’s a whopping 33⁰ and the tarp is doing a good job providing shade while B  has a mid afternoon snore/snooze. A bright green lizard pays me a visit also looking for shade. We are joining our fellow travellers (Arg couple in a Mercedes van, having driven from Alaska) to a special Goat BBQ tonight. B has bought 2 kilograms of Rump steak for £1.20 to add to the dinner. B went shopping this morning to seek out Methylated spirits for our Primus stove. He found some at the Farmacia and the pharmacist insisted it was free.  We have been told about some thermal baths down the road so are going for a swim. The ride for a swim turned into a ride searching for Wi-Fi to upload this story. Apparently the Wi-fi and even mobile data is only available for WhatsApp. Google maps, google search, and Blogger are out of the question here.

The collection of people in the campsite include a young man on a fat-wheeled bicycle. He is travelling around Arg by bike and bus, supplementing his income by sharpening knives. He has connected a grinding stone to his handlebars and pedals the stationary bike to set it in motion. Bingo , a sharp knife. There is an aged Scout, identified by his striped scarf rolled and toggled. He is on a very old motorbike, carries his tucker around in an old wooden crate and boils the water for his Yerba in an old peach tin with a man-made shaped spout. The couple in the van are middle-aged, living near Ushaia, and have been travelling all over the Americas and Canada on various expeditions. They area mine of information and have promised to write some info for us. Two mid-30’s blokes strolled in carrying huge backpacks. They are hitching and walking around Arg for one month, carrying tent . One is a chemical Engineer, having played for rugby for the Pumsa, and the other a veterinary student. We swopped notes on the birds we had seen. And  then there is us.

We are getting the hang of the language slowly.  We know our  numbers now. A Double LL is pronounced like J as in Jack. A single L is prounced like L in Lamb. A J is pronounced like gargling Ghhh, or a soft H and a Y like a U as in Up. The E is like the E in Egg.

When we find a strong Wi-Fi you will get this story. For photos go to : 2up2wheels.blogspot.com