44. Riding with Pachamama

 Chiu Chiu, Chile

As Jorge headed south on an Chilean airforce flight to help his family in the aftermath of the earthquake, I was heading northeast through the Atacama towards the Bolivian border. From sea-level in Antofagasta, the road climbed steadily but not very perceptively over the 200 km to Calama at around 2400 metres, crossing the unmarked Tropic of Capricorn along the way. The more direct route to Uyuni (in Bolivia) via the small border crossing at Ollague began to appeal more than my intended route via San Pedro de Atacama and the Abaroa national park in southern Bolivia. In Calama Rocinante groaned under the ridiculous load of supplies purchased from the Lider supermarket for the 450 km ride to Uyuni, the prospect of my last supermarket for some time sending me into a panic buying spree.

A vicuna and a volcano

I reached the fertile village of Chiu Chiu in the late afternoon, 40 km across a barren, sun-baked plateau from Calama. I hadn't realised its historical significance before arriving there.  Previously an important stopover point on routes over the Andes, the village houses the oldest church in Chile. As I packed some fresh bread onto the bike a man hobbled over to me and asked where I was going to sleep. Within a few sentences Jose had invited me back to his old house, further up the main street, for the night. His family had first come to the village 150 years ago and the front rooms of the house still had the shelving and counter-tops for the grocery store that his grandparents had run. Jose was in his mid-forties and his own family had long since emmigrated south to Valparaiso, leaving him to tackle his various projects, including the tending of a large vegetable garden, restoration of the crumbling house, and finding an outlet for minerals that he digs on a small mining plot that he has in the hills.

Kids, this is what happens when you drink too much coke

Jose's pronounced hobble and occasional jerks of pain were the result of a two-story fall when he was drunk and taking cocaine a couple of years ago. With nine fractures between his two legs he said he never returned for additional treatment after the initial surgery placed pins in his legs. These days were calmer he said, just some beer and marijuana to dull the pain. During his initial period of recovery Jose said he had felt very depressed at the prospect of being disabled but he had since realised how lucky he was and found happiness. I believed him. As he cooked me up a mixture of tomato, onion and eggs and boiled the kettle, a tremor rocked the house and after staring at each other for a few seconds, we realised we'd better go outside. Later the radio announced that it had been a Magnitude 6 tremor. Jose reckoned that northern Chile is better protected from earthquakes with its natural mantle of hard rock sub-surface that absorbs much of the shock. I still pondered setting up the tent later that evening, but settled for a bed in a newer part of the house after carefully studying the thick wooden beams supporting the roof. After dinner we took a walk around the starlit village to attend to Jose's various enigmatic transactions. Across the river in the newer part of town, while we waited on another man to come out from his house, Jose whispered that cocaine smuggling forms a substantial part of the local economy. The cocaine is smuggled over the remote and porous border from Bolivia on foot, before being met by pickup trucks on the Chilean side. Jose laughed at the often presented image of Chile's police being incorruptable.

Electrifying a village on the Bolivian southern antiplano

From Chiu Chiu, it was a two-day 160 km ride to the borderpost at the windswept village of Ollague. Water was available at the old rundown stations that served the trains on the Calama-Uyuni railway that the road generally runs alongside at San Pedro, Ascotan and Cebollar. The road gradually ascended across a stony brown plain, hard salt pans and wove its way around the base of smoking volcanos. Although not asphalt, the road had quite a decent surface that compensated for the headwinds and climbing and I reached Ollague on the evening of the second day from Chiu Chiu, taking shelter from the wind and rain in the Inca Huasi hostal, next to the migration and custom's buildings. Defunct railway offices and warehouses line the still operative railway line and the town has a wild west feel to it, with stray dogs sniffing furtively at passing plastic bags. Dinner that night was cooked in the bathroom as the wind threatened to rip off the perspex strips on the roof.

Piling salt to dry on the Salar de Tunupa

The following morning there was no evidence left in the blue sky of the previous evening's dark clouds. The border opens a little later on Sunday, about 9.30am the lady in the hostal reckoned. A dusty bus from Calama had beaten me to the post and I waited while the aggressive policeman processed Bolivians who were returning home for a visit. I asked another policeman about the road ahead and he solicited the help of a Bolivian bus driver in answering my questions, admitting that he had never crossed the border and apparently had no wish to do so. The bus driver reckoned it was a one-hour drive to Uyuni, 250 km distant. Yes, I agreed, with nitrous oxide perhaps. He asked what type of vehicle I was driving and the policeman motioned over to Rociante. Hysterical laughter followed. I said goodbye to Chile and rode the 4 km across no-man's land to the Bolivian borderpost of Abaroa. There I was processed quickly by a friendly policeman. When I eventually tracked down the smiling customs man, he wasn't interested in the contents of my panniers and brought me over to a wall map of Bolivia that was possibly worse than the useless map I had picked up in Argentina. He named the towns that I would pass through, although there was no road connecting them on the map. Most cyclists passing through this region follow the railway across a flat plain to Uyuni. Even in the dry season though, this can be a muddy venture and given that it was still the rainy season in Bolivia, I decided to follow the main route that was built a few years ago across higher and dryer ground to Uyuni, via the villages of Alota, Culpina K, and San Cristobal.

On the Tunupa salt flats

As I began climbing on the rough gravel road out of Abaroa, dark clouds settled down on the surrounding peaks. Later on this materialised into a gentle hail shower as Rocinante went back up above 4000 metres. At the first settlement, a llama herder's house 40 km from the border, I stopped and went over to the mole-faced old man who squinted at me cheerfully as he gestured that I sit down beside him on the grass. He asked where I was from and if I had a spare pair of glasses with me. Or a spare pair of shoes perhaps, showing me his knarled toes that stuck out of an old sandle. When I asked about water he told me there was a stream down by the house and I went to fill up with water that looked a lot better than the tap water I had been given in Ollague earlier in the morning. After waving me off, the old man wandered off towards his llamas.

Quinoa growing on the antiplano

I wasn't sure how far Alota, the first village in Bolivia, was from the border but based on my sheet of surrealist cartography I didn't think it could be further than 100 km. Just as the sun was settling down behind the peaks I had passed earlier in the day, a sign indicated Alota was 10 km ahead, so only just over 80 km from the borderpost. As I neared the town an old woman was walking along the roadside dressed in traditional weavings and the bowler-type hat worn by women, with a basket over her back. She smiled a good evening at me and then I followed a boy with a bundle of grass on the back of his bike into town, as he constantly checked behind to see that I wasn't going to beat him. I found a hostal with a Landcruiser parked outside, bringing six tourists on a tour of the salar and the Abaroa national park. The smiling owner initially asked for 50 Bolivianos but when I asked for a better rate, he immediately dropped to 30 (about 3.30 euro). Bargaining for everything from a bed to a toothbrush is back as a daily task.

Cerro Rico mountain overlooking the old centre of Potosi

The next day I continued on towards Uyuni, passing through the village of Culpina K and past the silver mine at San Cristobal. Around 6pm I stopped to fill up on water at Ramadita. As I entered the village two young snotty-faced boys ran in front of the bike demanding caramellos. Dogs jumped out of their stupor and joined in the excitement. I sought refuge in a shop and after chatting with the friendly lady and her husband who ran the place, I asked for somewhere to pitch my tent and was shown around to the backyard, the now angelic faced little boys looking on serenely. I gave the lady the kilo of lentils that I had been carting up from Calama, relieved to be able to give a small token of appreciation and even more delighted to lighten Rocinante's load on these rough roads. In return the lady brought me back to the table inside the shop and served me rice, eggs and bread for dinner with apple tea. This region of the southern antiplano is predominantly Quechua speaking but Spanish is also used universally.

Tio, the devil, in a Potosi mine

Various people I had met along the way had told me that the Tunupa salt flats near Uyuni were submerged with rainwater at the moment, so I wouldn't be able to cycle on them. Disappointed that I wouldn't be able to cycle on the salar, I settled for a day trip in a four-wheel drive with six girls. Uyuni and the salt flats are firmly established landmarks on the gringo trail and backpackers abounded in the centre of town. Ironically, the prospect of meeting other travelers and sustaining conversations of more than five minutes and five words often lures me along the solitary road with great expectations and yet when I arrive in these mecca points I often feel like I don't belong there and almost immediately long for the open road again. I soon met other cyclists though, as well as other travelers, and enjoyed the time there.

Fiesta in Potosi

Two and half days hard riding brought me from Uyuni to the at once spectacular and tragic city of Potosi. Overlooked by the Cerro Rico, the city that often incorrectly assumes the title of the highest city in the world, was once the biggest in the Americas. The rich veins of pure silver financing Spanish crusades in the New World and the Old and condemning untold millions to suffering and dying from the inhuman working conditions that persist to this day in the mines. Known as "the mountain that eats men", tours through the maze of tunnels that snake through the mountain now draw lots of travelers to the city. The Spanish invaders fostered a belief in the power of the devil amongst mineworkers and this has resulted in a faith in "Tio", as the devil has come to be called, whilst working underground. Statues of Tio are found in all of the mines, with offerings scattered around them. Gifts of coca leaves, alcohol, fizzy drinks and dynamite are brought and distributed randomly among miners who are met during the tour. Sticks of dynamite are blown up outside the mine at the end of the tour and like many others who have visited the mines, I was left wondering whether the value of experiencing the conditions inside the mines outweighs the reality of turning these putrid tunnels and silicosis riddled miners into another tourist attraction.

Pimp my ride, Bolivian-style

The advantage of leaving a city that is perched over 4 km high is that there is most likely only one way to go - down. The first 50 km on the tarred road to Sucre descended to the small town of Betanzos. Later the road ran across a plateau before descending 600 metres to a valley floor and then climbing out the other side.  A storm appeared to be about to overtake me but then the rain clouds dispersed. Bolivia has a landscape that you have to be careful not to fall off, a Latin American version of Lesotho. The lady at the toll booth in Millares waved to stop me and shouted out that it was 2 pesos for the bicycle. I laughed and cruised through with a policeman looking on dozily. I camped by a dry river bed, leaving just over 40 km to Sucre the following morning.

 On the road from Potosi to Sucre

Sucre, The Plurinational State of Bolivia
Distance pedalled: 30,833 km

43. Chile's earthquake, ain't no such thing as a natural disaster

Since I arrived in Antofagasta last week, I have been staying with my host and fellow cyclist, Jorge.  A couple of nights off has turned into more and yesterday morning we woke up to the news that a very large earthquake had occured in southern Chile around 3.30 a.m. and Jorge's hometown of Talcahuano is one of the worst affected. He was able to contact his mother and sister and determine that they were safe but communications have since gone down again. Much of yesterday was spent watching the scale of the damage unfold live on various local channels and this morning the modern day wonder of reality TV is at the action before the authorities are, reporting on the looting of supermarkets in the city of Concepcion. The takes are looping though and if you watch for a few minutes you have seen it all. The police arrive, tear gas is fired, and now calm again. Jorge was worried last night about his mother and sister being alone in the family house as there was a fear looting would escalate. Looking more closely at the images, however, and you see that the majority of people are running away with milk, nappies and essential food. Only the odd person deeming a 42 inch plasma TV an essential item in this electricity-less period. A woman falls and her non-purchases splay across the carpark, a policeman now beside her. But he packs everything up and hands her the bag back. Now that's nice.

Fatalities are currently estimated at over 300 people and the limited loss of life is remarkable considering the scale of the earthquake (Magnitude 8.8 at the epicentre) and comparisons with Haiti are quick to emerge, where a 7.0 quake recently resulted in approximately 230,000 deaths. The difference in political, social and economic development being the difference in being able to take onboard the historical experience of large-scale tectonic events and to put in place preventative and reactive structures to cope with one of the largest events on seismic records.

So while the Chilean people deal with the aftermath of the earthquake and begin to rebuild their lives and houses, let's hope that lessons can be learnt and adopted and vulnerability reduced in other regions through continued recognition that these disasters are not natural events but events whose impacts are determined by the ability of a population to cope with and respond to the threat. Research into social vulnerability has clearly demonstrated that the most important root causes are economic, demographic and political processes, which affect the allocation and distribution of resources between different groups of people. So by being aware of these linkages and supporting empowering causes that aim to create a more just and equitable world, we can all do our part to reduce social vulnerability and the impact of events, such as Haiti and Chile have recently experienced. 

Antofagasta, Chile

42. To the Pacific and the Atacama

 Storm approaches Refuge No.2 on the way to San Francisco pass

My final two-point-something Argentinian pesos refilled my petrol bottle and earned me a few sweets that were gone before I had left town. One kilometre out of Fiambala and it was back to the stony, bald and sun -beaten landscape. Gone were the irrigation channels that bring water from the high mountains and provide a life support system for what would otherwise be a patch of gravel but can now harbour trees, vineyards and small vegetable patches and grazing ground. Gone too are the fridges, the shelves of food, the ability to decide on a whim that you need something and that you can go and buy that item. A packet of biscuits, an ice cream, a cold beer. Things that normally don't have any importance but seem to assume gigantic importance in the empty vastness. Upon emergence from this sand-filled, fructose-free environment , 480 kilometres hence, all three will be consumed almost simultaneously beside a bemused old man on a shady bench, who I can see wondering whether melting chocolates and a bottle of cold beer really go well together. Indeed they don't but at least they kept my mind focused for forty hours in the saddle.

Flamingo at Cortaderas

The Catamarca provincial government had the exceptional foresight a couple of years back to build six refugios along the 200 km stretch between Fiambala, Argentina's last settlement and the top of the San Francisco pass - the frontier with Chile - and these provided shelter from inundation, tempests and below zero temperatures. Leaving Fiambala (approx. 1500 m.a.s.l.), the road climbs steadily to the southeast before veering north on a more level trajectory after 60 km. I reached Refuge No.1 shortly before 6pm but decided to continue on to the second refuge (approximately 20 kilometres further up). With a young rattling Bono and humming Edge urging me on, the refuge came into view across a large plain. Lightning was poking the ground through the dense clouds on the high ground beyond and by the time I covered the remaining few kilometres the storm had reached the refuge. A night in an exposed tent, with little chance of finding shelter would have been rather unpleasant and I was quickly learning the value of the refuges and waxing lyrical in  my stillborn Spanish in the comment book, encouraging other provinces and nations of the world to adopt such humane practices. Presently a motorbike appeared through the storm and a fellow entered,  carrying several parcels wrapped in plastic. Friendly smiles all round and it turned out that he was from Fiambala but grazed his sheep and cows up here. His family come to visit him for one month a year and they have a cottage a few kilometres up the road, on the other side of the small river. He then said something about milk and tea, which I initially assumed was a self invitation to breakfast the following morning but on reflection I am not so sure. I said si a couple of times in any case. He departed once the storm cleared amidst the last dramatic rays of sunshine shining through the clouds, as I piled up his plastic parcels on the petrol tank. He nodded and smiled in agreement about the beauty around him. A couple of hours later, just as a carrot, onion, potato and scoop of soya granules was reaching near perfection, a car pulled up in the cold darkness outside. Having successfully colonised the small shelter I wasn't particularly excited about the prospect of having to share the refuge for the night but the two men and two young sons who were up on a weekend fishing trip soon had a fire going with the wood they brought and I didn't mind sending Rocinante outside for the night. A 5 a.m. sharp the telephone alarm of the father had us all clambering around in the cold and dark and a couple of hours later,  full of warm porridge and with the sun beginning to make an appearance, I headed north.

Near an oddly placed and inexplicably abandoned  new hotel complex at Cortaderas,  three men were standing by the back of the pickup truck having breakfast. Also up for a day's fishing from Tinogasta,  they shared their coffee and bread and invited me to lunch if I should happen to time it right, later in the day. As we parted, the driver, decked out in Levi´s and large leather gaucho boots, was stuffing some coca leaves into his mouth and then offered me a few. A renowned remedy for high altitude ailments in the Andes, dried coca leaves are legal in many South American countries, with Bolivia being one of the primary producers. Hardly a performance enhancer, but the combination of caffine, sugar and a slightly numbed mouth from the chewed leaf,  had me covering the 94km to Refuge No.5 at 4000 metres by 6 o'clock. A platter of barbequed chorizo's lay left like entrails on the grill but when I gingerly explained that I was moreorless-a-nonmeateater these days to the three very friendly but uncomprehending Argentine carnivores, an enormous bag of grapes was produced instead. The wind picked up as the sun fell and once more I was thankful to the refuge gods.

10km before the Argentina customs post at Las Grutas (4000m)

On the morning of the third day from Fiambala, I reached the Argentine customs post, 21km shy of the pass. I got stamped out whilst explaining to the young Gendarme from Jujuy that William Wallace was in fact Scottish, not Irish. A quick historical sketch of Irish political history, the Las Malvinas war and British imperialism with the customs man, and another friendly chat with the road maintenance guys who filled all my water bottles, and I continued west towards the pass and into the wind. The 800 metre ascent and fierce headwind though had me once again back to a crawling pace. A few hundred metres would be attempted before the little available oxygen would deflate me and then another rest. Sometimes a push. Another few hundred metres. And so forth. Five and a half hours later I had covered the 21km to the top of the pass, consumed all my not-so-fresh bread and cheese,  and decided to stay at the final refuge, No.6, just beside the top of the pass. A shiny new GS1200 appeared and the owner was from Copiapo in Chile. He was tucking his large stash of coca leaves deep into his jacket pocket, explaining that Chilean customs could give him problems if he left them in the panniers. Handing me a small bottle of warm coke he roared off into Chile, while I went back to gathering scraps of wood that had been left by others for fuel.

San Francisco pass, Chile/Argentina (4726 metres)

Some cardboard sheets provided additional warmth and I kept a fire going most of the night and was up at 5am reigniting it, although I didn't intend to ride until the sun came up. I headed off at 8am with most of my clothes on but even then the temperature hadn't risen sufficiently for my hands not to become painfully cold after a 3km descent and  I wasn't able to brake. So instead I wrapped a couple of pairs of shorts around my fingerless gloves and headed down to Laguna Verde looking like a pedaling clothes line. Down at the cobalt blue lake I filtered some water from a stream, although I was later told it has a high mineral content and its not advised that you drink it. An attempt to gain the attention of a policeman at the carabineros post by the lake proved fruitless so I just pedaled past. At the turn-off to the thermal springs the road began climbing steeply again, to the second high point that I had only discovered the day before whilst browsing through a route description I had. Yet again there was a 21km climb, this time to just under 4600 metres and with a stiff headwind the day's intended target of the Chilean customs post, 110km from the top of the pass, looked very ambitious. It didn't look any more likely by 3pm, when after another five hours of pushing and pedaling four kilometres per hour, I reached the high point (4598m) and then the road began to descend slightly through a zone of very steep badenes (dips in the road for drainage). As I passed a site where earth-movers were sculpting the gravel landscape in preparation for a new tarred road due in three years time,  a minibus came out after me. Ismael was from southern Chile and asked me where I was going and where I intended to spend the night, as it looked like I wouldn't make the descent to the customs post this evening. He offered me a bed and dinner in the workers compound, 55km ahead, beside the customs post and the prospect of another frozen, windy night above 4000 metres had me accepting the offer reluctantly and so Rocinante was unpacked and then loaded into the back of the minibus.

 Laguna Verde, Chile

An hour later, at the end of the working day, the twelve workers from the site boarded the bus and we bounced for an hour down to the customs post and the workers compound. Ismael had been in the Chilean military for a few years before deciding to supervise on construction projects and earn more money. Shifts are 12 hours long, for twenty continuous days, followed by ten days off where the workers return to all of the various parts of Chile that they're from. A bed in the prefabs wasn't possible after a discussion with his boss, but Ismael invited me back for food after I sorted out my passport and a space to lie down for the night with the customs post. The post closes at 7pm but I was offered three old, worn and comfortable chairs by the x-ray machine by a detective who looked like a cross between a surfer and an extra from Starsky and Hutch, with bermuda shorts, long hair and droopy moustache. Grateful to be indoors, as the customs post was still at over 3700 metres,  I headed back for a dinner of banana, courgettes and rice with a hundred road workers, served up by guys wearing surgical face masks.

 Contamination from El Salvador copper mine tailings on the Pacific coast at Chanaral

Breakfast the following morning looked like something you would leave out for the birds as I put all my remaining seeds and honey into a bowl of porridge, before the Chilean customs officer stripped me of all prohibited foodstuffs. After Rocinante was given a full cavity search, the friendly Mauricio brought me over to the staff house for a second breakfast of eggs and coffee. Approximately 280 kilometres remained to Diego de Almagro, where chocolates and a cold beer could be found, amongst other non-essential items like water, fruit and vegetables. Yet again though the wind gods cursed me and progress was slow by the Pedernales slat flats but the views were fantastic. Side tracks in the gravel led off  to small  invisible mining camps. The largest mine in the area, at El Salvador, is one of the most important copper mines in Chile.

El Salado

Six days after leaving Fiambala, I forced my way into Diego de Almagro against a stiff wind and while initially considering heading back out to camp, a night in the hotel on the main plaza for $10 was conceded to. The old lady running the place asked was I very dirty, apparently an obvious question to pose to new arrivals, and expressed concern about me carting my gear into the room. After assuring her though that I wouldn't sleep with my panniers and they would stay on the floor, I headed out to find some pizza, my craving for sugar and fat not yet abated. A little pub with pictures of the former President Salvador Allende (overthrown in 1973 during a coup led by General Pinochet, among others), Che and other mineworker heros graced the walls. My vegetarian pizza arrived with three different species of domesticated animals on it.

Truckstop on the Pan American highway in the Atacama

The following morning I headed for the Pacific coast at Chanaral. Again the westerly picked up so that I was forcing my way downhill but the Pacific came into view along with a big smile at what felt like another important milestone. An inaugural dip in the Pacific would have to wait, however, as the copper mine tailings that were dumped into the bay during the 1970s and 80s have provided enough contaminants to kill off the bay's aquatic life and keep swimmers away. I loaded up with supplies for the ride north to Antofagasta, through the Atacama (well it's all the Atacama) and then headed out to camp on the beach near the entrance to the Pan de Azucar national park. A quick visit to the park the following morning and then I continued on through the park, heading inland, to join the Pan American highway northbound. The 400km to Antofagasta was interspersed with a couple of posadas or truckstops where water could be stocked up on. Four days later, the large cement factory on the southern outskirts of Antofagasta came into view.

Mano del desierto

 Prior to 1879 I would have been in Bolivia already, but the city that was originally part of Bolivia was taken over by Chilean troops in an event that marked the beginning of the War of the Pacific over mineral rights in the region, with Chile against Peru and Bolivia. Landlocked Bolivia has maintained a navy and its aspiration that it will one day recover the coastline and recent social conflicts in Bolivia over resource exploitation, especially natural gas, stem in part from the theory that the loss of the coastline has stymied Bolivia's economy. All contributing factors that led to the election of Bolivia's current president, Evo Morales, in 2005.

Arriving at La Negra, southern outskirts of Antofagasta

Antofagasta, Chile

Trip distance: 29,751 km

41. Getting naturally high

"The sherpas start down immediately; they, too, seem oppressed by so much emptiness. Left alone, I am overtaken in that northern void – no wind, no cloud, no track, no bird, only the crystal crescents between peaks, the ringing monuments of rock that, freed from the talons of ice and snow, thrust an implacable being into the blue. In the early light, the rock shadows on the snow are sharp; in the tension between light and dark is the power of the universe. This stillness to which all returns, this is reality, and soul and sanity have no more meaning here than a gust of snow; such transience and insignificance are exalting, terrifying, all at once, like the sudden discovery, in meditation, of one’s own transparence. Snow mountains, more than sea or sky, serve as a mirror to one’s own true being, utterly still, utterly clear, a void, and Emptiness without life or sound that carries in Itself all life, all sound. Yet as long as I remain an “I” who is conscious of the void and stands apart from it, there will remain a snow mist on the mirror." from The Snow Leopard, Peter Matthiessen (1979)

My latest reading material is Matthiessen's classic account of a two-month journey in the Dolpo region of Nepal in 1973, with the naturalist George Schaller. Matthiessen infuses the narration of the journey, whose primary purpose is to document the elusive snow leopard, with his own reflections on the search for meaning in matters of life and death and his studies in Zen Buddhism. All very relevant as I headed off on my own mini-expedition to the high mountains, back across the Agua Negra pass that links the Coquimbo region of Chile with San Juan province in Argentina!

Descending to Vicuna

One night at Crazy Jamies' hostel in the small town of Ovalle somehow turned into seven. A cheap dorm bed in a hostel that I was the sole occupant, no sign of a crazy Jamie, a desire to sit still for a few days, and with the internet to myself, I began researching routes north and decided to incorporate another couple of the high Andean passes that line the frontier with Chile and Argentina. The road less traveled always being more rewarding, if also usually being either very rough, very steep, very hot, very cold or a combination of all of the above.

In contrast to the Paso de Los Libertadores, which I crossed over a couple of weeks previously, the next two passes, Agua Negra (4775 metres above sea level or 15,666 feet) and San Francisco (4748 metres) require slightly more planning in terms of food and water as the distance between the town of Vicuna (Chile) and the village of Las Flores (Argentina) is approximately 270 kilometres, and in the case of next week's pass, Paso de San Francisco, the distance between supplies (i.e. a place to buy food) is about 450 km (for all you readers considering Paso de Agua Negra, note that there is a shop, comedor and a garden to pitch your tent in at Huanta village, 40 km west/downhill from the Chilean customs post). Ordinarily not mega distances to consider except that there is a big hill in between. However, carrying water not food is the major factor to consider in long distances, and it being the mountains, with plentry of snow-melt fed rivers about, this was no problem either. In fact it really just means buying several days worth of  porridge, lentils and soya granules, and hope that it doesn't snow. Looking at other cyclist's experiences of the routes (especially Jeff Kruy's detailed account of several Andean passes between Argentina and Chile) and talking with a German biking couple, Michael and Jolenthe, whom I had met in Vicuna four days after they crossed Agua Negra (after having to wait a couple of days in Las Flores for the pass to reopen following a snowfall the previous week), it was clear that water wouldn't be a problem. In fact, there's nothing to it really. It's just a bloody big hill...

As the elderly Chilean hippies manoeuvred their thundering VW Beetle around my tent in Vicuna, precariously close to the guy ropes and metres from now very awake head, I decided on my cunning plan to take Agua Negra pass. I didn't want to race up it, indeed there is little fear that 'race' will ever be associated with any of my cycling endeavours, but rather to go slowly and acclimatise to the altitude. Part of the motivation, in fact, for the high pass diversion rather than the straight run up along the Pan-American highway in Chile, was to test myself and equipment at high altitudes before taking on other routes further north in Chile and Bolivia. If I was to get water on the lungs like the other German cyclist I met, for example, this would be a bad thing. I already knew that I my other gear was not up to the task at hand. Michael and Jolenthe said that it had not been that cold when they camped at 3700 metres on the Argentinian side of the pass - "just about minus 5 or so". In the glaring headlight of the Beetle I made out the recommended low temperature for my sleeping bag, plus 4 degrees celcius.

I decided on breaking the 175 km journey from Vicuna (alt. 600 metres) to the top of the Agua Negra pass (4775 metres) into a three-day journey of 90/60/30 kilometres. Gaining roughly 1500 metres the first day, 1800 metres the second day and finish off with about 800 or 900 metres on the last day, hopefully with enough time to camp down at a warmer altitude on the Argentinian side on the night of Day 3. And that's pretty much how it panned out. I did 92 km the first day, having left Vicuna at 1pm after a nutrient rich lunch of chips and cheese empanadas, camping in an abandoned shelter just before the Chilean customs post. I turned up at the Chilean customs post at 8 o'clock the following morning and was quickly stamped out. I filled my water bottles up from the taps in the bathroom as advised. Took a initial sip and then a nice big gulp of the pretty gruesome looking water, thinking to myself that the streams looked cleaner yesterday, and then the border guard came over and recorrected his English. He meant the tap outside of the bathroom, the one with the mineral water bottle attached to it, finishing his conversation, as he wandered back to his desk, with something in Spanish that translates into "whatever you do don't drink the water in the bathroom". Several other employees walked past and seeing my water bottles also told me not to the drink the water in the bathroom. Great.

Loaded up with mineral water, I handed my receipt from customs man to the policeman, who eventually appeared from the toilet and waved me out of Chile. He obviously didn't spot that his two finest sniffer dogs were hot on my trail and proceeded to follow me 20 kilometres up the valley towards the pass. I began to get concerned when the big fellow, remarkably kind to cyclists apparently, but charged like a raging canine devil at passing cars, began to bleed around his paws from keeping up with me on the rough stones. Eventually the carabineros pickup shot around the bend and screeched to a halt behind me, yelling at the dogs to get in. I gave my smiling idiot wave reserved for authorities in uniform but only received menacing glares through two sets of designer sunglasses.

La Laguna

By lunchtime on Day 2 I had made it to the artificial La Laguna, a large saline reservoir perched over 3300 metres high, 30 km uphill from the Chilean border controls. I was blown around the side of the lake by the gusty west wind and decided on a sheltered spot for lunch but quickly reconsidered when four wild mongrels began to converge, from both edges of my field of vision, on their roasted leg of Irishman. Moments before impact a toothless man emerged from behind a boulder and whistled restraint to the beasts with remarkably swift effect. He and his son came out to gander at the passing freakshow and he asked me a fairly simple question in Spanish, which unfortunately I still didn't understand. Did I see something, but I wasn't sure what the something was. Shrugging my shoulders in apology I headed on leaving the waving father and son to once again whistle the dogs back. By the evening of Day 2 I had covered 58 km and pitched my tent in a fairly sheltered spot just off the roadside and just under 4000 metres, with only 28 km remaining to the top of the pass. I anticipated a cold night and putting every item of clothing on and my sleeping bag inside my Nigerian maize bag, settled in for a cold one. In fact, it didn't get really cold, inside the tent at least. I awoke every hour or two, the lack of oxygen noticeable when breathing and apparently not allowing me to sleep soundly. At 4am I clambered out, unable to refuse my pleading bladder any longer, but quickly retreated to the tent after getting instant relief in the bright starlight.

The following are excerpts from my journal entry for Day 3 of the pass...

6.25 am Wake up and begin mental preparations for getting out of warm sleeping bag. Momentarily consider the option of going downhill instead. This is a recurring theme for the rest of the morning.

8 am Ready to roll after double portion of porridge and peanut butter. No direct sunshine in the valley yet, only on the snow topped peaks at the end of the valley. Very cold though and soon begin to feel slightly queasy (altitude?) and sluggish. Pass by a short-wheel based Landrover and tent a couple of kilometres up from my campspot. A waving hand appears from the doorway and then retreats. 

9.20 am Regain feeling in my extremities. The day is looking up. Amazing colours.  

11 am Long (plus 5 km) switchbacks start to wind up the mountain after 4200 m. Great going with the wind, not fun against. Managing 2 or 3 km now before taking a break. Eat a half-pack of biscuits. Quite a few cars passing now, most wave, some stop to see if I need anything. A psychiatrist? Landrover catches up and have chat with father and son from Valparaiso.

2 pm Nearing the top of the pass now, under 4 km to go. Man and wife on motorbike are descending. Pulls out a video camera and starts shooting. Nice guy though, from Cordoba. Moments later another car descends and pulls to a halt and without a wave or a hello a woman starts taking pictures. Normally I am not bothered by the attention but they say altitude can make you edgy and aggressive. Driver doesn't see another car behind and it skids to a stop just before pushing them over the edge. Can't help laughing. Driver behind waves and smiles.

2.40 pm What was a distant dream a few hours ago... reach the top of the pass. Fantastic, though very windy and cold. Put off lunch in favour of getting lower down and descend into Argentina seeking warmth.

Top of the Agua Negra pass, between Chile and Argentina

Having had as an emotionally-balanced, indeed high-spirited three-day climb, as one could expect, on the ride down I had a sudden and brief interlude of self-questionning about the trip and the purpose of spending so much time alone, away from family and friends, away from a more purposeful life perhaps. What nonsense brought this on I wondered, as I tried to avoid particularly bumpy sections and large rocks on the road? Thoughts that I imagined I had under control but which can apparently reappear from time to time. And perhaps, why shouldn't they? And then I stopped and ate lunch at 5pm and by the time I had reached the tar road and the first police post, 54 km from the top of the pass, I was giddy again with the joy of freewheeling down. I covered the remaining 35 km to the customs post in under an hour. Down in the warmth of San Juan province, I finished the final pages of The Snow Leopard, where Matthiessen chronicles his descent to the Nepali lowlands and his impending return to New York...

"Remembering the depression of my first descent from Tarakot into the Bheri Canyon, I have convinced myself that the sudden loss of altitude is the main clue to my veering moods. A change is taking place, some painful growth, as in a snake during the shedding of its skin - dull, irritable, without appetite, dragging about the stale shreds of a former life, near-blinded by the old dead scale on the new eye. It is difficult to adjust because I do not know who is adjusting; I am no longer the old person and not yet the new ... Already the not-looking-forward, the without-hope-ness takes on a subtle attraction, as if I had glimpsed the secret of these mountains, still half-understood. With the past evaporated, the future pointless, and all expectation worn away, I begin to experience the now that is spoken of by the great teachers." from The Snow Leopard, Peter Matthiessen (1979)

Meanwhile I know I am back in Argentina now because last night at 11.30 pm the digital thermometer display read 30 degrees Celcius in Chilecito's main plaza, as I sat eating my ice cream with five grannies, watching the world go by.

Chilecito, Argentina

Pedaled/crawled: 28,520 km

P.S. Thank you very much for the several recent donations made by friends and fellow travellers to the Peter McVerry Trust. Dig deep folks and experience the joy of giving! ;)

40. The lentil smuggler

"So how often do you get lost when you're cycling, you know, take the wrong road or something?", asked the smiling, bright-eyed Argentinian girl in the hostel.

"Well, I actually can't think of a time when that has happened...", replied the smug geographer the night before he left Mendoza.

Leaving Argentina

The irony of the conversation's timing struck me as I realised that I had gone 25 kilometres down a dead-end road and now had to retrace my tracks against the headwind and into the hot sun as I tried to find myself on the right road out of Mendoza. In my defence, the map I possess appears to show my cul-de-sac joining up with the main route from Mendoza to the frontier with Chile. But I never asked anyone, and therefore broke an unwritten rule about finding my way. Don't trust the map. Don't trust the people. Don't trust the signs. Ask and question all of them and perhaps you'll get lucky.

About to freefall into Chile

Almost two hundred years ago, on 19th January 1817, General Jose de San Martin set off with his merry band of Argentinian soldiers and Chilean exiles to liberate Chile from Spanish rule. The four-thousand troops crossed the 500 kilometre wide mountain range in 21 days and subsequently defeated the royalist Spanish troops at the battle of Chacabuco, despite losing over one-third of the expedition's members to the high mountains enroute. I was hoping to do it in considerably quicker time and with a lot less bloodshed.

Three days took me from Mendoza to Las Cuevas, the last settlement before the frontier, which most vehicles cross using the Christo Redento tunnel on the main road, the Pan-American highway. An alternative track, however, climbs a farther 600 metres up in altitude to the top of the Bermejo pass, that is lorded over by a four-ton Jesus. The statue marks the frontier and was erected in 1904 to mark the peaceful agreement that was reached by the Argentine and Chilean governments over a border dispute.

Switchbacks down into Chile

An international group of scouts were scattered along the 9 kilometer route to the top of the pass. In the afternoon they would bury a time capsule at the top of the pass and continue their ten-day walking pilgrimmage to Viña del Mar on the Pacific coast as a testament to the solidarity between Chile and Argentina, a relationship that has often been tested over the past couple of centuries as a result of sharing the world's third longest border of any two nations. I chatted with one of the leaders at the top and he appeared surprised that I hadn't heard the recent news about scouts in Chile, where a young scout was hospitalised as a result of a beating received during an initiation ceremony. While the incident was no doubt brutal, it did momentarily cross my mind on the windy summit that if this is the news making national headlines here, it appears to bode better than many other countries on the continent. The scout leader lamented the damage that had been done to image of scouting in Chile and he envisaged a lot of media interest in their current project, which he hoped would cast the association in a better light.

Into Chile

After a slow descent on the less stable surface of the Chilean side of the pass, I reached the Pan-Am highway once more and continued down the road to customs and migration. Officials appeared uncertain at first as whether to put me in the BUS or the AUTO queue, but thankfully chose the latter with far fewer people hovering about. More uncertainty when a loaded Rocinante appeared at customs, do I take the car lane and get the sniffer dogs or do I have to unload all the bags and put them through the x-ray machine like the bus passengers. Thankfully a friendly customs officer gave Rocinante a personal cavity search without requiring me to remove the bags. "What are those?", the officer queried as he squinted into the muddled depths of my panniers. "Lentils", I replied, with a guilty grin. Shaking his head ruefully he pocketed my supper in a large trash bag. Porridge oats are apparently not catagorised as Class A substances and with a wave and smile I was motioned into Chile, breakfast in tow.

Over the past week I have struck north on the only other viable option that avoids the congested urban centres of Santiago, Valparaiso, and Viña del Mar and the busy Pan-American highway (Route 5). The route has passed along quiet tar roads and abysmal dirt tracks through the small towns of Cabildo, Illapel, and Combarbala to Ovalle. Cycling against the grain of the Andean foothills in the summer heat has encouraged a higher incidence of swearing aloud at the occasional American kestral that spectates from a perch on the telephone wires, but the rewards, as always, make up for the extra exertion involved in getting off the main routes. Invitations to a family lunch, beautiful camping spots, and huasos running me off dirt trails on decidedly energetic beasts have provided memorable moments.

One of the vanquished in recent presidential elections

One evening I camped up in what appeared to be a deserted village, at least 15 kilometres from any sign of recent habitation in each direction along the valley in which I was traveling. The several stone-built houses in the narrow valley were all roofless and appeared to have been abadoned either in favour of following dreams of urban salvation or under threat from nearby mining interests. A warm wind required the aid of tent pegs to secure mi casa. As I removed the panniers from the bike, I noticed that both of the plastic fittings that secure the panniers to the rear rack had snapped. The following morning divine intervention and duct tape would make a temporary fix, so for the moment I decided not to lament over the broken plastic. After a vegetable stew cooked amid the ruins that were reminiscent for me of similar shipwrecked homesteads along the west coast of Ireland, I retreated to the tent. In the darkness I could hear a squeak being carried on the wind and eventually it drew nearer, the owner of a bicycle apparently pushing his way through the deserted valley, down a track that quickly dead-ended. My tent encroached on the path and for a moment the person stopped and was obviously considering the spectacle and Rocinante chained up to a tree, but shortly after moved on up the valley. Hills, daytime heat and broken rails, however, soon had me sleeping deeply and the following morning I could see the tracks of the bicycle and its owner continuing to the end of the valley, but all the houses were as empty as the evening before.

On the streets, Ovalle

Ovalle, Chile

Peddled: 27,851 km

39. To Patagonia. On a bus. With my mother.

So here we are. Several bottles of Malbec, 4000-odd kilometres on a variety of buses, and 60,000 penguins later and we find ourselves in the depths of a Patagonian summer in Ushuaia. The blog, along with Rocinante, having gone into temporary hibernation. The prospect of cycling through Patagonia had inspired many a dream on humid nights further north, but against my mother's better instincts we decided to leave the warmer climes of the north for the southern latitudes of Argentina and Chile and travel by bus to the bottom of the continent and do a lap of Patagonia.

We've seen a lot, bussed a lot, talked a lot, hiked a lot, and met a lot of great people. We've seen some of the amazing sights of Patagonia, including the Cave of Hands, Perito Moreno glacier, the trails around Fitz Roy and the penguin colony on Magdelena island in the Straits of Magellan. Yet, while the reunion is fantastic and the region fascinating, the reality of traveling on tourist-filled buses to hamlets whose populations multiply ten-fold during the summer season serves to keep the fires of enthusiasm for getting back on the bike well stoked! The haughty attitude of one searching for a supposedly more authentic way of experiencing the lands I pass through and people I meet. Don´t get me wrong though, I can smell lunch - it's not all penury.

A few minutes into the new decade, having listened to the ensemble of ship's horns blast in the New Year, we abandoned our position by the chilly quayside and, as any decent citizens would do,  we made for the nearest Irish bar. Huddling around our pints of muddy local brew, the girl behind me wondered aloud  in an Irish accent about where she could get one of the party whistles that the 5-year old behind the bar was blowing into unsuccessfully against the roar of AC/DC's Hell's Bell's. It turned out the girl lives in the village where I grew up. Turned out she is the cousin of an old friend. Turned out we were both at his funeral over two years ago. And for a surreal moment at the bottom of a foreign continent, amidst a bar full of  joyous revellers, we found ourselves sharing treasured memories of someone who had meant so much to both of us. It may not sound like the happiest new year on record, but it was up there with the best of them. Walking back to the hostel in the early dawn,  I felt a reaffirmation of all those reasons for which resolutions are made at this time of year - from living life to the fullest, trusting your dreams, living in the moment, to being the change you wish to see in the world.

I hope 2010 is all of these and more for you... :)

Ushuaia, Patagonia, Argentina

38. The evil Zonda

Que tal?

Fancy a little politics? Well probably not, but I shall exercise my editorial privilege. It's actually a topic that I have rarely heard mentioned in my time here in Argentina, but that is no doubt as much as a result of linguistic ignorance on my part, as much as any effort to avoid confronting issues that still causes a nation much pain.

Climbing the Cuesta del Miranda on Ruta 40, La Rioja province 

Those of you still familiar with the music scene from the mid-80s will probably recall how various artists, including Holy Near (Hay Una Mujer Desaparecida), Sting (They dance alone) and U2 (Mother's of the disappeared), brought the attention of the young and trendy to the issue of los desaparecidos ('the disappeared'), those who had been forced to disappear, usually through execution and the corpse then hidden, by military juntas in several South American countries in the 1970s and 80s. In Argentina, the military junta waged the so-called Dirty War on political dissidents and left-wing guerrillas and their sympathisers from the mid-70s until the return of democracy in 1983. A common method of execution in Argentina was to drop people out of airplanes, far enough into the Atlantic that bodies would not be discovered. Estimates of the disappeared in this country vary hugely depending on the sources you consult. A commission that was established by the democratically-elected government reckoned on a figure of 11,000 people. The mother´s of the disappeared that Bono is referring to in U2´s song, and specifically the group Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo (or Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo), estimate a figure closer to 30,000. Amnestry International estimated a figure of 12,000. Whichever figure you go with, it was a lot of people.

Talampaya national park, La Rioja province

Operation Condor was the regional campaign that saw the military juntas in the region attempting to eradicate alleged socialist and communist influence and ideas and to control opposition movements against the participating right-wing governments. The involvement of the US in supporting the military juntas' agenda has also been documented by recent evidence to emerge from the archives in Washington, including communications between former US secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, and Argentina's foreign minister in the military government, where Kissinger advised that "if there are things that have to be done, you should do them quickly".

Looking for friends in Ischigualasta national park, La Rioja province

The mother's of the Plaza de Mayo, who got their name from the weekly vigil they held at the main plaza outside parliament buildings in Buenos Aires, began when a group of women demanded  to be reunited with their missing sons and daughters, who had disappeared during the Dirty War. While the events are shrouded in the great sadness of the atrocities commited by the military junta, the movement is also clearly a symbol of great hope at how those who are perceived as powerless, can become a symbol of truth and resistence through effective communication and collaboration. In 2006 an Argentine government condemned the 1970s government's crimes as crimes against humanity and genocide.

Wind-carved rocks and the site of some of the world's oldest 

dinosaur fossils at the Valley of the Moon in Ischigualasta national park, San Juan province

I have, of course, also been cycling. From Cafayate I followed the Ruta 40 south as it continues to wind its way alongside the Andes, including a visit to the wind-carved landscapes of the Talampaya and Ischigualasta national parks. In fact, often there is little winding involved at all, with the road bearing a straight line through the desert for up to one hundred kilometers in certain sections. Wind continues to be a important element in determining progress and frequently an evening gale picks up towards the late afternoon and reduces the speedometer to single digits. This foehn wind that occurs in this region on the eastern slopes of the Andes is referred to locally as the zonda wind. In any case, I don't have to think too much about the wind for the rest of the month or shout more expletives at the wind gods, as Rocinante is being temporarily put out to pasture while my mother visits from an Ireland that has recently been submerged. I consulted the book of rules on long-distance cycling and it says it's ok to take the bus when family members are visiting.

A lightning show from the tent

Mendoza, Argentina

Trip distance: 27,092 km

37. Into thin air

Monday morning last and a sinking feeling in my stomach began as the boiler-suited man pursed his lips and twisted his head from side to side, gesturing at the futility of prizing the broken drill bit from the braze-on that holds my right front rack onto the fork. It's hopeless, he said. Or at least he said something like that. Like all men who are destined to fix the mistakes made by others, he once again rebuked me for attempting to fix the problem myself. I pawned off a large part of the blame on 'el mechanico' who had tried to help me but had used too large a drill bit. I reenacted my journey on the greasy floor of his workshop. Amidst the iron filings I drew lines and named countries and continents. Why would this man care? But it worked. With renewed determination he tackled the braze-on again, all to no avail. Finally he decided he could weld a new one on and that would be the only solution. I wasn't excited at the thought of him going to work on Rocinante with his oxy-acetylene torch but he seemed positive and told me to come back at 6pm. Six hours later and I held the fork in my hands, admiring his handiwork. In a moment of glee I handed over slightly more than he had asked for ($30 pesos, or approximately 5 euro) but he looked quizically at the additional money and handed it back.

Cuesto del Obispo

Tuesday morning and forty kilometers out of Salta I turn into the mountains. Namibia was the last country I had a puncture in and then within the space of 24 hours I get three. The first occured as I passed a turn-off for the small town of Chicoana and after taking off the rear tyre I realised that this Schwalbe marathon xr had reached the end of its road. In several places the tyre had completely disintegrated and I could almost push my finger through the tyre. I pushed the bike into Chicoana and found a bike shop, closed for siesta, but would perhaps be opened at 7pm according to a sign on the door.

Posing in the clouds

Wednesday morning and with my new made-in-argentina tyre I nervously began the 64 kilometre climb up the Lerma valley. I was skeptical about the strength of the new tyre and almost 300 km, mostly of rough ripio or gravel road, lay between Chicoana and Cafayate. I knew I had a pass to climb over, but it had only been that morning as I was eating cereal from my billycan and pondering the tourist map that I realised the pass was 3,348 metres high, or almost 11,000 feet. As the morning wore on, however, the tyre seemed to be holding up and as various rental cars drove past, hooting their horns I settled into the climb and the rising temperature. Ten hours after setting off from Chicoana I watched the clouds close in over the pass and cover the serpentine switchbacks of the Cuesto del Obispo below. A strong tailwind and unanticipated tar soon had me gliding along at 40 kph and I was just 35 km short of Cachi by the time I camped up amidst the tall trunks of the cacti in Los Cardones national park.

Cactus sunset

The next few days were spent slowly moving down the aweinspiring Calchaqui valley, through the villages of Cachi, Molinos, and Angastaco. The remote area has become a popular tourist destination and rental cars and tourist buses were almost the only traffic on the road, which was still very quiet. No doubt the younger inhabitants of the area have fled to the nearby cities in search of work. Ironically, when the Spanish arrived in South America, it was this region of Argentina that was the most developed, inhabited by the Diaguita, who had developed a sophisticated system of irrigation and the region of Buenos Aires was a veritable backwater. The Diaguita successfully resisted Spanish forces for over 130 years until the end of the seventeenth century when the 2000 survivors were forced to walk 1500 km to a reservation on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, many dying enroute.

Snow caps above Payogasta

One evening as I set up camp in the municipal campsite at Seclantas, I was handed a sandwich of local goat's cheese and tomato by Juan. The cheese had come from an old lady who had traveled two hours by bus to Cachi, hoping to sell it to some tourists. Failing to do so she had given Juan's girlfiend the cheese as they sat and chatted on the bus that evening, Juan's four-month old baby girl gazing out the window. As we talked Juan told me of his previous travels, spending a number of years traveling through Africa and Asia. Writing a book about the former that no editor has yet accepted for publication. He had sold his house and taken to the road during the late 90s when the Menem government was privatising many of the state's enterprises and ultimately setting Argentina on course for defaulting on its US$180 billion debt and subsequent financial collapse in 2002. Juan was in New Zealand when he realised that withdrawals from bank accounts had been frozen by the government. Penniless, he then worked for several months on a fruit farm to save enough money for a ticket home. When the unpegged peso finally settled in at 3 pesos to the dollar, he was only refunded a third of the money he had saved, losing almost US$20,000 in the process. After another couple of years traveling through South America and Europe with his girlfriend, selling jewelry on the street, he yearned to settle down and has done so now in the province of Cordoba with his girlfriend and child. He never puts savings in the bank anymore and despite a complete lack of faith in the government, recognises that the experience has been a very positive force in his life, giving him a new perspective on material things, middle class stability and allowing him to take control of his own circumstances. I try not to imagine how many grapes I'd have to pick here to pay for a flight home.

Near Angastaco, Calchaqui valley

Cafayate, Argentina
Trip distance: 25,924 km