9-27

Well tonight my job is to drink wine, take pics and watch Nif cook our dinner of pasta and tuna. Since I have never tried this combo we will have to wait and see how it tastes.

1. Only hotel in town 2. Desert road 3. Cooking tuna

Nif has rejoined us for the last two days ride from La Rioja – 75 km both days. The first day on the way out of town a TV crew stoppped us for an interview for the local TV channel. Once again, 15 minutes of fame. Lots of questions about our trip, then they filmed us as we rode off into the wind. On the highway with much traffic: trucks for miles and miles in our direction as far we could see. Open flat with large plantations of olive groves on both sides. One of these days we may have the opportunity to taste the olive oil made here or maybe some of the olives, themselves! Farm land to dry desert lead us into the town of Patquia where we were sent to the only hotel. No one there at 3pm, so we went down the road for a beer and nap at the table waiting for the hotel to open. The cooled room with breakfast was 75 pesos. At dinner we were charged for the ice and bread. I was surprised they did not charge us for the toothpicks. The night before at the restaurant in La Rioja we had ordered salads with our large pizza. We discovered when the bill came that we were charged for each ingredient separately, making the salads cost over 20 pesos for the three of us. We are feeling a little like Gringo targets!


Today at breakfast we look out and the wind is really blowing. We are going to have a head wind. Yes, up hill and into the wind with the average speed of 8mph straight up the road into the desert again. We stopped a number of times thinking we could get something to drink. Three strikes: no luck. Finally at 4pm we found a roadside store with baños and food. And we could camp and yes, we could use the showers: all free of charge! We set up our tents and bought wine to go with dinner. The tuna and pasta was good and filling as was our box of wine. As we sit in the evening setting sun, we look out at rock formations, the beginning of the National Parks we hope to visit.

9-28

Breakfast with the turkeys and roosters of the yard crowing and gobbling around our feet as we sit in the light of the early sunrise. Off up the road after getting supplies and taking pictures of our hosts, the store owners. We climb up the narrow road into the mountains where the road becomes one lane as we top the pass. A truck driver stops us and tells us he saw us on TV the night before and wants to hear all about our jouney. We chat for a few minutes and then head down into the broad desert valley where the highway rolls gently down, undulating like a wrinkled blanket covered with shrubs and brush. We see wild life: a reah, relative of an ostrich, and a mara, a huge rabbit-like mammal standing 2.5 feet tall and weighing over 20 pounds. No clouds, hot sun and a good tail wind blow us into San Augustin de Valle Fertil (43m at 13 mph average) a small farming and tourist town serving the two nearby Parks: Valle de la Luna and Parque National Talampaya- We end up camping in the city municipal campground for 10 pesos per tent with 24 hour hot water – very nice and clean facilities. Only one other tent is in the large park. Dinner at the recommended restaurant was a great disappointment - no goat. Mosquitoes in the tent kept me going until late, as did the local music and packs of dogs. It is warm at night now and we don’t use the sleeping bag until early morning.

1. Our desert hosts 2. Municipal Campground 3. Fertile Valley

 

9-29

Up early to fix breakfast. We are being picked up at 8 am to go tour the Valle de la Luna. The park is 60km away, the morning is cool, clear and sunny as we retraced yesterday´s lovely downhill ride. A young French couple rounds out our group of five plus driver and tour guide. The Valle de Luna geographically looks a lot like the Badlands of South Dakota and Painted Rocks in the US. It is arid, barren and wind erosion has sculpted many rock formations. The oldest dinosaur fossils were found here and the museum has a very good display area with replicas of dinosaur bones and didactics on the methods archeologists use to uncover and excavate the bones. On our return trip, our van decided to have mechanical troubles, so we sat for an hour while our driver worked to get us going again. Finally with a slam of the hood and trunk, we trundled off back to town. It was disconcerting, sitting out in the desert with no cell phone and no traffic, wondering if we might be spending the night in the van.

Valle de La Luna

 

9-30

Clear and bright; cook and pack up; off to the store for bread and water for our long journey today. On the way to the gas station for gas and air for Nif’s tires, we encounter a new bike problem. We are pedaling but are going nowhere. A big problem with our Hugi rear hug: it is ratcheting forward but not engaging the gears! We find a bike shop and Augustine thinks we are going to need a new rear wheel. He will have to drive 250km into San Juan today to get one or the parts so he can build a new one. No tandem hub, only a mountain bike 36 hole, so no Arai drum brake and we may have a problem with 145m tandem spacing!

Hub Problems

Off to the internet to try and contact Co-motion. No one is there on Saturday. We’ll call next week to explore options for a new rear wheel. We may have to contact Velocity and see if our new rims can be shipped. Then we will have Co-motion ship a new 40 hole rear hub or maybe a new 36 hole hub since 40 hole rims are not avalable outside the US. The bike gods seem to humble us every now and again. The rest of the day was spent getting well needed haircuts for Judee and me, doing laundry and general house keeping duties. Tonight we are off for salads at the good restaurant.

10-1

Music loud all night but no dogs. Showers, then breakfast in the cool forest of our campground with warm coffee, eggs and rolls. My, what a delight! Clean up the campsite and go looking for Augustine. His place was closed up tight; neighbors say he is in San Juan. Well, I guess we are not leaving today. Off to the internet to explore airfare costs to New Zealand and order clothes for us and sandals for Judee to be sent to Murray (Judee’s youngest son) who with his wife and our grandson will be coming to visit us in New Zealand and Australia in February. Around 3pm our mechanic arrived with our wheel. The hub was cobbled together and sort of works. We paid him 40 pesos (about $12US) and hope it holds for a few days until we get to Mendoza and a good bike shop. We will attempt to leave again tomorrow with fingers and toes crossed.

10-2

Quiet all night. No Music! Very warm in the tent and no breeze, but we slept well. We are off by 8:30 on the road out of town. Bici is still not well, but we can pedal. It slips if we back pedal, so our level of confidence is low. Out past the gas station is the countryside. Two hours later we stop for our morning break with 60+km under our belts and feeling good. Confidence is growing, but we are still leary with each start and stop. Will the hub repair hold? After our snack, a huge headwind finds its way into our faces as we near the end of the mountain range and head down across the broad expanse of the valley. The wind is so strong we have to pedal hard down the long slope sweeping out on the valley floor. Just before we started our descent, a bee found its way to Judee’s armpit where it promptly left its stinger and died. First Bite to the rescue relieves the pain and on we soar into the valley.

1. Head winds 2. Arroyo camp 3. Crazy Creek chair

There are no services for the next 150 km, so out in the desert at around 4pm we find an arroyo to snuggle into to get out of the 20-30mph winds scouring the desert. It has been bright sun all day, but the wind has kept it cool and pleasant both for riding and sitting/relaxing before we start our dinner prep. Judee and Nif are in the tents bugged by our pesky fly population. I, on the other hand, am sitting in my Crazy Creek chair, feet out, sun over my shoulder, wind in the trees and flies buzzing my face. In the arroyo and surrounding desert all the vegetation has thorns: little bushes, big bushes, trees, flowers all seem to reach out to scratch your arm or leg and snag your clothes. Not the most welcoming environment in which to camp. Rough camping makes one appreciate the municipal campgrounds and cheap hotels we have found ourselves in. In the rough we have very limited water supplies so we must limit our bathing, saving water for cooking and drinking. In a couple of days we will be back in civilzation again and showers!

10-3

Wind blew most of the night; half moon and the stars came out as the moon set. No fly on the tent so the heavens were evident. Very quiet out on the desert, not even bird calls in the morning. As we push the bikes out onto the road we check for thorns and find Nif has a front flat. After we fix her flat and check our tires we are off. No we are not. Our temporary hub repair has failed and we are going nowhere – AGAIN! Say goodbye to Nif and see her off up the road. Maybe we will meet up again in Mendoza.

The flies are the only ones happy that we are stuck by the roadside again. We are both upset this would have been a great riding day – no wind! 9:40, no cars going our way in the last half hour. This road has little traffic so we may have a very long day. We have decided to try and push on to Mendoza rather than stop in San Juan to try and get the bike fixed. We think Mendoza will have better opportunities for a good bike shop. No traffic going our way for over 2.5 hours so we decided to back to Valle Fertil. A big tandem truck picks us up: a father and son team that hauls rocks and minerals. They drop us off at the bus terminal where we buy tickets for San Juan. From there onto Mendoza, tonight, we hope.

1. Evening in the desert 2. Dead bus

No go. The bus to San Juan decides to break down in the middle of a suburban street. We sat for an hour waiting for another bus to arrive to take us the last 26km into San Juan. We were able to place a phone call to Co-motion to discuss our hub and rim issues. We will call again when we have an address for parts to be sent and hopefully a solution. Since we missed the 6pm bus to Mendoza, we decide to find a hotel and hold up for the night and catch the early bus in the morning.

10-6

We are truly enjoying Mendoza. A pretty town with wide streets bordered by huge trees – everywhere including the bustling downtown. Many fabulous shops and a great bike store. We are having parts sent, so we are here for at least 5 to7 days. We find Art a pair of travel pants that fit! After he lost the 20 pounds his pants hung in folds around him. We meet up again with Nif and dine a couple of nights with her and other acquaintances..

10-7

A night in the dormitory…I awoke with a start. Someone was strangling a large animal in the bed across the room. Screech, goop, moan, wheeze, snarl….long pause….one, two, three, four breaths. Then that horrible sound again followed by mumbling. No killing was taking place - only snoring as if the world was coming to an end. It was 4am and the drunks had returned to sleep. Judee and I both got up and went out to the lobby to play Gin Rummy for a while. Judee took a shower and around 5 pm we tried it again. Sleep. Judee ended up on the couch in the lobby and I fitfully did get a few winks until 7:30am.

Mendoza pictures 1 & 2 Independence Park 3. Gaucho attire

Sharing a dormitory with three other people is an experience in tolerance. Earlier in the day we returned in the early evening to find one of the other residents smoking in our room. The room smelled worse than a small barroom at 2am. Clouds of smoke even though he had the fan on. Our clothes and bedding stunk of cigarette smoke. He looked up shyly and hid is hand in the ask tray! At around 10pm after our dinner guests had left, we went to our room to find our three roommates sacked out on their beds fully clothed waiting to go out and party. We took off our clothes and prepared to bed down. They got up and left us to sleep – until they returned at 4am and began the snoring!

10-8

On a sad note, yesterday afternoon on our way home from grocery shopping we were attacked and robbed. Two men came up behind us, one put his arm around my neck and wrestled me to the ground while pulling out my neck pouch from under by T-shirt and the next thing I knew he had pulled it so hard the straps broke and off he ran to join his buddy who had jerked off Judee’s pouch, breaking its strings. They both hopped on a motorcycle driven by a third man and disappeared into the neighborhood with Judee running and yelling behind. We lost all of our credit cards, documents and passports with lightning speed. We rarely both carry all of our documents, but the hostel was moving us into a new room and we had no place to lock our possessions with a lot of people moving in and out.

Many neighbors heard our screams for help and came out to watch and to find out what was happening. A woman invited us into her house, called the police and gave us water. We were both shook up. Judee asked me where my glasses were. I went back out to the street to find them and another neighbor walked over, picked them up off the sidewalk and brought them to me. The police were slow to respond, so we took off with our groceries back to the hostel. The police caught up with us and met us at the hostel. The hostel staff helped translate and helped us tell the police what happened.


We all agreed that we must hurry and cancel our credit cards. So off to the corner call center we went with what little pocket money we had left. Calling internationally to cancel credit cards is a trial on our patience particularly when we were already upset! We could not get through to our primary internet bank. The machine kept telling Judee she had entered invalid numbers. Three tries of this and we folded and moved on to other cards – eventually getting the job done. When we went to pay for the calls we were short of what we owed but the gas station mini mart took what we had and waved the rest. Kindness when we most needed it.

We got lots of help and support from the hostel staff that walked us across the park to the police station where we completed filing our report and getting an official paper to give the US Consulate to get new passports, also needed to get across the Argentine border. It is a 13 hour bus ride to Buenos Aires to the US Consulate to get emergency one year replacement passports. Supposedly this can be done in one day. A 10 year passport requires a 10 day stay and we just don’t want to wait around that much longer!!

We luckily put some US dollars in the bike for this type of emergency. So we have some money but if we can’t get our internet bank to issue new debit cards or arrange for emergency money we will be in deep horse pucky! Combined with our money and money loaned to us by Daniel, the wonderful hostel owner, we could take the bus and pay the $97 for each of the replacement passports.

How are we feeling and what have we learned?….these types of experiences are upsetting both emotionally and physically. We are licking our scrapes and bruises, but the emotional ones will last longer. Our feelings of trust, both in ourselves and others are challenged. Our feelings of being safe in our environment are lost for a time. We felt we were doing all the right things to protect ourselves: pouch hung around our necks inside our shirts; Saturday afternoon, bright sunny day; nice neighborhood, lots of folks around; etc, etc. etc. In the future we will carry our passports with our money and credit cards. Most robbers don’t want anything but the money, anyway. We will not have as many cards (which we were planning not to renew next year). We will continue to only carry a small amount of money needed for our trip out. Our attackers only ended up with about $100. We could be here for a number of weeks waiting for cards, money, passports and getting the bike repaired!

All of these trials: the broken bike, the assault and replacement of our money, cards and passports would have been really terrible if it weren’t for the wonderful people at the Casa Pueblo hostel, Diego and the owners, Daniel and Claudia. They have aided us with Spanish translations, walked us to the police station, intervened when we were unable to pay or understand things, as well as lent us money. Diego invited us to join the family Bar-B-Q where we helped cook, visited and laughed for an evening. Diego asked the man renting the double room to move and when we went to bed last night, a rose was on our bed! The thoughtfulness is overwhelming and is keeping us going right now when we are feeling so fragile.

1. Line dancing in the Park 2. Mendoza trees

10-12

Good news: airline tickets we had purchased to fly to New Zealand December 26 cleared for payment before we blocked the cards. We were afraid that could have been another major problem. With bike parts due to arrive and overnight deliveries expected from card companies, we left the hostel to deal with those issues and we boarded the luxury overnight bus to Buenos Aires. It was like the airlines in America, years ago: huge reclining leather seats, pillows, blankets, dinner with wine and champagne plus a small breakfast. The bus arrived a little late, so we ran into the subway, having to transfer and then walk four blocks to the US Embassy. The embassy was mobbed - long line outside and in. We took a number and sat in the crowd, fingers crossed. Will we have to stay over the night?? We really don’t have the money. Another couple over heard our tale of woe and offered us some cash and a place to stay with them, if necessary. Marcella, another person waiting, befriended us and we ended up going to the zoo together after we did pick up our new passports!

When bad things happen all the kind and good people come out! Tod, a VP at our internet bank is being exceedingly helpful trying to overnight us new bank cards. Another credit card already came today! We are truly blessed to be taken care of by such nice people. If all goes well we should be back on the road to Chile early next week. The counselor at the embassy gave us a copy of the CA Victims Assistance laws and we maybe able to recoup some of our lost money and expenses for replacing the lost items. All in all we came out ok, but it was a costly experience both emotionally and economically. When we went to take our bike to the repair shop and get groceries, we were both anxious and sick to our stomachs as we retraced our previous steps through the neighborhood where we were assaulted. We are still very paranoid, fearful and untrusting of those around us. We know these feelings of discomfort will pass with time but now the pain is real!

1. Luxury bus 2. Marcella & Judee at the Buenos Aires Zoo