Thursday - Saturday 10-12th March: Returning home

The final day in Mendoza was spent packing up and shopping. Packing materials in the form of thick polythene sheeting, bubblewrap, cadrboard, and packing tape were used to pack up Dobbin. We were directed to the other side of town by a very helpful man at a hardware store for the plastic. There we found a few shops selling nothing but different forms of plastic, from bowls and kitchen utensils to plastic bags of many sizes to large rolls of sheet plastic of different types being sold by the metre, it was all there. So getting hold of packaging material was not as hard to find as we feared. The cardboard we sourced from the restaurant/cafe in front of the hostel, and used to protect the tubes as pipe lagging wasn't available - frozen pipes is not something they need to worry about in the city. We removed the forks and rear mudguard, and disassembled the rear wheel and put the hub back into the frame to act as a spacer. It took Joth 2+ hours to pack up the bike, while I sorted out and packed up the rest of the kit, discovering how little space we had for presents to take home. We then went shopping for gifts. Surprisingly, we couldn't find any posters or decent postcards of the Andes. We'd promised ourselves a picture of them which we could frame and hang up at home, but couldn't find any anywhere! We spent the evening in a nice parrilla restaurant with some juicy steak and a splendid bottle of wine. We also came up with some good ideas of what to do during our unexpected two weeks off.

The following morning started ridiculously early. We'd booked a (van sized) cab at the hostel reception the previous evening, but weren't completely confident that we were going to get the transportation we needed to the airport. There were quite a lot of cabs around, so when a very helpful cabbie stopped to see if we needed a taxi (without being hailed), about 15 minutes after are booking time, we showed him Dobbin. After much hmmming and us vetoing the idea that he could travel with 2/3rd of him sticking out of the boot, we managed to get him inside the car diagonally with the front passenger seat down, and with Joth squeezed in the back propping him up. The cabbie then got another cab for me and the rest of the luggage. Having managed to get Dobbin into a fairly small (Ford Escort sized) car, we felt confident we'd manage to get him home OK. (As it turned out, the only section of the journey which was difficult was getting a taxi to take us from Heathrow. "A bicycle? to Morden?? haha no mate!").

The check-in desk was still quiet, and the the singular check in woman at the LAN desk didn't even blink when shown Dobbin, and after performing the necessary paperwork, summoned a porter to take him away. The forty minute flight to Santiago was amaz. We flew over the same pass we had cycled down, and in the morning sunlight it was incredible. As the journey was so short, the plane literally hopped over the Andes, spending the whole flight either climbing or descending. The passenger information screens showed an altitude of just 4800m as we flew past Cerro Aconcagua which at 6962m, is significantly higher than we were! It was incredible to look out at a mountain from an aircraft, not just down on it. The flight to San Paulo was less inspiring, but we were both impressed by the music collection on the IFE system - 100+ classical albums, 300+ rock and pop albums, and many many more in the other 4 categories. We had been late leaving Santiago, and we were 40 minutes late by the time we reached Sao Paulo where we had a theoretical 4 1/2 hour transfer time. As we had bought the tickets to Sao Paulo separately to the next leg, we actually needed to go through immigration, check back in and then go duty free shopping. What we didn't count on was the queues. We had to queue to go through arrival immigration, wait for baggage, queue for the check in, queue to go through security, then queue to go through departure immigration again (for the stamps to say we were leaving the country). So 2 hours in immigration queues for 1 hour actually in the country! We did get to spend a few minutes in duty free before they called final boarding for our flight though. After Brazil, Heathrow seemed hugely efficient. It took less than an hour from the wheels touching down to us exiting the airport. We managed to get a phone booked cab home, and so it was the end of the adventure.

We'll hopefully post a few more entries though on more general aspects of the trip, such as kit reviews and what'd we'd do differently another time. I might write something about food too :-)

Tuesday, Wednesday 8-9 March : game over man, game over!

A vacation DNF?

We've had a couple of tough days, which have led to some hard choices. After a day and a half of closed-shop frustration (very reminiscent of our days in Puerto natales, at the other end of our trip), we finally got the rear wheel disassembled to a point we could assess the damage. The news was not good. Not only were the bearing races very worn, but the axel itself is badly damaged. Of course, the axel is longer than that of a standard bike and so getting a new one would take at least 6-10 working days. This would leave us with too little time to do anything beyond prepare to fly home. This left us with 3 broad options :

1 - ship the bike home now, buy some rucksacks and spend the next couple of weeks backpacking

2 - leave the bike in Mendoza for a couple of weeks and go backpacking (or car rental), returning to Mendoza to fly home

3 - arrange to get ourselves and the bike home as soon as practical.

There are actually a number of hybrid options too, but all fundamentally depend on us being able to get the bike out of Mendoza - and neither of us are confident that it can be safely ridden anywhere with a worn axle (and especially after the tender ministrations of the 'friendly' bike shop mechanic this morning), which means bus and air are the only options. By disassembling the bike, we make it more likely that a bus company or airline will carry it, but it also increases the chances of it being damaged in transit, and increases the amount of packaging we need to find. In a major city which seems to contain less cone spanners than are currently sitting in our garage, this could be a problem. The other issue is that we both desperately wanted to cycle a 'proper' Andean high pass. That is to say, something more than you find in Europe, or anywhere outside the Himalayas for that matter. In fact, one of the reasons we didn't do the ripio pass over Cristo Redentor was that we didn't feel the need to knowing we had big plans on cycling the Agua Negro pass, as our last big experience which in many ways the rest of the tour had been planned as a build up to. Doing anything else now feels like we would simply be filling the time merely for the sake of it.

So, since I started writing this, we've now decided to try and fly ourselves and the bike home in the next few days. After an afternoon trying to organise all the different options, it seems like the sensible choice. It may yet be something we'll look back on as the wrong decision, but given we've known for a couple of months that we want to come back to South America one day, it doesn't feel so bad.

So, this evening was spent dismantling and preparing Dobbin for a couple flights on an airline that doesn't take tandems (!), drinking wine, and using up some of the food and fuel we'd been stockpiling for our final expedition up to the remote, 4700m altitude Andes pass. A more relaxing end to our trip in some ways, but leaves some significant unfinished business. We've learnt a lot about the tandem, our equipment and ourselves over the last 2+ months. Next time we will be even better prepared, both in terms of expectations of our equipment and of ourselves.

Maps are back!

Just noticed My Tracks has updated itself to a new version that can upload My Maps once more, so I've just uploaded map link for the last week. May do more if I get really bored waiting for the bike shops to open!

Monday 7th March : the horse is lame

So, we're stuck in Mendoza with a broken bike!

We had a good morning cycling up and over the final ridge and a fantastic (if very hazy) view on the descent to the plain and Mendoza. About 25km out of the city the freewheel on the bike finally gave up. It started misbehaving a few weeks into the trip, and the pedals would go around when you pushed the bike forward. It failed 'fixed' rather than 'free' fortunately, so we could pedal, but not freewheel. We've always wanted to try a fixed wheel tandem, but never thought that Dobbin would fit that category! Unlike a true fixed wheel bike we could still change gear (just), and the bike wouldn't give you a little kick to remind you to keep pedaling - the excess chain would wind itself around the cassette instead. We fortunately had found a non documented, decent, non motorway route into the city as the cycling was interesting enough as it was! This eventually led to a very good quality new cycle path leading right into the city (following a disused railway line embankment) but unfortunately the town has the UK affliction of forgetting to signpost where you will get to should you follow said cycle path! (Germany on the other hand was great, even labeling cities hundreds of km away and across borders!)

The freehub is not a serviceable part (although it can be replaced), and we had hoped that it would last until we got back to the UK where we were thinking of replacing the entire hub. The chances of finding a replacement 48 spoke tandem hub in south America is very slim, and time wise, there is no point in trying to ship a hub here.

On the way into town we saw many people out on road bikes, and we wondered whether it was a public holiday here. The tourist information centre confirmed that today and tomorrow are public holidays and that all the bike shops would be closed on both days. We wanted to take the wheel apart to assess the damage before visiting a bike shop, so we got places in a hostel with a large garden (and swimming pool) around the back. A closer examination of the wheel indicated that the problem with the hub was not as simple as we first thought, and that there was significant resistance to the wheel turning at all! The axel is off centre on the drag brake side, and the central part of the drag brake appears to have split and turned oval! Unfortunately we can't confirm the problem, or assess the damage to the hub as we didn't bring the correct tool with us - we have removed the cassette, but can't disassemble the hub. There are many bike rental places here (including the hostel), but none seem to have any bike maintenance tools. So we are stuck in Mendoza with a broken bike for a couple of days. Fortunately this is the centre of the Argentinian wine region, so there is plenty to do.  We're hoping that the bike is fixable though and we can continue our cycling adventure.

 map 

Sunday 6 Mar: definitely back in Argentina now

The 200km descent didn't entirely live up to expectations. The first hour was pretty fair traveling, but then we refound our old friend, Argentine headwind. The clouds had cleared overnight so it was a dry day, but very windy. It isn't supposed to be that strong this far north, and it is meant to prevail from the west, yet there it was in our faces as we traveled east, and then south after lunch. We somehow pretty much avoided any wind in our previous sortie into Argentina, in the lake district, so maybe this was to make up for it.

The Rio Mendoza valley is spectacular scenery though, so our stunted speed was not without its benefits. The rock is red and orange and green and black at various points, and interesting shaped with oddly angled strata throughout.

Also, entertainment was found playing spot the (disused) railway line, seeing the bridges and tunnels it follows and landslides it disappears under. At one point in the afternoon we saw a couple people with a motorbike making their way up the abandoned line! Not sure how they were coping with the collapsed sections and crumbing embankments above the fast flowing river. The Mendoza river is popular for white water rafting, and we saw several rafts on the river. There didn't seem to be a great deal of white water though, and like most of the rivers we've seen flowing out of the Andes in this area, the water was definitely a muddy brown colour.

As well as windy, this valley road is less monotonic in its ascent to the pass, and by lunch we'd already climbed over 800m despite being on the downhill direction!

By 5pm we were pretty warn out from battling the wind, barely managing 10mph downhill in places, so we gave up on any plans of making it to Mendoza, and stopped in Potrerillo with some 50km still to go. This is a slightly odd town, the recent (ish, I think) dammed river has forced the road to reroute and bypass the town, but they seem to have forgotten to put up much in the way of signs to let you know what the town offers, or that it's even there. We eventually found the campsite, after climbing several km around the bypass to drop back down into the town and discover we needed to get back across the town to a few hundred meters of where the road had passed on the way in!

So, in all not the elusive hundred miler day we thought it might have been, but 127km it was still our longest yet of this tour, and 1500m of climb and the headwind, not an inconsiderable one.

  map 

Saturday 5 Mar: look Dobbin, mountains!

Wel, Damion was right when he said cycling at altitude makes you fart!

I missed the 6:30 alarm due to having ear plugs in, but Emma informs me there was one. We made it out the tent just after 7 by which time daylight was making itself visible, although we had to cycle up the valley a way before the sun finally popped out from beside a mountain to warm us up.

Loaded up with soft drinks at Rio Blanco, but we didn't see the old engine sheds that apparently remain there. Next the road started to ascend more, in short but occasionally steep ramps between rolling sections along the valley. It was starting to feel like it could be a tough old day, but at least the sun was not overbearing nor the traffic unbearable.

Around the 93km marker (20k on from last nights stop) we passed another campsite. Given a longer day leaving Los Andes that could make a better camp before starting the main ascent, especially if one was intending to tackle the longer route over the top of the pass.

Shortly after midmorning snack, we turned a corner to see the first of the hairpins, and we knew the real climb was about to begin.

There are 29 numbered switchbacks in all (photo), the first 20 in one tightly woven set and the rest up the remainder of the ascent to the portillo ski resort. There's something really quite magical about climbing switchbacks. (In a strange way they're more fun to go up than down - for tandem descents we prefer nice straight roads which makes this pass a perfect choice for doing in the direction we are going). As you climb you get a real feeling of your progress. And it was very noticeable that this was the point that passengers started leaning out of passing cars cheering and taking photos, which just got louder and more frequent the further up we got. At one point we even saw a juggernaut driver taking a snap of us, whilst simultaneously negotiating an inside lane hairpin bend!

The portillo ski resort is at about 2800m but with no snow anywhere in sight it was a strange image. We pressed on past, around a long stretch of roadworks, and then through a long covered section of road that we were glad to put on the rear lights for. Then, on emerging we saw the flags that mark the start of the 3km tunnel between the countries, and off to the right the dirt track that leads up to the Cristo Redentor monument that stands at the summit of the natural pass. Decision time. At this point we were at 3200m, the highest we'd ever cycled, and the highest we'd been with full touring luggage by about 2 vertical km! It's another 600+ meters up to the summit, and as the weather was looking suspect and the day getting on, we decided the sensible option was to take the tunnel. Not that we're big fans of sensible options!

Bikes are not permitted through the tunnel, but a very efficient system is in place such that within a couple minutes of reaching the entrance a man appeared with a small truck and loaded the bike and luggage in, for a free lift through to Argentina. Whereas motor vehicles get to pay to drive through!

Sure enough, we emerged the other side into a rain shower that soon turned to hail, feeling glad we'd already donned rain jackets before loading the bike on the van as it's the most convenient way to carry them.

After 15km of rapid if damp going on painful descent we reached customs, which is very strangely a combined Chile / Argentine post. Very odd to see the respective authorities sharing offices and chatting to one another, when the early crossings we did in the south still have multi kilometer demilitarized zones to stop them taking shots at one another - or so it feels like!

Beyond the customs point is puento del Inca, an intriguing natural bridge with small settlement built around it, where we have stopped to camp. This area has base camps for folks attempting ascent of cerro Aconcagua, so has quite a different feel to the ski resort the other side. The valley is completely different too, being long and stretched out, and rocks of amazingly varied colours from what we have seen so far; looking forward to seeing more on the 200km descent to Mendoza tomorrow!

 map 

Friday 4 Mar: heading up the Aconcagua valley

I never expected a day heading towards south America's highest mountain to be quite so relaxing. Maybe the fact we've not yet spotted it behind all the other towering peaks helps. Fortunately, we'll only be passing by it rather than right over Aconcagua (6962m) itself!
As predicted we had plenty of sleep to catch up on after late nights and overnight bus journey, so we made full use of the midday checkout time at the hotel. Los Andes must have one of the nicest tourist information gentlemen we'll ever meet. He seemed delighted to see us arrive and enter his information shed, and invited us both in to sit down and get all our questions answered. I almost thought he would offer a cup of tea too! Despite him not knowing a word of English we understood almost all he said, partly due to our improving skills but mainly because he spoke nice and slowly and with plenty of gestures! There wasn't really a huge amount for him to say though: tourist facilities in this area are fairly limited, and generally outweighed by trucker stops.
He had some good photos on his PC of the road to Mendoza we plan to follow. He warned about many lorries along it, but when we came to it we found it had been resurfaced since his photos were taken and now has a good sized shoulder making it quite easy to cycle. Also the traffic seems fairly friendly, even though there is a lot of it, as I guess everyone setting out on this pass has already mentally prepared themselves for a solid journey that can involve a good chuck of time behind slow trucks labouring the climb, or even more so the descent judging by stuff coming the other way! A lot of international vehicles, Argentine as expected but also Paraguay, Peru, Uraguay, Bolivia plates or destinations.
Like yesterday we had more great views up and down the valley, but again too hazy to do much justice in photographs.
We were both grateful to find the one campsite we'd been told about on this road, at the 74km marker 28k from town as promised. As well as both being a bit tired still, and feeling the heat of the day, we seemed to develop a slow puncture midafternoon and it was useful to be able to fix it with the bike unloaded at the site as, of course, it was the real wheel. This was the tyre I swapped over from the front wheel 2 days ago - think I managed to get some sand in it which did it, certainly doesn't look this the Marathon plus tyre itself has let us down yet!
The campsite is right between the road and railway line, so could be a bit noisy overnight. The railway predates the road pass, and must have been quite something in it's day. It no longer runs right through to Argentina, but seems to be used for mineral transportation for some mines.
At least the site will be convenient as after an early supper and sleep we will try to get out for an early assault on the main climb tomorrow, before the temperature gets too high; it was predicted to peak at 29°C today, and every day for the next week! As we're further north again daylight is officially now from 7:30 to 20:15, some 4 hours less than when we started out. And of course we're now right amongst the mountains making days even shorter. So we'll probably be getting up in the dark for the first time in months!

Thursday 3 March : to Santiago, and then some

The bus journey to Santiago was a success - two Things and one Dobbin arrived safe and well. Although we managed some sleep on the bus, we were both still rather tired however so abandoned any plan of trying to cycle to Los Andes, and decided to just try to get out of town. Like any large city you are not familiar with, Santiago is difficult to enter/exit when riding a bike, especially as all the roads shown on our map exiting the city are motorways, and any others would be dirt tracks! We had read on a webpage that a good way to exit was to use the Piedra Roja Pass, which starts in a posh suburb in the north east of the city and is not a motorway. Navigating to the suburb is also fairly straightforward, and uses the main road (avenue liberator Bernard O Higgins), through the centre of the city. There was even an off road bike path for some of it. We stopped a couple of times for late breakfasts, finding a cafe near the map shop recommended in our guidebook where we wanted to get some more detailed maps of the city and borders. By 11 it still wasn't looking like it might open though, so we carried on and then had lunch at a cafe next to a bike shop on the east side of town. The shop owner was very helpful, lending us a track pump and spending some time searching for the slightly unusual European style inner tubes we use (MTB size tyres with presta valves: while performing the maintenance in Temuco, we realised that we had managed to bring a spare tube which wouldn't work with these rims as the valve is too large). On the bus overnight I'd noticed the outside temperature steadily climbing, with it reaching 20 degrees before dawn on the outskirts of the city. It's definitely a bit warmer here than further south!  Shortly after lunch we had our first navigational issue, as the bridge we wanted to use to cross the river is a restricted access road. We could see the road we wanted to take on the other side of the river, but there was no way to reach it. The detour involved a small climb which gave a good, but very hazy view of the city, and we eventually found the pass. Unfortunately, for no good reason we could see this road was also restricted access - no bikes, lorries, buses or horse drawn vehicles. We decided to ignore the signs and carry on as the only other option was to return to the centre and try and hitch (the short distance buses are too small for a tandem). There were a number of exclusive new developments on the road, and we thought the signs were possibly like those sometimes found in the US - more socially oriented than for safety. We certainly saw a few posh road bikes on the road, and it remained safe and wide for it's entire length. The views descending the far side were great, but again, very hazy. Having reached Colina and ruta 57, we noted the motorway feel of the road and the the 'cycling prohibited' signs. While people do cycle on this road, we really didn't want to, and with no obvious accommodation nearby we decided to try and hitch a lift to Los Andes. The first Dobbin sized vehicle stopped (a small enclosed lorry), and the luggage was quickly loaded into the back, with us in the front. We had difficulty understanding where the driver was going to drop us off, but understood that he was taking a load of tomatoes to Argentina. We were dropped at the toll booths prior to the motorway tunnel where our driver was taking a dirt road to collect his load, and made our way to the other side. There were many more vehicles here than our previous hitching point. A recovery truck soon stopped and after strapping Dobbin and luggage on the back we made it to Los Andes, and the end of the motorway (for now). It was a useful day as we got to do a bit of climbing in the heat, and also confirmed that hitching with the bike is quite possible. We are planning to have an easy day tomorrow and cycle the first (valley) part of the climb to Mendoza, leaving the main climb (switchbacks) for the following morning.

map