a self-supported bicycle tour through South America

3^rd October to 9^th October: Uyuni – Salta – Mendoza (15km on bike)

Well what a change, Bolivia to Argentina and suddenly things are a hell of a lot more pleasant! Paved roads, good food and infinitely better service!

In order to get further south to give us more time to cycle the lake districts and down the Carretera Austral, we had to do the coach thing and go from Villazon to Salta and then Salta to Mendoza.

In a nutshell the traveling on the coaches hasn’t been that bad, we’re now used to the whole drama and ensuring that all the bags are loaded along with the bikes, hence the rapid descent south to Mendoza.

So, our last day in Uyuni was spent waiting for the train and was just painful. Seeming to go on forever with nothing out of the ordinary happening, the boredom factor was high. We hoped that we might be treated to the quality and luxuries of the last train journey we rode, the Andean Explorer from Cusco to Puno in  Peru, but that wasn’t the case. That said, the train was pretty comfortable with the usual reclining chairs, all allocated of course, a blanket and pillow to make it just slightly more bearable, although the heat in the carriage was unreal!

After much jolting, bumping and a small amount of vomiting (from Jen - the result of a Kit-Kat overdose we suspect) we trundled down the track and eventually arrived in Villazon, gratefully in one piece which I think most people were amazed about! Villazon wasn’t anything really to write home about, it seemed to just serve a purpose for tourists wanting to get across the border into Argentina.

Having eventually got all our luggage and bikes, checked to make sure everything was there, we ventured out of the station only to be confronted with exactly what we were after for a change. A lady was selling tickets to Salta via the bus. It turned out to be respectable and reasonable so we opted to go with the company "Balut". She walked us down towards the border and about 500m short I popped into an office paid the $34USD and we were off to the crossing. Just prior we changed some Bolivianos into Pesos, got our exit stamp and proceeded to walk towards the Argentinean side.

This crossing was nothing like the Peru/Bolivian one, somewhat less stressful and more organised, but oh my God, so frigging slow! The queue for the Argentinean migration stretched back across the foot-bridge, and we were now concerned that we’d miss our bus to Salta. 

Standing in the queue we met Krisstian and Rachael from North Yorkshire. They were on a kind of round the world tour and unfortunately didn’t have enough time left to go on to Chile. So with us being in huge need of travel guides (in English) we were able to barter and buy their Rough guide to Chile.

What seemed like an eternity later, we found our passports stamped with 90 day visas and rushed quickly to get through customs. They were kind of inspecting everyone’s luggage, but like most things here, it’s mainly for show I think. They took one look at our bikes, and thought where do we start? The queue would’ve gotten longer and so simply waived us through, which was just what we needed.

We shot up the road, not really sure where we were going until we asked a couple of guys, then eventually found the bus station. Sure enough the coach had left. We chatted to the guy behind the Balut counter and he booked us on the next one leaving in about an 1hr. It then dawned on us, Argentina is 1hr ahead of Bolivia, so we would never have made the 08:50 anyhow!

Somewhere down the road sitting comfortably in our chairs, descending off the altiplano, trees started to appear and the road was smooth, but oh how glad we were when we saw the wind howling up hill against the bus, good choice!

As Salta came into view it revealed just how pretty it was, Sycamore lined streets and wonderful architecture and a more sticky Mediterranean style climate. The level of infrastructure was immense, like roofs on buildings and kerbs on roads. Yes, we had been in Bolivia too long, starved of good food and some descent shops, but then that’s what’s so good about traveling, the chance to really appreciate things you never really appreciated before!

We made our way to a small hostel via a small taxi, with the bikes wedged in the back sure to fall to out, all thanks to the hostel rep that collared us when we got off the coach. As it turned out, this wasn’t actually that bad, pretty cheap, no TV but at least the room was large with 6 beds in it.

Salta proved to be just wonderful, with the best food to date, and service. The combined Mediterranean feel with stunning architecture, good food and drink was so warmly welcome after Uyuni.

Having spent a few days here, soaking up the atmosphere making use of the free WiFi in every possible location and cafe, spending a couple of late nights with our friends Kristian & Rachael, our time culminated with a certain rugby match before heading to the bus station to board the supercama bus to Mendoza some 1200km south! Yes, the journey was to take some 17hrs, but with meals blankets, Champagne and (as Kristian puts it) with an Argentinean hand maiden, it really is a pleasant way to travel in Argentina.

We’ve now been in Salta a few days, getting ready for our final push to Ushuaia. Although a long way off, it’s all cycling from now on, which we are both looking forward to very much. Our route is now to take us some considerable length down the Carretera Austral in Chile and back into Argentina for the last bit to the finish in Tierra del Fuego.

Mendoza has been interesting although not as satisfying as Salta in many ways, it’s more of a commercial capital than anything else. Interesting enough though, it has basically been built in a desert region with a massive network of viaducts carrying melt water from the mountains to irrigate the region, obviously essential for the vines to grow.

As we’re almost done, we have our final night in which to make sure we eat some fine Argentinean beef, sink a few bottles of their grape juice, although that will have to wait, cycling, early starts and the old vino really don’t mix well.

  So tomorrow we head for the wineries seeing as that’s what Mendoza is famous for, 70% of all wine production comes from this region and kind of explains why you can get a bottle of good wine for £1.75…. We hope to camp on/or nearby one of the 800 wineries so that we can take full advantage of the free wine cycling tours that seem to operate, more about this later in the next post.

Finally, our last supper in Mendoza is complete. The recommended baby beef at the Facunda restaurant was sublime. Although it must be said, that as a meat eater, seeing 0.6kg of "blue" beef turn up on the plate is somewhat overwhelming. The thought crossed my mind that this was very similar to how a lion would feel on the Serenghetti having just caught it’s prey for the day… With every slice of the steak knife, the lump of prime beef pulsated like it was really was still warm, sure, this was almost enough to challenge my belief to eat meat; yeh right, the love affair continues!