Salta

Well, its been a little while since I last wrote, but now I´m in the far north of Argentina in a city called Salta within sniffing distance of Bolivia. Since Mendoza the landscape has changed dramatically again and again from vinyards and olive groves to desert to jungle to tobacco plantations. I´ve been getting stuck into the cycling too, averaging 150km days over the last ten days so I´ve now cycled 5620km. Whilst in Mendoza I read the blog of the guy swimming the Amazon, who´s swimming 100km a day, so I thought as I didn´t have to deal with crocodiles, piranhas and drowning the least I could do by bike is 150km!

After having a couple of days off the bike in Mendoza and eating far too many steaks I was ready to get back on the road again. The first couple of hundred kilometers of road continued through the vinyards and fruit plantations on the valley floor. I then cycled into a UNESCO world heritage site for its dinosaur remains and crazy wind blown rock formations, which was desert with the odd cactus. As I cycled over a pass into this valley I met a local biker who was on a racing bike. The guy turned out to be deaf so luckily I didn´t have to embarrass myself with my spanish and we cycled together for a chilled out few hours. After riding with him for an hour I also had the great idea to swap bikes, so I had a luxurious time floating on a few kg racing bike whilst he hauled my bike which weighs more than 50kgs. He loved it I promise!

I rode through the desert and pampas for three days which was pretty scorching. During one of these days there was a sandstorm which at least helped to block out the sun a little. North of Catamarca and into Tucuman Province the road wound over a mountain range where it started to drizzle. It then dropped down into jungle with clearings for tobacco plantations and GM soya and maize (and anything else they can alter) on the other side which was unbelievably humid after coming from the desert a few hours before. So it was quite breathless cycling, but at exactly 7pm each evening the rain started with thunder and lightening which rolled around the valley for most of the night. It was like a bomb going off in my tent every few minutes!

As well as camping in the desert and jungle clearings I´ve stayed in some interesting spots in some of the built up areas. I spent the night in what seemed to be an old persons home in La Rioja, the pilgrims quarters of a cathedral in Catamarca and a very dodgy place in Tucuman.

So I´m now in Salta province where the landscapes lush and the people are starting to get shorter. This is where the real highlands start with the road going steeply up to around 4000m and turning to mud in Bolivia in about 350km. I´ve managed to find a map of Bolivia today so I´m hoping to get back on the bike and head north tomorrow. The next couple of weeks is part of the trip that I´ve been looking forward to the most.