Tafi del Valle

It did not rain in the night but the humidity left the tent and sleeping bag damp in the morning. I packed and paid for my night at the campground and turned off Ruta 38 onto a road that would lead to Ruta 307 and the high mountains. I rode back through fields of sugar cane, high along the roadside, and beyond the mountains dark and partly covered by the clouds.

I stopped along a stream to eat some cookies and a small kitten crawled out from the sugar cane. She looked healthy and meowed and rubbed against me and did whatever she could to convince me to take her with me. But where I was going was hard and high and cold and not a place for a kitten. I left her some pieces of cookie and soon after turned onto Ruta 307 and began the slowly rising ascent, the sun behind me and the mountains ahead and looking very high.

Ruta 307 followed a river which you heard but could not see through the thick forest. Sweat poured off me in the humidity and the ascent steepened. Then the road was alongside the river rushing down through the rocks and boulders and the climbing became very difficult, winding higher through dense, vine-covered forest.

There was a break in the climbing at the statue of an Indian looking out over the valley. This area of Argentina was one where Indians still lived and there were shops along the road at the statue selling things they made. I stopped and had a coffee and a bottle of sparkling water. A young man told me there was another 20 km of climbing before the road leveled out to Tafi del Valle.

I rode higher and the temperatures cooled though the air was still wet and heavy. The altitude got to me a little and I felt some nausea and my legs were dead and heavy and I stopped to rest. The nausea passed and I felt better and then finally I broke through the tree line and the grade of the climb lessened. The mountains were green and grassy and there were cows grazing on them with the road running along the river. It was cloudy and colder up here and I put on my sweater and continued the climb higher.

The road flattened out and I coasted down into a valley along a lake, the town of Tafi del Valle ahead built up along the side of the valley. There were black clouds blowing down from the higher mountains and quickly it was pouring rain and I pulled under some trees and put on my rain gear before continuing the ride into the town.

Tafi del Valle is a clean and pleasant town with many artisan shops for the Indian goods made in the region and it is very popular with tourists. There was a break in the rain and I rode up to the higher part of the town where there was a campground and just got the tent up as rain started down again. It was quickly dark and I lay inside listening to the rain pound the tent and I was happy to be out of it. The tent and sleeping bag were damp and it was good to be wearing wool. I cooked up some oatmeal and ate an apple. Later there were thunderstorms and the rain continued through the night.

Monteros

It was cool and wet when I awoke. The inside of the tent and rain fly was damp from the humidity and I packed it wet and I got on the road. There were many kilometers of farmland and pasture and then the small towns began along Ruta 38, one after the other.

There was the strong smell of dead dogs decomposing on the roadside and the towns were poor, the road dusty with couples and families of sometimes four people squeezed together on small motorbikes riding past me. It was not a very inspiring stretch of riding but it was flat and fast and there was no wind.

My plan had been to get off onto Ruta 307 and to begin the climb up into the mountains and to camp off the roadside there, but I saw dark clouds up in the mountains. It looked to be raining very hard up there and I thought the storms might blow down into the valley. I wanted to get the tent up and before the storms came. Outside the pueblo of Monteros, where you can access Ruta 307, there was a campground and I pulled in and pitched the tent.

I rode into town and bought supplies at the supermercado and cooked up a plate of pasta back at the camp. The mosquitoes were very bad and I paid a high price for making pasta but it was good with fresh tomatoes, tuna and onion. The woman who ran the campsite told me the climbing tomorrow would be a great challenge and that it was very beautiful. I was looking forward to the mountains and the colder weather after days of riding in the hot, humid valleys.

Rumi Punco

I left the hostel and rode through the streets of Catamarca to Ruta 38 and descended towards the Sierra de Ancastio del Alto. The Sierra de Manchao was behind me and the zonda was blowing powerfully between the ranges. It was going to be a tough ride north over the mountains and onto the plain. I was stopped at a police checkpoint before the road turned into the wind. The cops were curious and wanted to talk and we talked, but I was only thinking about the climb ahead. The policemen wished me luck and the road started up.

There was a turnoff for the Cuesta del Portezuela and I realized I would not have to go over it. Instead Ruta 38 rose steadily higher, the zonda a strong headwind against me. I turned it in the lower gears of my second chain ring, head down, the sun hot, the road bending but always rising between the two ranges of mountains.

It was a green and fertile country and there were orchards and along the road and stands selling the produce from the region. I bought a pear and some apples and the pear was one of the best I had ever eaten and I would have bought more if they weren’t sure to be turned to mush inside my saddlebags.

I stopped at service station at La Merced and ate a sandwich and drank a juice and took a siesta under a tree beside a Gauchito Gil shrine. The road became much steeper from here as it wound up into the Sierra de Manchao. The road was finally going over the range. Sweat poured off me as I struggled up the pass.

Then at the top I could see down into the valley, flat and green and stretching out to the horizon, and then down, descending, the road dropping, and bombing down the mountain, little bugs bouncing off my face and through the trees catching glimpses of the green valley below until through the last trees and out onto the plain, the farms and fields of corn and soybeans stretching out.

It was flat and hot and humid in the valley and very buggy and I kept my mouth shut and eyes squinted as I rode through the farmland. It was late and the sun was near going down below the mountains but with all the farmland there was no place to camp. But then ahead I saw a little access road that went back into a forested area and I rode back in and found a little spot partially hidden behind some brush along the dirt road. There were many mosquitoes and I put up the tent and quickly crawled inside. I cooked up some oatmeal and a cup of coffee. It was too hot and humid to get inside the sleeping bag and I lay on top of it. Soon after I closed my eyes I was asleep.

Catamarca 2

Catamarca

I woke up and knew I had a tough climb ahead of me. On the map Ruta 60 through the Sierra de Manchao was a squiggly line, meaning I was sure to have much steep ascending on a road cut back and forth into the mountains. My legs were heavy and I wasn’t looking forward to it. But the zonda was not yet blowing and I would have a quiet morning to make the pass.

I started up into the mountains and the sweat soon poured off me. It was morning but already hot and the grade was very steep in places, the road cutting back and forth up through fields of cactus and rock and always behind I saw a higher mountain and worried how the road would resolve itself over it.

But I did not climb as high as I expected. The road flattened out and it was gentle undulating across the cactus fields and then, a sharp turn between two hills and I was dropping, descending fast along walls of rock, the mountains growing higher as I dropped and further down I was following an old stream bed, down, down through the mountains and the desert was gone and there was now brush and trees and it was very green. Everything had changed on the other side of the mountains. Then I was out of them, the mountains behind, and still descending, coasting through a very lush region of small trees and thick brush and grass.

It was a descent all the way into Chumbicha. Outside the pueblo I turned onto Ruta 38 which would take me north. I stopped at a restaurant and ate a piece of beef and a salad and drank a two liter bottle of sparkling water. I wanted to buy some bottled water but the proprietor had no change and I filled up my water supplies from a barrel outside that he insisted was potable.

Ruta 38 was an easier ride through lush rolling country. In the far distance I could see a dark range of mountains. I knew there was a pass outside Catamarca called the Cuesta del Portezuela and I figured the city was at the base of these mountains. I stopped at a creek and washed my clothes in the gray water that came down from the mountains. I had some saddle sores from the ripio that were really bothering me and I had decided while riding that I would take a day off in Catamarca. It would make eight days of riding since San Juan, with much difficult climbing, and my legs also needed a rest.

It was almost 6 pm when I arrived in Catamarca and it being late on a Sunday I would not be able to inquire at the tourist office where a hostel or cheap lodging was. I pulled into what I thought was the main plaza and took a seat at an outdoor table where people were drinking beer and watching a soccer match. I started talking to a a couple at the table next to mine and got some information about a hotel a few blocks away that was affordable.

I didn’t find the hotel but there were a few others, all around 100 pesos a night. I was too tired and it was too late in the day to keep wandering through the city asking and looking for something cheaper and I decided to stay at the third of the 100 peso/night hotels I stopped at. I had not had a shower in a few weeks and scrubbed the dirt of many days riding off my arms and legs. Then I went out into the city and ate a large sized pizza (for 2 persons) at a restaurant on the Plaza 25 de Mayo. It was good feeling knowing I would not be riding over the Cuesta del Portezuelo tomorrow. A man in Aimogasta had warned me about that pass and I would now have a day of rest before I went over it. I returned to the hotel and got into bed. I hadn’t slept in a bed in quite awhile. Civilization felt pretty good.

Villa Mazan

What was yesterday a tough downhill fight into the zonda was this morning an easy, windless descent towards Aimogasta. Ruta 60 headed southeast with the Sierra de Velasco to my right, the sun to my left and it was 10:30 am when I arrived into Aimogasta. I rode into the center of town and inquired about a restaurant. There was nothing open until noon a man said, but he recommended a a place with a yellow awning set in off the main square.

Sierra Velasco

Like all towns large and small in the Provincia de Rioja there is free wifi offered in the main plaza. For most of the small towns I had passed through this made little sense since probably nobody in the town could afford a device to equip to the free wifi. Here in Aimogasta I was the only one sitting in main plaza doing some computing. Maybe the first.

At noon I pushed the bike over to the restaurant. There were two long hot buffet tables and a woman who weighed the amount of food you put on your plate and kept track in a small booklet. A man inside opened your drink and informed the woman in front what you were drinking. I ate three plates of food and two bottles of water for 50 pesos and I was very full when I left.

The road out of Aimogasta started higher. The Zonda was blowing as a headwind from the east and it was a long and slow climb towards the pueblo of Villa Mazan. I entered into a canyon and followed the road between the rock walls and then out of the canyon was a long, straight climb through the desert and into the zonda. It was very hot and dusty and I could see a pueblo far ahead and a new range of mountains, the Sierra de Manchao.

Villa Mazan

Villa Mazan was an old stop on the railroad and now with a the railroad gone the town had been rebuilt further from the tracks. It was small mud-brick homes in the newer part of town and old mud-brick homes in the older and I road through and still ascending I rode towards the Manchao range, the wind blowing down hard against me from the mountains.

At the base of the mountains the road split with Ruta 46 going north and Ruta 60 heading south and passing over the range. I did not have the legs to begin this pass into the wind and pulled off soon after the fork in the road. I put the tent up behind a hill, carefully pushing the bike back through the field of cactus and thorn bushes. It was blowing to hard too heat water for very long and I made a coffee and a bowl of oatmeal. I was tired, my legs sore and heavy, and I fell asleep to the wind battering the rain fly.

Alpasinche

Having had less than three hours of sleep I did not feel good. I wasn’t sure I was heading the right way out of Chilecito and asked a man if I was on Ruta 40. He smiled and said that I was. But the road was heading west towards the mountains. It couldn’t be right. I asked another man and he said he didn’t know where Ruta 40 was. How could he not know? A couple of students didn’t know either. It was as if the town of Chilecito was conspiring against me. A woman with a cleft palate seemed to know but I couldn’t understand her. I rode down side streets just trying to head north, figuring eventually I would find Ruta 40 out of town and after being chased by a few dogs I did find it.

There was a long descent out of town into a valley between the Famatina and Velasco ranges of mountains. Then the road ascended gradually until the pueblo of Pituil. I stopped there and had a sandwich and coffee at the only kiosk in town.

Ruta 40 turned westward toward the Sierra de Velasco and after a gradual climb I began descending towards the mountains. At the base of these mountains was the town of Schagul and then a series of other town all set beside each other along Ruta 40 heading north. The zonda really began to blow down along this range and it was hard going.

I slowly made it to Alpasinche and turned off onto Ruta 60 westward. There was a stretch of ripio on Ruta 40 to the north past Belen that I had decided to avoid. Pictures I had seen of sandy portions of that road looked impassable for the Bike Friday.

Ruta 60 was slightly downhill but into the wind making any riding difficult and I pulled off the road behind some trees and pitched the tent. I could blow down this stretch tomorrow morning before the wind began. There was no need to struggle through it today. The zonda was still blowing when the sun went down. I heated water for a bowl of oatmeal and ate it with some bread and pate.