San Jose de Jachal would only be a short 50k hop from Rodeo but the scenery was surprisingly changeable. Having rounded the large lake outside Rodeo it suddenly seemed that we were about to go down the coal mines. We rode a nice cosy little balcony road for a while before it eventually spat us out onto the vast plains again. The town of Jachal promised to be of a reasonable size and indeed it was quite a pretty place made even more pleasant by the recently opened hostel. When one is in a new bed almost every night it's always nice to be pleasantly surprised.
coal-pits?Accommodation to date has always been very straightforward to find. Almost every town has a plaza and the plaza is always in the centre of town. Even in the tiniest of towns there always seems to be a tourist information office by the plaza and although English is rarely spoken it is always easy to get help in terms of where everything is. Normally one would patrol a town quickly on the bike to get one's bearings but all we needed to do now was find the plaza and everything would work itself out from there. It really is bizarre coming across these tourist information offices in towns where there is effectively no tourism, they were delighted to talk to us.
the nice hostel in JachalJachal had a nice little vibe, it's always nice to come across these gentle little towns even though the reason for their existence is always questionable. It really is fascinating to see the towns that people settle in, but you inevitably want a town to meet your own requirements too. It's amazing how demanding one can become. I do like a nice hostel with a good shower, it really makes life easy after a hard day in the sun. In fact, it is more preferable to camp in a tent that I consider my own space than to stay in a hostel that is just a disappointment. A fast internet connect in town is a bonus and indeed I'm surprised at how prevalent internet is here. This is mainly driven by kids who want to play games. It's funny, in Ireland we put the prevalence of gaming down to the weather and over here it is arguably for the same reason; it's simply too hot in the middle of the day to knock a ball around. Argentinian towns come alive with darkness and that is the more usual time to see little kids running around the place. While we were always told to be home before dark, a kid's play-time here is only starting. Further to my list of demands is a decent heladeria (ice cream-eria), thankfully the Italian influence makes this a reality. However, best of all is a shop open during siesta. Indeed, siestas are the bane of a touring cyclist's life in small-town Argentina. It is pretty much guaranteed that we will arrive into town smack in the middle of the day when everything is shut and there is not a soul to be seen but for the odd drifter who looks like he is trying to get indoors out of a hurricane. I have no idea what people in Argentina do from 1pm to 6pm. They certainly don't sleep for more than an hour and they can hardly be watching that many dodgy Mexican soap operas ... it is a real mystery and a real inconvenience. Most people are not working on farms now so I have no idea why people who work indoors need to retreat ... indoors? The problem gets a little more complicated. This is because the shops that open at six generally have no food in them ... fresh bread is always sold out by lunch-time. Unless you like eating tinned fruit or even more ham and cheese on some burger buns then you are out of luck until the restaurants open. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that the restaurants are not really open for business until after 9pm. That's a painfully long wait for a proper feed off the bike. To make matters worse, the food in Argentina is not exactly great. For sure if you end up in a city with a bit of size you will come across a bit more variety but a traveler's budget poses its own restrictions. Thus, food is inevitably some variation of the following ingredients; cow, cheese, ham, white bread and some green olives. They do salad too but it is simply a huge amount of tomato and lettuce. Variety is a little onion, egg or carrot. One can get pasta but it's going to be spaghetti with bolognese; pasta with tomato and meat, or sorentinos; pasta stuffed with ham and cheese. Thus, even pasta becomes a variation of the same theme. This is not my kind of food at all, so to wait all day for food that you don't really care for is a bit of a pain to say the least. It was unfortunate that I started my trip in a hostel in Buenos Aires that had an all-day take-out downstairs with the best empanadas ever. I thought I was going to be able to live on these rolled pieces of dough stuffed with filling but the opportunity for creativity has been snuffed out of them since I left the capital. Only once since then have I had some real empanadas and they were home-made. The best meal of the trip was the roast chicken we bought off the spit in Mendoza. Mike threw it into some couscous with lemon juice, tomato and onion. It was simple but simply delicious. I haven't come across couscous since. I must say I do miss not living on the farm that was Donnybrook Fair. I'm not a big meat person so Argentinians´ love affair with meat is totally lost on me. All hell breaks loose when the price of meat goes up here. The quantities they eat are mind-boggling. In the supermarket the queue at the meat counter is so big that they have to draw a number as if they were queuing up to get their driver's licence. Meanwhile, the girl behind the fruit and veg counter is having a very relaxed time of things. The fruit here has been such a disappointment; it is rarely fresh. In the cities you will find reasonable quality but in the small country towns mushy bananas, bruised apples, limp carrots and some floppy lettuce is as good as it gets. You will find better quality Argentinian produce in Tesco than you will find in Argentina.
In Jachal I noticed that my blood was starting to simmer. As nice as the place was I had been promised a town of proper size and it wasn't. I began to notice that I really do need size every so often as cool as it is to see 'middle of nowhere' Argentina. To go to a restaurant at 9.15 and be told that we were early nearly caused me to flip. He did serve us but the locals didn't show up until 10pm. To think that we were the early-birds at that hour. In addition, I was really starting to miss grass. I had no idea that I loved the stuff so much but I hadn't seen any of it since Mendoza. The Plaza had grass once but like everywhere else it was now desert. I have always liked to read a book under a tree in Dartmouth or Belgrave Square and so I was struggling to figure out the local substitute. What really got my goat up was the incessant noise from motorbikes. Why would you want a really loud motor-bike when the technology exists to have a really quiet one. At night the plaza would become a virtual merry-go-round with the swirl of head and tail-lights from all these guys on motor-bikes doing laps. The more macho their engines sounded the more superior their mating call it seemed. It made having a proper conversation while knacker-drinking on the plaza very difficult.
What Jachal did have going for it were some pretty cool classic cars. That controversial figure Peron made a big effort to industrialise Argentina and gave concessions to big car manufacturers to build factories here. The arid climate has allowed these cars of the seventies to thrive and survive. They are not just in Jachal but all over the country. It's really cool to see cars just as old and fighting fit as you ... well, most of them anyway. If you are looking for that special retro motor, Argentina is probably the place to get it.
Take it handy
Marco
aren't pastel colours back in fashion?
another car matching its surroundings