I Want to Ride My Bicycle

I am penning what is a fairly random post in Jujuy, Argentina's northern-most city at the foot of the Bolivian Altiplano. I have 300 kilos and another 2500ms of altitude to climb between here and the Bolivian frontier. I have been stuck in Jujuy for the past week. This is not in sympathy with fellow-Europeans stranded all over the world due to a volcano, my case is simply down to an eruption of phlegm. Indeed, I have not seen this much green gunk since the movie Ghostbusters, incredibly that was 1984. A chest-infection or bronchitis as the pros call it, is the bane of a cyclists life. The level of training and racing that professionals do can often leave them teetering on a highwire of well-being such are the physical extremes they go to. This means bronchitis is never too far away for the tired cyclist. I would like to think that it was tough cycling that got me into this mess but the green slime is in fact due to green limes rather than a hard climb.

I should explain. I arrived into Salta on St Patrick's Day. Yes, this is a long time ago now but it was necessary to string the blog out as I was entering a period of down-time. Still, I have been posting ever since and take great satisfaction in my 'total recall' of events. It is nice to know that the experience has been vivid and emotional enough that the sensations readily bubble to the surface such that I can write about them regardless of any time-delay.

St Patrick's Day itself was a pretty low-key affair in the Irish bar 'Goblin' in Salta. I have no clue what goblins have to do with Ireland but I guess it's an Argentinian reference to our little friends who hang out at the bottom of rainbows. The party was very much hijacked by the Argentinian bar-owner and his friends such that the Irish present were not even allowed to wear the green hats he had bought. Obviously we protested and over-ruled him while he wasn't looking but we exhausted ourselves before the bar filled up with Argentinians. This was because they didn't show up until 1am by which stage the two remaining Irish had lost their resolve. There were in fact only six Irish people there all day. The other four had spent the day in the local shopping-centre which, in fairness to them, is about as Irish as you can get on Saint Patrick's Day. However, in a very weak move they left to go to an 'asado' in their hostel just as I was finishing my first bottle of Guinness. It was a bizarre twist as such Argentinian BBQs take place at least once a week in pretty much every decent hostel in the country. Why they felt they had to go to one on our national day I have no idea but I'll resist the thought that it was down to the company they were now keeping.

Anyhow, I had always planned to spend a week in Salta to recharge but such was my frustration with my level of Spanish and my inability to properly engage the locals beyond practicalities that I decided I would do another week of lingo lessons. One week turned into two because you can actually teach yourself a lot of stuff out of a book if you bother. I thought I'd learn some vocab and verb conjugations in order that I could practice them the following week with a teacher. Thus, I was only ever going to be in Salta about two weeks. Suddenly I woke up one morning with the stark realisation that I was completely bypassing Rio. It was never my plan not to see Rio but if I went any further north then it would become either difficult or expensive to get to. While Salta is a fair chunk of territory away from the coast of the continent Rio is pretty much due 90`east. The reason that it was possible to get there by bus quite readily and cheaply is that the natural wonder of the Iguazu Falls lies pretty much equidistant. For the tourist in South America Iguazu is one of the iconic things you 'have to see' and pretty much everyone who travels to Brazil or Argentina visits the falls. I had already decided to skip them as I generally don't give too much of a hoot about the tourist thing but now I was thankful that I had for once checked the map and could leap-frog to Rio via Iguazu.

While it may seem strange to spend time learning Spanish only to head into a Portuguese speaking country, there was no way in my mind that I could skip Rio. In an effort to truly understand what this continent has to offer, there seems little point in travelling north to check-out Colombian girls if I am not familiar with the gold standard with which to benchmark them against. Thus, It was decided by a unanimous vote of one; I would take a holiday from my holiday by parking my bike in Salta as I hopped on two twenty plus hour buses to Rio taking in one side of the falls each way.

The next couple of posts will be about this side-trip. In the mean-time I will hopefully get well enough to start the ascent to Bolivia having already false-started following a very gentle 100k ride north from Salta. One would think that this caipirinha-infection would grant me the perfect opportunity to write-up my blog or learn some Spanish but in fact the head doth protest too much. My friend John put it best when he said that Rio was getting her revenge for being dumped much like a jealous ex-girlfriend might. As a consequence I've had plenty of time to lie in bed and contemplate the road past and future. As I stare at this wall of mountain from the ground-floor of Jujuy I am excited by what is to come in the Andean penthouse of Bolivia. I'm also forced to think about what I learnt about Argentina; a country I've always wanted to visit and now a country that I will shortly wave goodbye to.

The one concern I have is that the leaves are falling here now and I am already wearing the summit jacket I bought in Christchurch as an insurance policy against any potential chill at 4000+ms. I have not climbed onto the Altiplano yet and it seems I'm feeling the seasons turn. Still, the delay should mean that I have missed the last of rainy season in Bolivia and if I get blue skies then day-time temperatures should be mid-teens.

I want to ride my bicycle ... I want to ride it now ...

Marco