Pics are up

Ok, I managed to post the pics from my side-trip to Rio and the Iguazu Falls. Please check the gallery to view.

Most of the Rio shots were taken with my compact due to the risk of petty theft; it didn't do too badly. The token shot of El Christo was not available as they crucified him to scaffolding. I think he was about to buckle over as if throwing up from too many caipirinhas.

As I mentioned, the weather was pretty shocking putting paid to any proper beach time. Hence the lack of beach action etc.

I visited Iguazu from both the Argentinian and Brazilian sides. I have never really seen proper falls before and it has to rate as one of the most impressive pieces of nature I have ever seen. The Grand Canyon is awesome due to the fact that one stands at ground level and looks a mile into the earth. The Iguazu Falls are another cataract in the ground but this time in the middle of a massive river. The amount of water emptying into the cataract was really impressive.

I'll be in touch ... mind how you go

Marco

Rio

The traveller in Latin America is aware of all the British Foreign Office reports warning them of abductions and violence where there is a FARC presence in Colombia. Indeed, this country is considered a no-go by many as the perceived risk is simply not worth it. However, it is arguable that the most dangerous place in Latin America is Rio de Janeiro. Like Colombia it is a part of the world that one might never escape, however, the reason for this is ostensibly that it is impossible to justify leaving. Unlike Colombia where the tourist is pulled out of his bus and captured, Rio simply captivates the tourist and pulls him in.

My arrival in Rio coincided with the worst rains that the city has ever suffered. These rains caused a couple of hundred deaths mostly due to landslides in the favelas (slums). Naturally, the tourist is cocooned from such a travesty staying in the more affluent beach neighbourhoods of Ipanema and Copacabana. Indeed, while people were dying and mourning the tourist pushed on with the task of having a good time. If one can't visit what are arguably the best city beaches in the world due to rain-delay, then inevitably the boredom seeps into the bar of the party-hostel where happy-hour begins at 5pm. For somebody who loves lemonade (and I mean the refreshing American kind as opposed to the red/white Irish TK variety), an alcoholic limeade is a stroke of genius. The bitterness of the limes is lost amidst all the sweetness of the sugar and such is the potency of the taste that you falsely believe in the impotence of the drink. Needless to say caipirinhas are laced and are the basis of many a great night out in the city and of course, it was the night-life that I was there to explore.

Rio was a useful holiday for me as it seemed the perfect antidote to a lot of quiet nights spent in the middle of the Argentinian countryside. Argentina is a bit of a frustrating place on the night-life front. This is due to a few reasons. Firstly, they don't really go out until 2am and this is only to the bar, the clubs don't start to fill until after 3am. Nights like these are exhausting for the northern-European. It is impossible to see where the night is going and 2am is a considerable investment of both time and money to discover what may happen. In Buenos Aires it's not so much a gamble because you are guaranteed a crowd any night of the week. However, Rio on the other hand would prove to keep a lot more sociable hours in that people generally head out to the clubs at mid-night. In addition, the preferred music in Argentina is reggaeton. This variation of hip-hop is absolutely woeful and does nothing for me in a club unlike the very cool and funky samba beats of Rio. What's more, the Portuguese-speaking Cariocas could understand my Spanish better than the Argentinian girls can. The final point to mention is that in Argentina the girls generally dance in a closed-circle. This forces the Argy guy to grab them on the ass, which they hate and this inevitably makes the circle even more impenetrable. In contrast, the girls in Rio are so friendly and polite that they dance with you even if they don't like you. This was very confusing for me as you'd see a hot Carioca dancing with a guy and you'd presume they were together, only to see them with different people at the end of the night. While I may have taken a liking to caipirinhas I still had enough faculties to observe how desperate the tourist is in a city like Rio. The reputation of Brazilian girls is such that the tourist thinks it's his divine right to have whomever he fancies. Seeing tourists literally queuing up just to have their shot dancing with a hot girl was all a bit much for me. I'm not one for a competition based on appearances. Indeed, the dance-floor would become a mini world war. I will never forget the disgust of the guy from Barcelona losing out on the hottest chick of the night to some blonde blue-eyed muscle-pumped German kid. Having lived in Munich for two years this Catalan had managed to refine his very real hatred of the Arian race such that they were 'all' Arschlochs.

There is of course more to Rio than fun pretty girls ... although not much more to be honest. It is an incredibly beautiful city due in the most part to the unbelievable beaches with amazing views of hill-sides towering up all around them. The most interesting part of the trip was probably my visit to the favela of Rocinha. Some people object to the commercialisation of poverty especially in neighbourhoods where they perceive that the tourist's money is going to the local drug-lord. However, the reality is that such backpackers are hypocrites as they themselves indulge in drugs - a far more direct means of supporting the gang-culture in Rio. If the people of the favela did not want me there then I would not have gone but in fact they are very welcoming and keen that tourists see that their favela is not just about drugs. There are three rival gangs in Rio and they have carved up all 1024 favelas between them. One would think that such an oligopoly would promote a reasonable amount of harmony but unfortunately every drug-lord dreams of controlling the whole of Rio. Thus, much like in the business world such fierce competition brings about casualties. Rocinha is governed by a twenty-three year old. This is old in the drugs game as anyone who has watched the movie 'City of God' is aware. I passed one guy with his shirt off who had a 15" scar across his chest, a bullet hole in his clavicle and a knife wound in his rib-cage. To think that this guy was in some crazy situation where he almost died for drugs. The Rocinha favela processes tonnes and tonnes of cocaine in its laboratories for distribution to international markets every day. Indeed, such is the sheer scale of production that it makes little sense for the police to raid the favelas as the most they will get their hands on is a few kilos of the white stuff. This is due to the topography of the favelas built into the hill-sides as they are. The land at the top of the favela is more desirable as all the rain-water washes all the dirt and rubbish down to the bottom. Naturally, the top of the favela is more advantageous from a security point of view so by the time the police arrive at the bottom, the chain of kids who sit on the vantage points of houses as 'watchers' are already calling up the the hill-side. This allows sufficient time for the drug-lord to take evasive action. Naturally the gang-members in the favelas know the narrow streets better than the police and so there is no point in the police risking their lives in a shoot-out for what will be a tiny drugs seizure in the greater scheme of things. Indeed the gangs are very well equipped with government issued arms from all over the world and so can pretty much rule the favela without any outside interference. A few years ago they shot a police helicopter out of the sky with a rocket-launcher. The mistake they then made was to throw a party in the favela to celebrate the policemen's deaths. This caused a great deal of aggravation for that gang. Indeed, it is not unusual to see heavily armed civilians at the entrance to the favela ... these are not plain-clothes officers etc. The reality is that the drugs problem in the favela is relatively isolated. At least 80% of the people in the favela if not 90% have absolutely no connection with drugs be it consumption or distribution. These people are far too poor to be able to afford them and they are all far too aware of friends or relatives who have lost their lives due to drug-debts. The vast majority of people in the favela are just trying to make a living like the rest of us. The dwellers of Rocinha actually have an advantage over other favelas in that Rocinha is centrally located. By law Brazilian companies have to pay for the transport costs of their employees. Thus, the people from Rocinha are cheaper than those of the slums on the out-skirts of the city where somebody might need to take four bus connections just to get to work. There remains a temptation to deal however; a person selling drugs in the more affluent neighbourhoods can make as much in one night dealing as they can in one month on the straight and narrow. The well-off pay a premium so that they don't have to go down to the favelas, which they deem to be unsafe. Funnily enough the favela was the safest place for me. Tourists can't be touched there and while we can only be there under the supervision of a guide it was the only place in Rio where I was able to take my fancy camera.

While I experienced no problems in Rio other than dodgy taxi-drivers (the scum of the earth by all accounts), other people I knew did. There is a fair amount of petty crime and I have to say I hate having to be wise to such things. Having to leave my camera and my wallet in the hostel and having to walk around town with pocket-change is nothing but frustrating. Petty-crime is a fact of life in any city (but for Tokyo) be it New York, Barcelona or Dublin. However, the problem I have in Rio is that I am the white-man and so I am more susceptible to being a target. This goes against the grain as I pretty much like to wander wherever I like, especially in cities as it is off the main thoroughfares that the best people-watching occurs and thus, a better understanding of a city is gleaned. I pretty much still went where I pleased even stumbling unawares into a drug-bust and having to be frisked by the cops who presumed I was purchasing. Perhaps I was lucky but my French friend Manu, although equipped with Portuguese due to living on the Brazilian border of French Guyana, did manage to get badly mugged one night. He had met a girl the night before in a club and had arranged a date the next night. Naturally he left with enough money for dinner and a nice night out with the lady, only for him to be roughed up within five minutes of meeting her. Needless to say that was the end of the date as he drew the obvious conclusion that she set him up. Whether this was the case or not, it is really annoying not to be able to patrol the city freely.

Regardless of the potential scams, Rio has to rank as one of the best cities in the world. I can't think of anywhere else where the locals are so at ease. They are so friendly and the vibe of the city is very much about having fun as opposed to working hard and getting ahead. Be it on the beach at Ipanema or on the streets of Lapa, people just want to have fun. The Cariocas are famously friendly and welcoming. They really set the tone for a city that can't but get under your skin. While not all the girls were amazing, when they were they were incredible. Sydney was very impressive for talent but here they actually stopped me dead in my tracks. It is amazing how many random Brazilian girls made my day by sharing the same street as me. I think it is just their sheer lack of attitude and sense of play that made me fall in love with them. It gets even more exciting when you start chatting them up. Of course, it might have been the caipirinhas coursing through my veins which made Rio seem such an incredibly fun, seductive and intoxicating city. I'm still not sure why I left ... if it hadn't been for the confusion of a hangover and my life-long yearning to see Colorado I don't think I would have.

'til soon

Marco

ps - I'm on too slow a connect to post my photos of Rio ... such is life above 3000ms in the Andes. I'll post as soon as I can.

pps - if you want to see a great flick on Rio then check out Tropa Elita (Elite Squad) ... the Cariocas consider this to be a very good portrayal of the favela. Yes, it's subtitled but so is most of the good stuff!

Copacabana from the Sugar-loaf

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

The Final Swing on the Vine to Salta

One of the most satisfying aspects about touring through the Andes is that the scenery changes pretty much everyday. This makes for quite a sensory change from the training spin, which always tends to be loops or out-and-backs close to the familiar territory of home. The run-in to Salta would be a remarkable spin made unusual by the fact that even though I had mountains all around me that the road never actually rose or dipped too much. Unfortunately the powerful down-drafts made cycling the wind-tunnel of the valley quite slow-going, however, the change in scenery made for plenty of breaks for photo-stops. These images tell the story of my journey through the rock-formations of the Calchaqui Valley (Quebrada las Conchas) better than words. It was a 225km ride from Cafayate to Salta punctuated only by an over-night camp on the local football pitch in La Vina.

vineyard outside of Cafayatethe burnt sands of el Alamored clay now ... lots of rock formations for the next 50klocal politician 'up the pole'

hmmm ... limestone rock faces nowThe long-distance trucker ... I know how he feels'a river runs through it''down in the valley'el Dique Cabra Corral near town of Coronel Moldestobacco plantation - cultivation usually means civilisation is nearcivilisation at last ... the city of Salta

Welcome to the Jungle

When I was in the desert I would have traded places to be anywhere but the furnace of Catamarca so one would have thought that I would be quite relieved to be in the province of Tucuman. Wrong, I hate jungle and Tucuman has lots of it. No sooner had I started my 1500m vertical ascent up to Tafi del Valle and I wished to be out of there. I had the same feeling when I rode through the rain-forests of New Zealand, there is something strangely uncomfortable about the humidity and the heat. It's a very alien atmosphere riding through jungle cloud and I just had that horrible feeling you get when your feet are too hot even though you have peeled both your socks and shoes off. It's an awfully uncomfortable itch that you will do anything to make go away. However, climbing and a loaded touring bike don't quite make for a quick get-away and so I had to be patient.

el Indio in jungle mistIt wasn't just the climate that had changed, the people were different too. I was riding into gaucho country and their complexion was very much Indian. This was a little surprising as the Inca empire stretched as far south as Mendoza. I'm not sure why it would be 1500kms further north in Tucuman before I would finally come across evidence of Indian civilisation and culture. Seeing them got me excited about the day that I will ride into Cuzco to visit Machu Picchu but I have an awful lot of empire to cross before then. Seeing the Indians was a throw-back to my childhood having played cowboys and Indians as a kid - often using the 80's board-game of Crossfire as the battle-pitch for the toy miniatures. Of course, that was more the North American Indian from the westerns than the Andean kind but still, it's always nice to get blasts from the past. For some reason I found it strange to see Indians on horseback; I always thought of the white cowboys as the ones with the horses but naturally the North American Indians had horses too. It shouldn't have seemed odd but it did.

It pretty much takes the guts of an hour to ride 500 metres vertical on a touring bike so it was a slog of a day to the tourist town of Tafi del Valle 93kms and 1550ms up from Concepcion. The problem with such a big ascent was that I did not know how high the summit would be. Thus, I just had to keep riding skywards to the Gods and hope that the top would be around the next bend. It eventually was and I descended slightly into the valley having cycled through lots of little Indian stalls along the way. This was an artisans' route so I'm guessing it was a major trading route at some point for the Incas. The town of Tafi del Valle itself was something that I had been looking forward to as it marked the first proper tourist town for those people heading north through the Andes to Bolivia. I would likely stumble into European travellers and the town would have a bit more tourist infrastructure in terms of hostels and restaurants. A variation from the ham and cheese rolls for lunch is always welcome. It turned out to be a pretty place but not all that special for a European who has cycled through plenty of valleys and around lots of lakes in his time. Most importantly it was above the tree-line and so my brief incursion through jungle turned out to be not so uncomfortable after all. I decided not to hang around and rode onto Amaiche del Valle the next day once I had visited the Jesuit museum. Having benefited from a very liberal Jesuit education I made the effort to see their little chapel. They had tried to settle the area but were eventually banished.

I knew I had more climbing ahead of me to get out of the valley but I was not aware that I had another 1050ms vertical. I wasn't feeling so strong having had a bloody difficult week of riding in the legs. Between the long-distance trucking through the heat of the desert, the clambering over of the Quebrada de Aconquija on ripio and then the huge ascent to 3050ms via jungle I was pretty beat up to say the least. I was overjoyed to get to the top and meet the local llamas. I could pretty much put my feet up on the bars now and roll down the mountain to the camp-site in Amaiche del Valle. This was a pretty little town with an interesting museum on the Indian theme. It is situated very close to the Indian ruins of Quilmes; another indication of what is to come in Peru. To this point Quilmes was a bad Argentinian beer but now I would cycle through the region from which it hails. I just needed one more day until I could pull up in the white-wine town of Cafayate. I was totally dead on the ride into Cafayate. It didn't help that I hiked up a mountain in the morning just to get the birds-eye photo that best showcases the Ruinas de Quilmes. Crossing the border into the province of Salta brought more change of scenery. I left the cacti behind for vines as I rode through bodegas with beautiful mountain-ranges as a back-drop. The vineyards marked my first introduction to the province of Salta. It will be the capital of the same name that will mark the first proper way-point of my Andean adventure. A chance to pull-over for a while and recharge.

Chat soon

Marco

 gauchos and their lasoos ... not nice to see a helpless calf being tripped and crashing to the ground

at 3050ms of altitude there is no longer cattle but llamas instead

Museo Pachamama bar in Amaiche del ValleRuinas de QuilmesBodega countryI met Mike again. The dish is locro which in this case is a meat and bean stew ... a brew and stew for two please!

The Immaculate Concepcion

Crossing the pass from Aconquija turned out to be not that big a deal after all. The heavy rains from the night before forced me to pass through some washed out roads but all in all the pass was reasonably straightforward at only 650ms of elevation from the plateau. Cresting the summit would mean traversing into another new province, the jungle province of Tucuman. The road towards the the town of Concepcion did not provide a warm welcome, I was descending but it was raining and the road was possibly the worst of my trip through Argentina so far. Just lots of boulders embedded in the muddy tracks making progress slow and painfully jarring. I would run into Asphalt 20k from Concepcion but I was so caked in mud that I had to have a quick shower with baby-wipes and change into something a bit more presentable al fresco before arriving into town.

Concepcion was simply a reasonably big grid and not the most aesthetically pleasing place I have seen. Naturally the plaza marked the centre of the town and it was here that I would meet Sonia. She flagged me down with such enthusiasm that I feared she may be a rabbit-boiler. In fact she was simply overwhelmed at the sight of somebody new in town. Indeed, while Concepcion was a big place it seemed to have little to offer, so little that it had only a few hotels for business types as opposed to the usual cheaper mix of accommodation. There were so few tourists that the information office was not for tourists at all but for people who needed help with paperwork to move here for work reasons. Simply tourists don't come here at all. The cheapest bed in town was the local love motel but when I had to talk to the receptionist through a piece of wood to protect my identity much like a sinner facing a priest in a confession box, I became a little uneasy. My discomfort increased with the couple in the queue behind me, a fifty year old sugar-daddy and a girl who looked no more that twenty-one texting. It was 4pm. I bailed in the hope that I could find something a little more respectable that wasn't going to charge me by the hour and thankfully I found a room in the hotel by the plaza for a reasonable amount of pesos. A large twin-room to myself, TV, breakfast and a huge bath-room .... a stroke of luck considering I had resigned myself to spending a fortune or else listening to passion all night.

Sonia and I had agreed to meet for chats later on. I suggested the ice-cream parlour based on what a girl in Mendoza had told me was the secret to Argentinian girls. Regardless of any aspirations I would at least get a good ice-cream and have a different conversation. Sonia was one of the few Argentinians I had met outside of Bs. As. who had good English; she had studied English in university. She now struggles to teach English to uninterested school children. These kids can't see a life beyond the town of Concepcion and so question the reason for learning English at all. It is such small-town thinking that made her so excited to see me. Just like she would provide me with a different conversation I would do the same for her. She had plans to study in the US when she was younger but because her mother neither encouraged nor discouraged her she read between the lines that her mother wanted her to stay. She remained in Concepcion and has done little real travel in the meantime. However, she knows possibly more about the world than anyone I have met on my trip so far. This is because she has amazingly globe-trotted through the world of books instead. She is so well read that she understands the mentality of most nationalities through their literature and history. She has read more Irish literature than I ever had to in school. I was stunned at her articulacy in the English language considering she never actually managed to spend time in an English-speaking country. Her passion for books stretches to philosophy too and so the conversation became a little heavier as we pretty much got to grips with most of society's ills. It was a little mind-blowing and such a pleasant surprise to meet such an educated mind with perfect English in the middle of small-town Argentina. While the Argentinian mentality exhausts her such that she feels like an outsider amongst her own people, she stays to play play-station with her seven year old son and his mates. It would seem that such a curious and global thinker is trapped in a small world but through her son and her books she has a degree of serenity that most people, yet alone the privileged travelling-set, could only aspire to.

Four hours of conversation later, punctuated only by those noisy motor-bikes, and we called it a night. Startled and bemused by how great the conversation had been I was not going to spoil it with a desperate lunge as only Irish guys can do. Perhaps, if I had done the Irish thing and met her for pints instead I would have been suitably brave or stupid. Another Facebook friendship it would have to be ... the immaculate Concepcion indeed.

Talk soon

Marco

Que un Hombre

AndalgalaAndalgala proved to be a town of reasonable size, which was a surprise as it is a really out-of-the-way place nestled between mountains on two sides and desert and salt flats on the other two. Still size is always good as it improves the chance of a decent meal and some nice ice-cream. I spent a rest-day there but I was too knackered to enjoy the local summer festival of music they had in the plaza that night. I retired at mid-night (early in Argentina) so that I could get up the road early before the heat kicked in again. It turned out that the heat-wave would pass that night and the next day would be a lot cooler. This was a God-send as I had to climb over the Quebrada de Aconquija to get out of there and I didn't quite fancy soaring up the mountain and getting too close to the sun such that my wings would melt.

The map I have is detailed but it's never easy to read the contour-lines in terms of where the road actually passes. Talking to the locals I was aware that I was in for a harder ride than my map suggested and so I would have to do it over two-days as it was ripio. While the road-surface was tough-going the climb itself turned out to be amazing. I had hoped that the road would slice between two peaks to give me an easy time of it but I had to climb over the whole mountain. I recall approaching it and looking way up to see what seemed to me to be a large house in the hill-side looking over the valley. I presumed this to be ruins and never actually thought that I would have to climb up to it thinking that whatever previous civilisation was mad to live up there. It turned out to be a wall-support for the road. Thus, I was in for a long but fun ride with cattle precariously perched grazing on very steep slopes, so steep that I had no idea how they got there or how they were going to climb out. Eventually I would crest the top and the view of the road back down into the valley made it all worthwhile ... an Argentinian version of France's l'Alpe d'Huez made more funny by the fact that my map showed it as a straight-line.

what my map said was a striaght roadAs I crested I would descend onto a plateau leaving me with one more climb to crest the following day in order to get to the town of Concepcion. The plateau housed a string of tiny pueblos which seemed to be small farming communities. Indeed, I was at last out of the desert and now amongst farmland. It was great to see crops and green again. Somehow I came across a cool little resto-bar with a super-fast wi-fi connection and a good menu. It was a little surreal to be surrounded by familiar faces; John, Paul, Ringo, George, Frank Serpico and Bob Marley. This modern cool city bar was at total odds with its isolated rural surroundings full of adobe houses.  

Once I got kicked out for siesta I explored the towns to figure out where my bed might be for the night. I was looking to pitch in the municipal camp-site but all that existed was a series of log-cabanas in a complex that looked like it had had a tourist glut at one point but the crowd had since moved on. I cycled back to the map of the town and still being confused I disturbed the local police officers watching TV. They were a little shocked to see me, the adventure cyclist not being too common in this part ... most preferring to take the easier road north through Belen. They were very anxious that I not cycle the next pass as there wasn't much day-light left. I explained that I was done for the day and that I was just looking for the camp-site that was on the map. It didn't exist and so they offered to cart me to the next town 15k away where there was someone who would put me up. Becoming uneasy at the sight of my bike being loaded into their truck the Argentinian version of Chief Wiggum decided to take a shine to me and started asking me all sorts of questions. I thought he was probing but he just couldn't believe what I was doing and kept exclaiming 'que un hombre -what a man'. A side conversation with his partner, who did look a lot like Serpico, resolved the situation. I would pitch my tent behind their station so that I could use their facilities. So I set up camp amongst the wild horses who clearly had never seen a tent before. Once I popped my head out asking them to stop huffing and puffing so that they wouldn't blow my house down, they seemed to relax putting two and two together that I was a human and that I would be keeping them company for the night. In the morning I had more chats with the very amiable Chief Wiggum who was very concerned that I would never get over the next mountain due to the rains. I reassured him that I was aboard a tank and that it would all be fine. He was concerned about the effect of altitude on me but again, I reassured him that 2000ms was nothing. To which I received another series of "que un hombre's". He asked me for my website and email and we parted with a big affectionate hug. It is always a treat to experience the local hospitality and to meet somebody who is clearly in the right job such was his concern for his fellow-man.

Next-stop the jungle

Marco

Aconquija - The road out of town

The Fifth Element

While I can't remember exactly where I exited the province of San Juan and entered Catamarca, when I look back at the images that bubble to my mind they very clearly demarcate a territory of long straight roads that are stranded in desert. Indeed the highway acted like stepping stones to safety across the burning hot sands of Catamarca and into the jungle province of Tucuman. Catamarca is known to be one of the most arid provinces in Argentina and desert would become an appropriate place for me to be at that time.

When cycling both the terrain and the environment can be very challenging. In the case of Catamarca it was the climate. At first it's exciting riding all day on straight roads but such roads inevitably win the staring contest and you end up demented by the lack of anything else to look at. It is difficult not to take the desert seriously when there are shrines to Difunta Correa everywhere. This is a woman whose husband was recruited to serve in the local territorial army. On hearing that he was sick and had been abandoned by his comrades, she took her baby and went searching for him to tend to him. She never made it as she died from thirst in the desert. The baby survived by suckling the breast of his dead mother. He was discovered alive by gauchos who were herding cattle through the area. Correa is adored by Argentinians and is believed to perform miracles having saved her child. Truck-drivers tend to her thirst nowadays by leaving bottles of water for her by the road-side. These shrines are everywhere and serve as a constant reminder of the dangers of the sun.

Shrines to Difunta CorreaIt didn't help my cause that the temperature in Catamarca was nudging forty. Simply there was no escape from the furnace and, as if in a war-zone, some people can lose the plot. It is difficult to enjoy the mental game of torture caused by hanging from the precipice that is the word 'quit'. In this case quitting would be taking a bus or hitching a lift in a pick-up truck. The people who persist take satisfaction from whatever sense of achievement there is in getting through it. The people who quit take satisfaction from the fact that they are now free of a miserable situation. At a certain age you realise that there is no shame in quitting but it doesn't make it any less of a dilemma when it comes to actually doing it. Anybody who races understands what it is like to take your body to the limit and to have to endure sitting there waiting for everybody else to quit. Mostly the competition has the upper-hand and they take you to your breaking point. However, in the case of the human-being we can generally suffer quite a lot. We all know what human suffering is like and if I'm hurting then the other person sure as hell is hurting too. We hang in for an age in the hope that the other person is just about to quit and thereby terminate our suffering. If the other person isn't hurting then the loser takes solace from the fact that the other person 'isn't human'. Indeed, the sport of cycling is among the purest forms of suffering as the cyclist is physically brought to the brink by the terrain he must cross and he is mentally brought to the brink by the speed his competitors force him to do it in. However, when it comes to solely man versus nature the normal rules of competition do not apply. The size and scope of your opponent is unknown and he generally has the element of surprise up his sleeve. Indeed western man thinks of only four classical elements; fire, water, earth, and wind but there is a fifth element, the one of surprise. It is this one that catches man out every-time in terms of natural disasters. Such disasters could be seen to be the truest form of expression that the classical elements have. When it comes to such times that nature is taking you to your breaking-point it is often more sensible to quit but persisting and overcoming the five elements is truly rewarding. This is because the feeling is not one of triumphalism but one of humility; you respect your opponent for having spared you. In effect it is that same sense of good fortune we experience when surviving a bad car-crash or whatever. I am pretty pragmatic when it comes to taking the sensible option but I do have a huge amount of curiosity in terms of wondering how bad things can actually get. Thus, I delay pulling the rip-chord on things in the assumption that there will always be another way out at some point or in bike-touring terms, a pick-up truck. Catamarca would prove to be a stern test of mental resolve.

After a few days of riding through Catamarca I was on my own once more. I had been riding with Mike, Jeremy, Riccardo and Steve. I abandoned Mike as he was knocked out with allergies and a stomach bug and so was better off doing his own thing until he was back on top form again. Jeremy had his fill of desert after one day and so he conveniently caught a bus to Rioja so that he could catch another ride to Buenos Aires. Riccardo is a 67 year-old multi-lingual Italian doctor living in Switzerland, who was virtually whizzing through his lap of the continent by virtue of the amount of lifts he needed to take when roads got too bad for his skinny racing tyres. Steve is a 62 year-old Brummie and a former globe-trotting croupier. Even when he is home he is not in the one place for too long as he likes to tour England aboard his canal boat. All these characters would exit the scene as I went in search of some civilisation alone. Steve, Mike and Riccardo would take the more direct route to goal. I ended up taking a right to get to a bigger town so I could make some phone calls as I needed to resolve the dilemma that was work and is reality. It turned out that I would wander straight into as much a metaphorical desert as a physical one as I did some soul-searching of biblical proportions to determine the fate of the bionic dude.

The long straight roads were one thing but it was the heat that really hurt. Normally I am fine riding up to 40 degrees, however, once it gets over forty then I have to be careful. The problem with Catamarca was that there was no respite as there was little shade to speak of and the temperatures never dropped by much. Generally a touring cyclist has no problem getting out of bed early if it means an easier passage during the heat but in Catamarca it was already thirty degrees by first proper-light at 8am and when the sun-set at 8pm it was still plus thirty. It even took a long time for the temperature to drop as once the ground heated up it was just radiating as much heat as the sun. It was a virtual furnace up until 7pm each day.

at last something interesting to look at ... out-skirts of Aimogastaolive plantationwhat will somehow soon be an olive plantation ... white line in background is salt desertI was trying to make my way to the town of Andalgala so that I could pass through the mountains and then get back onto the more beaten tourist path headed north. I was riding a tourist route but the salt flats I passed could not really be seen from the road due to the amount of olive tree plantations. It is amazing how man can somehow cultivate the most deserted pieces of land. The day I eventually got to Andalgala I was almost cooked. I had ridden 140k in similar conditions the day before and while I had only to ride 110k the next day, it would be the wind on top of another day of 45 degree heat that would take me to the brink. There were two particularly bad moments, the first when I finally accepted that the town I had planned to stop at for coke, more water and some shade did not actually exist. Thankfully I had enough water with me but this too would be boiling, Thus, while it served its purpose it was not exactly the refreshment I needed. The second bad moment was when the road twisted and with it the wind direction. All five elements seemed to be against me. I had been biking pretty fast making the calculation that I was better off putting in more effort up-front to get out of the sun sooner than I was to save my beans and take my time. I had reckoned that I would arrive into Andalgala in an hour as I was biking about 30kph and had roughly that distance still to cover, however, the twist in the road would put me into a cross-wind, which slowed me down to 15kph almost doubling my estimated time of arrival. You can imagine how heart-breaking it was when the road switched direction again and left me staring into a virtual wind-tunnel. The bike computer was now reading 10kph and so all my perceived effort seemed in vain. I never thought it possible but I was now going backwards in time. It was agony to say the least.

In the end I would have a pleasant surprise thanks to the town not being quite as far as marked on my map. The policeman at the check-point probably never met someone so happy to see him. For once the coldness of bureaucracy had its plus-side.

Talk soon

Marco

the oasis on the horizon that was San Blas - trees marking signs of civilisation

The World Cup: Backpacker City vs Travel-Snob Rangers

Before leaving the Green Isle I was a little unsure about taking off on my own. Up until this trip I had done very little travel solo. Holidays for me were always more about the company I was in rather than the country I was in. In terms of this trip I was a little concerned that I might disappear into that aloof space that is my head and never be seen again but thankfully that hasn't been the case. My cousin allayed any fears by effectively describing travel as this parallel dimension. Indeed, it is incredible how many people there are in the world coasting in this dimension while you are all being productive in the other ... or at least pretending to be. As my trip was more or less organised on a whim I didn't really have a chance to develop any pre-conceptions. I suppose I did expect to meet a fair few hippies, a fair few people on the run and some complete wackos. All in all I have been pleasantly surprised at how natural everyone is. For sure there are some crazies around, You can spot them a mile away but they generally don't engage in conversation. In terms of people on the run, I have seen an awful lot less than I expected. Certainly there are people who are using travel as a get-out-of-jail card from some personal prison sentence but they seem to be more reflective than burdened. Whatever personal baggage they are carrying doesn't seem to stop them from having a good time. In terms of the hippies, there are some of the grungy set in the cheaper hostels wherever you go but the core group of hippies is lost-in-transit in India due to its perceived 'spiritual' dimension. In the main, the global tour bus is packed to the rafters with middle-class white-folk. The Asian middle class travel mainly in Asia and the South American middle-class usually travel in Latin America. Naturally, this is international travel but not quite the global travel that mostly privileged Europeans, Canadians, Americans, Ozzies and Kiwis aspire to.

I expected that travel would introduce me to various cliques, as if travel was part of the US High-school system but in fact there are only two cliches; the travel-snob and the backpacker. Everyone else is somewhere in between or else mature enough that they are totally open and engaging to all and sundry. The travel-snob is akin to the music-snob, they get a kick out of discovery and instead of roaming the virtual world of MySpace they are roaming all these obscure places in the real world. The music-snob spends more time listening to bad new music than to good music that is already out there. The kick is in being first or in knowing more as opposed to enjoying what is already known. It is interesting that the internet has expanded the musical universe whereas it has narrowed the travellers' universe because so many images and blogs of places are now online that it is very easy to travel the world without actually leaving your house.

So, who are these cliches? The snob tends to have a lot of pre-conceived ideas about what travel is supposed to be like, the backpacker just focuses on enjoying himself. The travel-snob tends to be fall back on their vast experience to justify their point of view, the backpacker doesn't really care. Snobs tend to think of travelling as an art, backpackers sometimes come across as lemmings just following each other around. The snob would never be seen with a Lonely Planet guide-book, the backpacker is stressed-out or lost without the short-cuts and hints. The snob is carrying a compact 45 litre pack, the backpacker has an 85 litre pack with stuff hanging off it. The snob tends to have a nice camera and a neat net-book, the backpacker uses a point-and-shoot and no lap-top because they believe that electronics are stolen. Snobs see themselves as explorers in the middle of nowhere, backpackers are on the global tour bus heading to the next party hostel in the next token tourist city. Snobs are out there trying to mix with the locals, the backpackers are speaking English to the locals working in the hostel. The travel-snob would never say that somewhere is crap for fear that they might be seen to be culturally insensitive. The backpacker doesn't really do culture, if they didn't have fun then the place is black-balled.

The reality is that while it looks like there are two opposing points of view the difference really comes down to the nature of a person. The back-packer whose trip is defined by the parties and the various peoples of different nationalities that he meets is really just an extroverted people-person. For sure he visits a tourist attraction to just get the photo but he is likely there with ten other people from the hostel and enjoying the chats. The travel-snob is likely somewhat more introverted and somewhat of an observer type. Naturally they will enjoy company but they are trying to get away from the backpacker-set so that they can observe and get under the skin of a place, as if it was in its pristine state before the arrival of global tourism. Everybody else is between the two extremes and problems tend to arise when the travel-snob is travelling in the wrong camp or vice-versa. It must be quite frustrating to be amongst the wrong crowd but people usually self-correct. Backpackers who find themselves alone in out-of-the-way places usually revert to the security of the cities where there is plenty of company. Likewise the travel snob who finds himself in a party hostel with grubby showers and no chance of shut-eye due to the loud music and comings and goings, usually checks-out and into another quieter hostel where they can get a good night's kip.

Where does his dudeness fit into all this? Well, I either straddle both camps or fall between two stools, I'm not sure which. The snobs embrace me because I am traveling under my own steam through the middle of nowhere without a guide-book. However, the reality is that I'm just taking a hell of a long time to get to the next party hostel. I love the global tour bus because I can have a proper conversation in English, as opposed to having to beat myself up for not having enough lingo to engage local people in the countryside. And the reason I don't carry a guide-book is two-fold: i) A guide-book is packed full of stuff that I'll never be able to see, thus, I'd rather not know what I am missing, and ii) I'm fed up with having my hopes dashed based on the enthusiasm guide-books have for every part of the world no matter how bad it is. I prefer to take each town as I find it as opposed to relying on someone else's opinion. This is not the same reason as the travel-snob who laments the homogenisation of tourism. Lonely Planet is now guilty of that dirty word 'globalisation' ... ironically. The way I see it is that we all have different bars that we like to go to in a city, we tend to belong in some bars more than others. Just because the guide-book likes a certain bar doesn't mean that it's going to be my kind of place or your kind of place. Thus, guide-books need to be taken with a large pinch of salt.

For me travel is very simple, it is movement by a person between two points for any amount of time, by any means and in any capacity. As far as I'm concerned commuting to work is even travel. While it is not exotic enough for those people on the Luas who have their eyes closed in an attempt to grab some extra sleep or for those people lost in the shuffle of their iPod, there are people on the Luas who have their eyes open and are noticing the amount of crazy people, over-burdened people or free-spirited people there are in their town. I guess that is the essence, it's nice to see places that are foreign but it helps if you have your eyes open and can keep an open-mind. I think this is where both travel-snobs and backpackers can fall down. The backpacker is too immersed in the whistle-stop tour with all these other nationalities that they can be guilty of missing the essence of the country they are traveling through by not really engaging it. They stay within the boundaries of the token tourist attractions and they don't engage the locals. However, the snob is guilty of being a bit closed too. They always throw in that token 'each to their own' comment after they have gone to town on some poor backpacker but they don't really mean it. They see their world-view as being infinitely more informed and like the explorers of old they take great satisfaction from seeing places that others never see. They have an attitude of superiority but likely don't realise that most exploration in the past was undertaken for profit and empirical land-grab as opposed to actual discovery (save for the Scott and Hilary types). Indeed, as much as the travel-snob likes to explore all these unknown places it ultimately remains difficult to get under the skin of the world unless you can communicate. Having seen a lot of small nowhere places I can only say that it is pointless visiting them unless you have the language to meaningfully connect with the locals. Language is the key that opens up new experiences, simply being there doesn't really count so much in my view. In addition, going to all these small places alone is not so great either. Unless you have the language then you are better off travelling wherever there are new friends to be made with whom you can share the experience. Indeed, there is often no real reason to see these places and that is why they don't make it into the guide-books. No disrespect to these small nothing towns who generously welcome the few travellers they do see with great curiosity and appreciation, however, if a traveller is on a budget of time or money then it is totally understandable to tread the beaten path. Doing so will allow you to have the generic Buenos Aires, Florianopolis, Rio conversation with whomever you meet on the road. Any tales I regale down the road risk sounding just like 'band-camp' ... i.e., little action to speak of that regular folk can relate to. When I exit South America I will have had all these experiences but I'll have made no lasting connections and I'll have shared them with nobody that is close to me. It doesn't detract from how wonderful the experience is, however, it would be more rewarding if I had the language or if I was going at the same speed as the backpacker whose itinerary is based on the international friends he meets on the beaten path as opposed to the places that interest him. For the backpacker it is better to be in good company than in a good country and I can relate to this a lot. I really seem to fall between two stools; as cool as the biking is the overall experience would be much more rewarding with solid Spanish. While the bike is nimble in the sense that it allows me to travel any road, in any direction, at any time and without the need for booking tickets and beds ahead ... the reality is that it can be a bit of an anchor in the sense that I can't easily just take off to Florianopolis to hang out with the cool people I met in a hostel the night before. The speed I travel at is very slow and so it means that I don't really make the lasting connections that people on the global tour bus manage to make. It is rare that I might meet the same person twice.

The coolest tourist is the multi-lingual person who has the knowledge and experience of the travel-snob but has gotten over himself such that he is more interested in everyone else's experiences. He has effectively exhausted his own voyage of self-discovery and while the world remains infinitely interesting, friendships are more meaningful to him. This person is quite serene and sees the world as a good friend as opposed to an object to be conquered. His language skills allow him to spend time off the beaten path engaging locals or on the beaten-path having fun with the international backpacking-set. His ability to communicate allows him to have many different experiences and many friends from all over the world and from all walks of life. Indeed, if he likes a place he can stay and integrate quickly eliminating the suspicions that local people tend to have of transients.

Make no mistake, the bike is a wonderful way to see the world and I enjoy being able to mix my travel experience up. However, for all those kids in school out there; as interesting as geography class is I can't emphasise how important foreign languages are.

Felices Pascuas

Che Marco

Classic Cars

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