Mineral Water

In keeping with the gaucho theme we would end up in a town that day called Rodeo. This little town is situated in an area known as the windiest part of Argentina. Indeed it is not much fun having to cycle uphill on what is actually a downhill section. My bike computer was showing that I was going down about 3% but due to the size of the breeze it may as well have been uphill. I have never cycled in such bizarre conditions and as I still had some beans left I dropped into the Floyd Landis tuck in an effort to slip through the breeze and time-trial my way in. This town is a reasonably popular tourist town having a lake which draws wind-surfers due to the daily afternoon gales of 120kph. The place was howling with breeze, it was pretty crazy to think that people live in a town such as this but of course they do. I do not carry a guide-book but I was aware that this town features in them due to the quality wind-surfing and rafting, so I was looking forward to seeing it. Of course, I was hoping for something akin to Tarifa near Cadiz and all I got was a town whose tourist business is literally drying up. You get used to such disappointments travelling. There is always the hope that the next town will suit you better and if you need something to pick up your morale then there is always beer or sleep. Both are pretty effective antidotes to places that your body just wants to catapult out of.

Rodeoat last signs of life ... siesta is overWe were due a rest-day so I had to make peace with the town and my sworn enemy (wind) for another 24 hours. As always, the longer you stay somewhere the more it seduces you and the more you see it for what it is as opposed to what you want it to be. It was helpful that an Argentinian hitch-hiker joined us for lunch and gave us some insight into the problems that the town is facing. Juan Villarino is a seasoned traveller having started his round-the-world hitch-hiking trip from Belfast. He first hitched a boat-ride to Scotland on the 1st of May 2005 and has been on the road ever since. He is a very vivid writer and can create a nice post-card. He sells small hand-made books of his travels and some of his own postcards to help him accumulate kilometres of road. He is a published travel-writer whose claim to fame is the hitch-hiking lesson he gave the Kurdish parliament. He is hitch-hiking through Argentina on his way to Alaska and had stopped by Rodeo to support an anti-mining demonstration. Mining is a very contentious issue in Argentina. The ground is very resource-rich making minerals a huge source of revenue and employment for the country. Most of the mining is carried out by global players who are more interested in serving global demand than the local communities in which they operate. There are various issues associated with the mining companies, one of which is the vast quantity of water which they use to carry out their operations; hundreds of millions of litres per day. The effect is that local agriculture is damaged due to the drying up of river-beds and in addition tourism is effected as the lake, for which the area is world-famous, is also drying up. Rodeo featured on the wind-surfing world tour but the drop in water-levels has caused it to be dropped from the series this year. Naturally damage to tourism and agriculture strengthens the miners position in the community as they become the sole major employer and so the town's interests become aligned with that of the mining company. These companies see themselves as contributing to the communities through employment and infrastructure development. However, the roads they build are due to the fact that bumpy roads could detonate the explosives they carry along public roads to the mines. As ever, there is more going on than meets the eye. Regardless, the non-mining families and the land are being meaningfully impacted and so the concern is for their children's future. The government is not exactly helping as the mining companies are assisting the government to achieve its objectives of employment and international currency. The state response is to sweep such demonstrations under the carpet by ensuring that they get little media attention. As in any resource-rush the profit motive can get out of hand. Mining companies are dynamiting glaciers to get at the rock underneath and indeed they wish to detonate a whole town as it sits on top of a veritable gold-mine.

These were rather sobering thoughts, appropriate considering I was hungover from pints with Jeremy the night before. It is always difficult to stumble upon such local problems. What can you do but support Juan in his travels and wish him well in his efforts to get these issues into the public domain. However, history is riddled with people and governments mining dollars and then worrying about the mess later. The developed world remains the largest consumer of resources and indeed the largest polluter, so it's a bit rich to expect that a poorer nation such as Argentina will tow the environmental line ahead of profit and employment. They are just trying to get a leg up. Regardless, the environmental impact is very real and visible.

Chat soon

Marco

Dique Cuesta del Viento

Space Cowboy

Having cut across the ripio to the pretty little town of Barreal we were granted about 80k of respite in the form of sealed roads through the small nothing towns of Calingasta and Villanueve. From there Mike, Jeremy and I had no choice but to embrace the ripio once more. Our maps do indicate what is ripio and what is not but we can never tell what type of ripio it is going to be. One hopes for the best but one has to expect the worst and be prepared to play that dreadful game of patience. The locals tend to be pretty accurate in terms of their assessment of road conditions but naturally they travel these roads in pick-up trucks requiring us to add a little more severity to their assessments. What a local might describe as flat could be a 1% climb for 50k; enough to hurt you.

We decided that we would carry enough supplies to wild-camp as we would have a fair bit of climbing to do out of Villaneuve and the next proper shop was 150k away, over 100k of which was ripio. Of course, if took us over 45 minutes to pay for some bread in the local shop in Calingasta before we could leave, the pace of life can be so slow here. However, we eventually set off on the warm-up section of asphalt before the hard road to come. On such days you simply ride as far as your legs will carry you, what you cover today you won't have to cover tomorrow and all that. However, the ripio was particularly sandy and when going uphill it was particularly difficult to power through. On top of this, there was a very long series of false summits to this 30k climb and a pretty severe head-wind. It was brutal riding to say the least. Wind is rarely a cyclist's friend but it's more the non-stop noise of wind blowing through your ears that annoys the most. We managed to crest the worst of the climb but we were still climbing a very slight gradient into a gale. In the end we called it quits. It didn't make sense to force our way through these kind of conditions slowly when we could recover and have more favourable conditions in the morning when the wind is usually dead. The only thing now was to figure out where to pull over out of the gale to pitch camp. Setting up camp in strong winds is a pain in the ass. Thankfully we managed to find a man-made bowl in the desert, which must have been used as a watering-hole for cattle at some point. There was no evidence of life, rather the opposite in the form of a cow's carcass literally pecked to the bone leaving a nice clean hide if we wanted to dress up as Barney Rubble.

sand-pit-stopat last a 'wind-break'wild-camping in a watering hole - the bike was used to anchor the tent in the galeAlthough we cart camping gear, we generally try to end up in or near a town so as to be able to get food, water and a shower. In this case Mike and I were camped simply in the middle of nowhere. The night sky was spectacular and it's funny lying in your tent thinking that only the man in the moon knows that you are there. It's a very strange sensation travelling on rough roads that only a few cars might use a day. In these scenarios I tend to get the feeling of being a cowboy; my steed and I nobly traversing these vast plains carrying enough supplies to get us to the next hint of civilisation. I often think of myself from the point of view of a satellite image; this tiny dot moving north through vast chunks of what seem like brown nothingness from an aerial point of view. Such thoughts always makes me smile.

The next morning we plodded on. We knew that we would hit the crest of the false flat at some point and so hopefully a bit of gradient in our favour would better enable us to carve our way through the sand. To add to the sensation of being cowboys we would be tracking Jeremy. He had not seen our camp the night before so either he had cycled past it or he had gotten up the road earlier in the morning, either way it was fun tracking him. His tyre tracks were all over the road at first so it suggested that he had either cycled in the dark or he was tipsy ... or probably both. Eventually we caught him so that finished our little game of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The road surface had changed from sand to rock making life difficult for Jeremy as he had already popped a spoke. Three spokes later and a rare pick-up truck came to his rescue. My bike is built for such rough sections allowing me to embrace the downhill stretch and hammer over the rocks at full-tilt ... or at least until a large boulder bounced up and whacked me on the shin reminding me that I should slow down.

Mike on the road from nowhereand the road to nowhereSuddenly two things appeared on the horizon: one was a line of trees suggesting civilisation, the other was a cloud of dust approaching us further down the road. Well, what do you know it was the real deal; a bunch of gauchos riding onto the same vast plains of nothingness that I had just been travelling through on my steed. It was really cool to see and it made all the fatigue worthwhile.

Talk soon

Marco

gauchos on the horizon

Gill Industries Press Release

Recent developments have led Gill Industries to terminate its joint venture agreement with Merrill Lynch, one of the world's largest casino operators. A difference of opinion over the investment philosophy of the venture has led to the amicable parting of ways. It was the desire of directors in Gill Industries to bet all client money on red, however, the Chief Investment Officer of Merrill Lynch was insistent that the house bet on black.

This conflict of opinion has resulted in the dissolution of the 10 year joint initiative. This will now allow Gill Industries to pursue freely a more socialist agenda (red) for clients while Merrill Lynch will continue to focus on the darker side (black), being the capitalist game of ping-pong played between fear and greed.

All clients and associates of Gill Industries should note that offices have relocated from Wall Street to Easy Street.

Mark Gill (PRO)

Ripio ... urghh!

There are two types of roads here in Argentina; alsphaltado and ripio. Ripio is pretty much a generic term for anything that is not tarmac. At best it is loose chippings, at worst it is bone-shaking rocks. Sometimes it can be like quick-sand with the bikes struggling to cut through and at other times it can be like riding fire-trails. Cycling bikes with such heavy loads makes ripio feel like racing across the gently rolling uphill cobbles of Flanders; one needs to keep on top of the gear or you will go nowhere fast so it is pretty exhausting stuff. Unfortunately ripio can go on for miles and miles.

My first introduction to ripio came on my second day as I left Villavincencio. Mike and I would have to finish off the rest of the 3000m pass to make it to the town of Uspallata near the Chilean border. At first It was great fun having to ride such challenging terrain, it is the reason I am here after all. Uphill sections are not so bad as you are already riding slowly. Downhill sections are ok too as the weight of the bike and the Schwalbe tyres just slice through the rough stuff. However, the next bike-day contained a 100k flattish section of ripio, which was just a killer as there was no respite. Even if you are riding strongly enough that it doesn't wear you down physically there can be corrugations which just destroy you mentally. The front wheel crashes into the corrugation and no sooner have you bounced the front wheel out and the back wheel hits grinding progress to a halt. Thankfully these corrugated sections are never too long but they are almost impossible to deal with over longer stretches.

Disappearing into the cloud (on easy ripio)

Riding above the cloud now (pass of 3000ms)

As Mike and I rolled through the Ripio on our tanks, we came upon another rider who had pulled over to put on his tunes. We stopped for a chat but I wasn't paying attention as I was just looking in awe at his bike. He was riding an aluminium Trek hybrid with 700c wheels on skinny Bontrager slicks. I couldn't get over it and I didn't reckon I would see him again as I couldn't fathom how such a bike was going to get him across 100k of ripio. We charged on leaving him to his own devices. On tough days you tend to let your imagination wander and I couldn't get the image of this token American guy wearing a Hawaiian shirt, Aviator sunnies and a base-ball cap disintegrating into the dirt. It was like something out of a Fatboy Slim video where at first one tyre punctures, then the next, then a spoke pops and then another. Soon one wheel just crumbles but he is still riding. Eventually the second wheel crumbles and so he just leaves his disintegrated bike on the side of the road and continues his journey through the desert on foot. Of course, at some point the blazing heat hits and he runs out of water, he strips his Hawaiian shirt off in an attempt to cool down. Eventually the heat wears him out such that he is soon on his hands and knees crawling and finally he passes out from thirst and burns to a crust in the heat.

Tarmac at last ... exhausted after 100k of ripioThis mini-movie just kept recycling in my head, so you can imagine what a shock it was to see Jeremy arrive into the hostel that night. We would become good friends riding together for ten days or so before he turned East and caught a bus for Buenos Aires. A really good egg from Buffalo; ex -army having dropped out of the 82nd Airborne division for being too much of a wise-ass. He has been travelling and living in different parts of the world such as China and Nepal ever since. He now does commercial fishing in Alaska during the summer season to pay for his travels. He has been biking around the world the last while. He started his South American trip in Chile and has been transporting an actual wine glass that he got at a bodega there to see how far he could carry it without it smashing. The ripio would suggest not too long but I think he still has it ... and his bike is still going strong despite having to replace about four spokes ... incredibly. So my bike-snobbery was not too misplaced after all.

Chat soon

Marco

Jeremy eating cold pizza and having some beers for lunch. It was 35 degrees and we are hiding in the shade provided by some locals. He plays the part of the token yank very well. Here he is without the Aviator sun-glasses but with his wine-glass!

And they're off ...

While my legs were fresh having been off the bike for three weeks, my body was not so fresh having only had four hours sleep. Still, it's amazing what gaps adrenaline can fill. Mike and I had already agreed that we did not particularly want to follow Ruta 40. This is the highway that most cyclists religiously follow going north from Ushuaia, Argentina's southernmost city. While tired limbs will want to embrace it at times, the desire is to ride off the beaten path as much as possible. We are riding tanks after all so there is nothing to halt progress but for tired legs.

The Last Supper?Thus, instead of heading directly north out of Mendoza we took the tourist route west to an old Spa Hotel called Villavincencio in the mountains. It wasn't long before we were riding in barren countryside. We rode through a National Park but it was not exactly parkland, rather desert. It was only when I saw the locals parked up and having their picnics that I realised that this deserted landscape was in fact 'countryside' from an Argentinian point of view. It took a few moments to get my head around the fact that people would travel out to the desert to have a picnic. In Ireland the words park and grass are almost synonymous.

The road started to climb at gradients averaging 5% (5ms vertical for every 100ms travelled). Mike and I would climb about 1000ms vertical to the Spa-hotel that is no longer open. It was not a tough climb but my bike was definitely heavier than in New Zealand and Mike was spinning a gear that made it look easy ... such is life for me with flips and a heavier load. I worked hard to stay close to his wheel. My thinking was that I did not want to cause him to lose strength by having him slow down to my speed. Hardly fair after all the trouble he had gone through to minimise his load Thus, I would need to find my legs quickly and ride training sessions to build myself up to his speed. My body adapts well to increased load so it would just mean a few days above conversation pace for me. We finally arrived at the pretty spa-hotel and had a great lunch at the nearby restaurant. Thankfully the friendly waiter made life easy for us by kindly giving us the okay to pitch our tents in the car-park once all the patrons had left for the evening.

Cribs!Just as I was settling in for the night the beams of car head-lamps disturbed the dark. There was the sound of car engines, voices and doors slamming. I could sense confusion and peeping out of the tent I could see five SUVs and torches blinding the darkness. I had no idea what might be happening so my pulse inevitably quickened. What the hell goes on in the middle of nowhere at this hour? Worst-case scenario it was a criminal gang on the move and trying to dump a body, best-case scenario it was a bunch of Argentinian tourists travelling in convoy surprised to discover that a hotel that has been shut for twenty years was not able to put them up for the night. I kept quiet as a mouse to witness whatever pending crime was to take place. The commotion passed after about fifteen minutes and soon the red sky of tail-lights faded. It must have been a bunch of tourists .... or else a very shallow grave.

More tales from the road soon

Marco

Preparation for lift-off to the moon

My week in Mendoza was more about learning the lingo and some last-minute fine-tuning than exploring the city. I didn't have that much tuning to do due to the fact that the parcel of things my brother sent me had not arrived in Bs As before I left. It does not matter too much as it is mostly warm-stuff I will need when I climb up onto the Alti-plano on the way into Bolivia. My bike shoes were in the parcel too so I may have to clock up some more kilos in flips having accumulated over 4000k in them so far. Thus, all there was to do was to jettison some load and buy my fourth pair of sunnies on this trip. Now that I have a hard case this pair should hopefully see me through. As I am carting all my camping gear on this leg I had to lose weight elsewhere. This meant that all my civvies bar two tees and a pair of light trousers had to go ... bye bye jeans and chucks ... boo-hoo. I also shipped my solar panel as it was not compatible with my iPod touch (I didn't expect the Touch to be so fussy) and I had not managed to pick up a compatible adapter for my netbook. It's not that heavy but I will have access to power every few days so there is no need for it. The real issue was to create enough space in my bags to carry provisions and extra water. Typically when one has space one fills it with stuff, be it a room in a house or in my case, a pannier on a bike. This is the first time on this trip that I will be remote enough to have to stock up on food and water.

I also met up with Mike from Cornwall, he is travelling north too having started in Puerto Montt in Chile some 2000k south of Mendoza. He is ultra-light and a much smaller rider than me. I felt obliged to cut my load to the bone in light of the fact that I am some five kilos over my ideal weight and I would be carting 5 kilos more than Mike. He weighs 10 kilos lighter than me and is a pretty gnarly rider having raced 1st-cat before doing mostly long time trials in recent years. I don't doubt my own ability but some of these passes will be quite high and so there is no sense carrying much more than the other person, especially if you are already 15kg net heavier. Mike has managed to accumulate ultra-light gear over the years and is pretty economical with his stuff. This includes weighing his flip-flops and cutting off the excess cable on the power-supply for his laptop. Where there was an option to shave weight he managed to do so. Such is the benefit of experience and some months of planning. The only luxury I allowed myself was to start with six books. I do not expect to be able to trade them en route so I wanted some inventory. The only other real dead-weight is my bike bag and my ruck-sack travel cover which I need for my flights. The temptation is to post these items forward but routes can change so I will start out with the dead-weight and worry about it later. So, all I have added to my load is a 4 litre water bag and a cool Mountain Equipment Prima-loft jacket to keep my bones warm on the Alti-plano (this doubles up nicely as a pillow in the tent too).

The last thing to take care of was one last proper night out in civilisation. Mike and I headed out for some brews with Suzie and Steve from my Spanish school and then onto a cool club on the outskirts of town. I was in bed at 5 and up again at 9 to hit the road for the first day of my Andean adventure.  

I'll talk from the road

Marco

Hablo un poco Castellano

When I was in India I found not having the language very frustrating. It just doesn't feel right expecting the natives to speak English just because I do. Even in Europe it is nice to make an effort as the locals appreciate it. For sure Europe is much better educated and so it is typical that young people will have a very good knowledge of English but it shouldn't be an assumption on my part. The main reason to have the language is not just to ask for directions and for a big beer but to get closer to the people of the country. Travelling is as much about the people as the places you see and so to get a more complete picture it is a real advantage to have the language. People like to talk and when a random guy on a bike arrives into a small town people are naturally curious and happy to chat. Of course, when I mean getting to know the locals I mean the 'locals' too. It would be nice to meet Miss Universe and have a proper conversation with her ... probably about World Peace or whatever it is she is into.

I have completed two weeks of Castellano, one week in Buenos Aires and one week in Mendoza. It is not that difficult once one gets a grip of the pronunciation. It has been a great help so far and I know I need to learn a lot more as I'm still only at the asking for directions and for a big beer stage. Like any skill I will need to put more time into it but hopefully it will come with patience. For some reason I started babbling in French when I arrived. I wouldn't mind but for the fact that when I'm in France I babble in German. It was only when I was dreaming in Spanish (giving directions instead of asking for them) that I thought that perhaps I was getting somewhere. Now that I am on the road progress will be slow regardless of how fast progress is by bike.

Hasta Luego

Marco

ps - I finally found a connect fast enough to upload some photos of Buenos Aires. Please check the gallery to view.

Facebook

Hay muchas chicas lindas here in Argentina. When they are good, they are very very good. I would love to just take some photos of the hotties to show you all but I can't just stick a camera in a girls face without creeping her out. Women are not objects apparently. I had the intention of creating a gallery of hot chicks and calling it 'Facebook' but you will all have to use your imagination for the time being.

Sorry to disappoint.

Marco

Buenos Aires

Due to poor weather my flight from Sydney to Buenos Aires was diverted to Santiago. While being cocooned on a plane for 16 hours is not fun the confinement made me realise a few things. First, time dissolves for travellers. The only thing I have to be on time for are my flights, other than that everything can wait. It's a nice sensation not having time hounding you during the day. The second thing I noticed was how long the fuel pump stayed in the plane, it was a full seventy minutes before the ground crew outside my window switched off the pump allowing us to advance. I started to think about all the planes in all the parts of the world gobbling up that much oil; there has to be a side-effect. The final thing I noticed were the Andes. As we were diverted north to Santiago, my new flight plan was to traverse the continent allowing me to see the Andes stepping up like a staircase from the pampas. The desolation was spectacular and it reminded me that I better get my fill of civilisation ahead of the barren road to come.

Buenos Aires felt European or rather Spanish to be precise. After a few months of travelling through the Commonwealth I found this refreshing. Travelling through Australia and New Zealand was very easy ... too easy in fact. In contrast, travelling through India, Nepal and Tibet was quite hard. Buenos Aires seemed to be the middle ground. The complexion and nature of the people were different while still familiar. The language was different but at least it was legible unlike the alien script of Hindi and Kanji. There was a language barrier but it was not insurmountable. Inded, the lack of English would provide a challenge. The whole point of travelling is to explore 'foreign' lands and since Australia and New Zealand are not that foreign I was quite excited to be in Latin America.

The hostel I stayed in was the best hostel of my trip so far; the most sociable place I have been. It had a 24 hour bar and an amazing roof terrace dominated by an incredible piece of Italian architecture across the road. It was something out of Gotham city and unbelievably it had bats flying around it. For whatever reason, most of the people staying there were a little bit older and were travelling either solo or in pairs. In Oz and NZ the travellers are very young and are usually with packs of friends, so they have no need to make new friends. This hostel was a God-send as the only hard part about travelling is when you are on your own in a city and you see people out with their friends having a great time over coffee, lunch or a beer. Being alone in the countryside is never a problem as you don't feel like you are missing out on anything.

I must have met twenty good eggs during the week, which made exploring the city good fun. As my body was so screwed up from Jet-lag (always an issue travelling east for me) I decided to give my body a double dose by staying out late Buenos Aires style. My plan was to do Bs As by night the first week and then do it by day the following week. While there is no siesta on the East coast they still stay up pretty late. For example, seeing mothers pushing prams at 1am is not uncommon. Whoever was available for selection would be drinking on the roof terrace in the hostel and then the night would just go from there. At 1am we would head to a bar and then at three we would head to a club. We'd generally bail at 5am but the clubs go on past seven. Being the home of Tango meant that the girls liked to dance even if was only to cheesy Reggaeton. Seeing all these hot and sweaty girls was great but not having the lingo was a real killer. Since English is very broken in this part of the world the frustration of my first night out meant that I would enrol in Spanish classes the next day. Anthony Pappa was in town so I made sure to hear his DJ set on the Friday, which was cool. However, the best place was La Bomba de Tiempo. It is like weekly mass on a Monday night for the locals. We knew it was going to be good once we arrived as we had to walk at least a kilometre from the main door to join the queue. Some flame-throwers and a corner shop selling brews meant that the wait was easily passed. La Bomba is pretty much ten dudes on stage with drums and a conductor jamming away in this out of the way open-air warehouse. Up close to the stage the hippy girls were going bananas. It was just electric and annoyingly their encore was their best set.

Bs As is a really cool city. It wasn't easy to discern that it was in a second world country. The cars and buses were a give-away but that is about it. Like any international city it had a nice mix of modern architecture with old world buildings. It was only when I caught the #86 bus to La Boca that I saw the real deal. Being a tourist one generally lives an easy life amidst the convenience of the city-centre but when you get the right bus but in the wrong direction you get to see more of the city than you bargained for. I stayed on for the ride not expecting that I would be taken beyond city-limits to the countryside two towns overs. Three and a half hours later I was back where I started having paid 1 euro for the round-trip and a little wiser.

Talk soon

Marco

The Wheel

I like the wheel so much I need two of them, some people need four but two is enough for me. The wheel is pretty much synonymous with 'progress' and is among man's most significant and oldest inventions. In the West we are too busy 'advancing' ourselves into an ever more tangible society that we have not noticed how much we have regressed and disconnected ourselves from all the essences that make up our true human nature. On a very simple level, when one considers our physical nature we love to use cars for the simplest errands and we always use elevators or lifts where we can. We do this even though we would hate to be physically frail when we are older. While we marvel at our brilliance in attaching one invention to another, such as the motor to the wheel, we are in fact complicit in making our own fears reality. During my time on the road the theme of the wheel has popped up elsewhere.

The wheel is synonymous with transport and it was Gandhi who lamented the invention of the locomotive. He viewed it is as a means of transporting cheap local goods to the dearest foreign market. This would have been the practice of the East India Company in buying cotton from India and selling the finished garment back to Indians at a price they could barely afford. The Indian textile market was traditionally a reasonable source of income for local Indian weavers and cotton-pickers, however, the import of cheaper Indian textiles into England excited the local cloth producers to such an extent that the British government imposed heavy penalty on the users of Indian fabrics in England. Thus, the English textile industry resorted to importing the raw-cotton from India, weaving the cotton by machine and then exporting it back to the millions in India, which was then under British Rule. The consequence was that the local Indian textile industry collapsed. From Gandhi's perspective "mechanization is good when the hands are too few for the work that is intended to be accomplished. It is an evil when there are more hands than are required for the work." Gandhi's answer to the mechanization of the weaving process and the exploitation of his people was the Charkha (spinning wheel). He believed that Indians lost their freedom with the loss of the Charkha. Spinning supplemented the agriculture of a village and gave it dignity, it prevented idleness and supported all anterior and posterior industries such as ginning, carding, warping, sizing, dyeing and weaving. It in turn kept the village carpenter and blacksmith busy. The Charkha enabled all the Indian villages to be self-sufficient and without it the villages were drained of their industries, creativity and little wealth. The spinning wheel became the symbol of Gandhi.

In Tibet the wheel is sacred. The universe in Buddhism is depicted in what is known as the Wheel of Life. The rim of the wheel is divided into 12 causes and effects; our passage from birth to death. The wheel is then divided into six sections representing different realms; the Gods, the Demi-gods, humans, animals, ghosts and hell. The rim of the hub of the wheel is divided into two; white being the path to bliss and black being the path to darkness or hell. The hub of the wheel represents the three poisons; delusions, hatred and greed. These are typically personified by the boar, serpent and fowl. The hub is considered the wheel of woe as it is typically represented by each of the poisons eating the other. It shows how 'sentient' beings can be trapped. Indeed, in Tibet the wheel is really only in evidence among the Chinese that now live there. The Chinese invasion has diluted Tibetan practices somewhat but in the main Tibetans maintain a very traditional life-style. There are no modes of transport other than horse-back or foot, they plough their fields with yak-drawn ploughs and they don't interact with foreign markets.

I'm sure it is mankind in general as opposed to simply Western man that instinctively goes about making life easier for himself. For sure, I spend time trying to work out how to make each day on the bike easier without capitulating my desire to experience the perfect ride. However, I'm not sure whether the mental resources used by the few to make the lives of the many easier is worthwhile. Is the consequence of this that we weaken mankind as a whole by no longer using our own natural resources? This is represented by our fondness for machines of all types such as calculators for simple arithmetic etc. What we don't use we lose and all that. Whether this leads towards the path of Bliss or the path of Darkness I do not know. All I know is that in Tibet they having a saying which is as follows: "With the wheel comes the end" ... and they are probably right.

Thanks for reading

Marco