Riding out of Mendoza

After 7 long, and at times, frustrating weeks in Mendoza, I am at last back on the road in South America. I left town on Friday 13th, never a good date to start out, but it was good to be all packed up and rolling again.

I didn’t plan to stay in Mendoza this long, but it has allowed me to make some really great new friends and to re-examine the journey, as well as fatten up a little eating and drinking way too much, this is the problem when you live in a hostel where every night is party night.

My planned schedule is so out of time, that I have decided to take a much more relaxed approach, there is much to see in South America and the idea of rushing through a continent just to get to a destination doesn’t appeal. So at this stage I am not making any concrete plans on when I will be in any one spot, if I take along time here and have to skip parts of central America, then so be it, as this part of the journey is the least appealing and the most hassle. I will just take it as it comes.

The final repair bill came to £1700, roughly what I thought it would be, but a lot of money all the same, especially since most parts have just been straightened and the bike still looks like it has been through a war – character building I think we say in England! Its is now what we call in the bike trade, “a 30 yarder”, that’s to say that from 30 yards it looks OK, but up close it looks a wreck. The bike is still steering a little to the left, but after all is considered, this is as good as it gets and I will just have to go with it and hope this causes no further problems down the line.

The first days ride was taken rather carefully and I was on high alert for anything with 4 legs, this feeling was re-asserted by the large number of dead dogs that you see littering the roadside. My destination was the high Andean pass of Aqua Negra, where at this time of year you can drive in between two glaciers that come down to the roads edge, at an altitude of 4800 meters. I arrived in the town of Rodeo, approx 80kms from the pass to re fuel both the bike and myself, before heading up the mountains, only to find there was a power cut, so no fuel was available. I tried the next town, but only to find the same story. While I had time to kill, I checked with the local customs post if it was OK to ride up the pass, but without going in to Chile, I was told that it would be fine just come and see them tomorrow (manana!).

The following day I rode up to the customs check point, to find a queue of cars and trucks, which is never reassuring. It turned out that the pass was closed due to snow and landslides and no one would be going over in the morning, so come back later. After lunch I rode the 14kms towards the check point, but you could see that the weather had got worse not better, so instead I headed towards a rodeo that I had been told about, a spectacle that I had never seen and was very keen to watch and photograph. It was supposed to start at 2pm, but being Argentina, that turned out to be 4pm. Gauchos (Argy cowboys) are part of national folk lore, the heroes of the plans that risk life and limb all in the days work out of the plan, and who’s horsemanship it legendary.

So you can imagine there is a lot of testosterone running around the place and a lot of showmanship. These are not stetson-ed cowboy booted folk from the USA, these are cowboys with Latin flare, hence there are different outfits for different events, brightly coloured scarves and hats, plus all manner of baggy pantaloons, reminiscent of a thousand and one knights more than cowboys.

I met up with some guys that I had met the previous evening who were taking part and was shown great hospitality, that seems part of Argentinean culture and that is so charming when you are from cold and reserved England.

Refreshed with a glass of Fennet and the games in full swing, I was given a show of great horsemanship, and lets just say, bravado, as men took to the backs of beasts that they looked like they had only eaten before. There was clearly some weekend gauchos taking part and I think there would be aching for a good few days after parting company from a bull or two! A really special feeling was, apart from my travel buddy Bob, being the only traveller there, it was not a tourist event, this was Argentineans living there lives and have fun, watching people charge around a field on horses and bulls, having a BBQ and drinking a few beers and some Fennet. There are no gripping kids, saying “ I want to go and play PS 2” there are no fights because some one has drunk too much, this was a whole community, an entire town, all out having a great time, all playing and sharing, welcoming you as guests not outsiders. I have really grown to like the Argentinean people, there are warm, generous and sincere with there hospitality and very open, a pleasure to be around. And if this it not enough, getting taken down the local pub on a moto cross bike - fantastic!

The following day, Sunday, we go again to the customs to find out about ridding up to the pass and are advised that yes we are free to pass. However, what the officer forgot to tell us, is that there is another check point another 40kms up the road, and we had to get clearance from the officer there as well. Unfortunately , the officer there was not so accommodating and refused us passage to view the glacier. I tried my best selling techniques, but to no avail, so after spending two days trying to ride the Pass de Agua Negra, we gave up and headed out towards Cordoba and the searing heat of the dessert.

I have ridden with Bob the Canadian for the past week and I am now In Cordoba, but tomorrow we part company and I will start to head up towards Salta and then cross over the Andes in to Chile and on to Bolivia. We have ridden through some great scenery and some roasting hot desserts, its always good to ride with someone else and share a beer with at the end of a long hot days ride, but I need to get going north and find the coolness of the mountains, the plans are too hot for me and I really don’t enjoy sweating my arse off when ridding.

I am really happy to be back on the road and once again enjoy the freedom that only two wheels can bring. There was a time when I thought the trip was going to end prematurely due to the accident and for a time I felt really down about the options. Travelling by bus, boat or plane, really doesn’t excite me any more, you just become one of the herd, just another traveller doing the “gap year” thing. Going from one traveller hang out to another traveller hang out, only meeting people from the west who are doing the same thing as you. I want to experience more than that and being on the bike opens up a whole new world to you. In the book Investment Biker, the author, Jim Rogers summed it up, “when you travel by motorcycle, you experience everything the land has, when its hot, your hot, when its cold, your cold, when it rains you get wet. You feel everything the land has to offer, good and bad.” And he is total right, there is no other feeling like ride a motorcycle through a land and I only hope that through what I write, I can convey a small percent of what I feel while experiencing this journey .