Day 38 - Transition

Salicas to Aimogasta (45km) - Sunday 25th September


Today was very much a case of getting there. We knew we had an easy day in terms of distance, so allowed ourselves the luxury of a lay in. We stirred at 10am, were vaguely alive by 11am and left near 12! I could blame Alan's front paw who was again playing up, I could blame the absence of shower curtain for helping me flood the room with a good inch of water, I could blame the two litres of beer last night; but no, we were just moseying along enjoying a brilliant lack of urgency, full of the knowledge that 45km was eminently doable.

The ride itself was nothing much to shout about. A long straight road, with very little to distract us or punctuate the monotony of churning the peddles. We chatted, I sang (mostly 90s cheese and physics songs... Enough to make Ant's head really drop!), and after putting the world to rights, we were still only two thirds of the way along this boring road. Times like this we have to remind ourselves how lucky we are to have a flat, straight road. There could have been rippio, there could have been hours of climbs, there could have been a 60km/h head wind; so today's ride really isn't at all bad... We were just seeing it as a transition from one place to the next - just get it done.

There was also the nagging feeling in our minds: Last night we went looking for camping and found a hotel; tonight we would be looking for a hotel... Eeek!

Who knew what this town would bring. OK so it is a slightly larger dot on the map than 'towns' of the past which have turned out to be nothing more than a hut and a cow, and the larger font size does bring us hope, but you just never know.

As we got closer, we passed several agri-industrial estates and the town on the horizon, although large, looked to be mostly warehouses... Eeek!

Another few km and we'd know...

...relief! Two hotels and a hostal to chose from - though the reality was fairly different - we simply stopped at the first hotel we saw. It was pleasant, reasonably priced, clean, even had a tv and air con - crazy! Of course the wi fi didn't work and it turned out to be about 1km outside town, but it felt like luxury! What's more, we had a home by 3pm, so had the whole afternoon to explore (read: Eat, sleep, eat again then sleep) and sample yet another ice cream parlour.

We also discovered (don't ask how!!) that dogs in this town are unexplainably aggravated by Ant's 'crab impression '. It seems walking sideways with snappy hands in the air has the ability to turn even the friendliest pup into a raging loon. And once done, it can't be undone. I guess partly due to the scent memory, partly that word travels in the dog world;  when we next walked into town we found ourselves being hunted by the towns mutts. So much so, we both felt it necessary to carry stones... Just in case! This was a stark contrast to the moderately peaceful first sojourn into town with the cute furballs looking nothing more than fluff and cuddles. Note to selves... Experiment with crab walking in other towns to see if the act scares all K9s or just thus town was over taken by giant crab aliens at some point!

Tomorrow is a huge day - 113km to La Rioja - our final goal before hopping a bus to Mendoza, one step close for the eagerly awaited Chilean lake district (got to get Ant out of the sandy desert and find him some trees and green before he goes mad!).

Day 37 - Looking for the sandpit

Belen to Salicas (100km) - Saturday 24th September



With the nightmare spot windy camp still fresh in our minds and legs, we set out today VERY prepared to camp. After a fairly late start due to general tardiness, Alan's front paw playing up, my insistence of hamburgers for breakfast and several (failed) attempts to find cereal bars and tortillas in the supermarkets, we were planning to take things easy. Incidentally the hamburgers were each the size of a large dinner plate... My eyes have never lit up as brightly!

Our predicament was one of distances, the next town (Londres) had the certain promise of hostals, but was far too close (15km) to consider stopping there. Other than a few dubious looking settlements about 80km further along, the town after that was 145km from Belen - manageable if we started at 8am and had no head wind, but not entirely realistic having only left town at 1pm!

So that left one option, get on the road and cycle as far as we felt we wanted to, knowing each km gained was one we wouldn't have to do tomorrow, then look for a spot to camp as evening sets in.

A brilliant plan that meant for a very relaxed day cycling through beautiful rolling scenery, with mountains on our right and a (thankfully not too windy) plain on our left. Ant was happy - plenty of trees here! Even the odd cow (Emma quakes in fear) was basking in the afternoon Sun on the side of the road.
The one catch was that we were cycling strongly... REALLY strongly. Despite the (obligatory!!!) head wind we were making good progress and both really enjoying churning the pedals. We kept going... And going ... And going... And as the Sun started to fall a little from the sky we realised it was probably a good time to think about camping, so we kept our eyes open for a good spot - far enough away from the road to be protected from prying eyes, but not too far to be ambushed by cows (and spiders... Shiver!!).


Another slight hiccup was the fence that stretched out on both sides of the entire road... If we were going to find a good camp spot it would definitely mean fence hopping!
So we kept on going - we would turn off the routa 40 after 90km, so why not see if the next road, routa 60, comes without fence. We got there, it didn't. But it was much more green with the odd hint of water and grass, which made Ant's camping ears prick up.

Then with the help of google, we realised there was a town in 4km... Lets get there, just on the off chance there's food and a bed. We got to the town. No food or bed, but two independent sources reported there was indeed a hostaleria in the next town along, 8km away. Why not! The Sun probably had about half an hour left in him, we definitely had 8km left in our legs, and if it turned out to not be fruitful then we probably had about 10minutes to find a camp spot and bed down. Cutting it tight, but we were feeling good.

So we hammered out the remaining 8km (which was actually only 5km!... Things you need to know about distances here... No one knows them! Even the road signs conflict each other  and sometimes lose all sense of direction! A highlight of the day was seeing Ant stop to check the map right next to the world's most helpful road sign that simply had an arrow pointing in our direction and a "?" Printed in big white type!)... And found the hostaleria.


Moreover they actually had a room, with a leaky but hot shower and a (possibly drunk!) attendant, smoking in front of the non-smoking signs. He could just about distract himself from the Simpsons enough to reach for a room key, but struggled to write or even say the wi-fi password! Oh well it was gone 7 on a Saturday night! And this did mean he had large bottles of beer to sell us... What a treat!

A few nights ago we were hoping for a hotel room and found a camping spot, tonight we went looking for a camping spot, and found a hotel room. Just like Winnie the Pooh and his sandpit. Pooh bear logic - it's sound man!

Day 36 - Arachnophobia

Windy hell hole to Belen(d)...
( he he he... Never fails to be funny!)
 (100km) Friday 23rd September


We woke up after very intermittent sleep in a windy, but firmly pegged out tent (thanks to Ant's perfectionist ingenuity), to cloudy stormy skies and heavy hearts. Our worst fears were realised as the absence of Sun hadn't helped the wind die down and it felt like we were in the middle of a storm. At least we wouldn't need Sun cream today, we were wrapped up warm in gear, which we would ordinarily wear to cycle the Brecons at Christmas, and were shivering during the day - something that's grown unfamiliar!

As we packed up the tent and ate the only breakfast we had - two mini three day old croissants filled with sticky dulche de leche and the last few swigs of apple juice, we saw two fluorescent figures on bikes with two smaller less flourescent minis in line on the road ahead. This was legend number two - the second of the French families, this one with a 10year old and 6year old in tow. Hey if they can do this then we can! So spurred on, we packed up the rest of our gear and got on our way to catch them up.

This took much longer than you might imagine - they were incredibly strong! Turns out they were on exactly the same route as us from Lima, except they DID cycle through the rippio hell of Bolivia, and had little positive to say about it! We cycled in a 6man train (or technically 4 adult, 1mini on bike, 1 mini attached to front of Dad's bike in reclining peddling fashion contraption) into the head wind, that was surprising light. We hadn't realised we were going at the crazy speed of 25km/h until we saw the km markers whizz passed.

Hopes and heads much higher we chatted away until I struggled to keep up and fell right off the back wobbling away... Damn it! Now is NOT a good psychological time to get a puncture! Clearly we're not destined to cycle with anyone else!

We watched them cycle off into the distance as we checked the tyres and removed the hundreds of thorns we'd both picked up at some point in the desert... Grrr! An hour later and we were on our way again, slightly less upbeat but still thankful that we could make good progress.

The 20km to the hot springs that we'd been aiming for yesterday came and went, as did the hope of breakfast... De nada. We found a shop to sell us much needed water and some weird apple soya juice though, so we were fuelled enough to cope with the next 10km to the town.

There, thankfully we found an open restaurant and inhaled our food. The dilemma came when we also saw a couple of pleasant hostals - a glance at the map told us it was a simple choice - stay here having only done 40km today, or press on to the next town of Belen (another 60km with nothing in between) and risk a head wind and another spot camp. Feeling strong, positive and well-fed and with time on our side (2pm) we decided to press on. After all every km was a km closer to being out of the back ass of nowhere!

We bumped into the French family on the way out of town who HAD decided to stay, this put more doubt in our minds, had we made the right decision? Ant was not liking the idea of another dusty, unclean night in a tent (he's already sad the tent's super sandy). Oh well the French crew can travel fast, but not so far with kiddies - we have stamina (and a few less minors in tow!) so we said our goodbyes.
And then we started enjoying the day. Nervous, but feeling positive that we could tackle whatever laid ahead, we whizzed along at between 17-25km/h. The road was slightly downhill and surprisingly sheltered by lumps of rock leaving only a strong, but very manageable head wind.

We even found a service station to get a last few supplies (chocolate and beer!) just in case we had to camp again. We were confident we could now conquer the world... After all we had beer!

But soon enough we reached the end of the plain and entered a mountainous world of trees, rivers with actual water in them (not the dried up mud banks we've become familiar with) and a downhill sweep for the last 15km into Belen(d). Ok so we still had our old friend the head wind, who picked up strength as we swept around every other corner making our descents like a slow mo, pedalling version of their Peru selves, but who cares about that when we were moving at a pace that you wouldn't need a time lapse video to detect! We were now certain of a hotel, shower and bed for the night. Our ears would definitely be grateful for this opportunity to remove the streams of sand!

About 5km out of town, and just passed the 4100km marker point that this time yesterday I never thought we'd see, I saw him... Gulp... The biggest, yet most lethargic, tarantula type spider that I've ever seen was making his way slowly into the road ahead. I squealed, threw up a little bit in mouth, swerved and cycled as fast as my little legs could carry me up the surprisingly steep hill he'd chosen to cross in front of. As I was sweating and shivering at his memory at the top of the climb (I might also have been trying to fashion a 'D' out of my arms to decorate the Belen sign with a childish grin on my face!), I peered back to see Ant off his bike and taking photos of the little (gigantic!) creature. Apparently he made it very casually half way across the road, got spooked by a pick up truck and narrowly dodged by a couple of other cars, came running back towards Ant at high speed (gulp!), veered away from Ant (scaredy spider!), then hunched up in the safety of the side of the road breathing fast in an adrenalin rushed, post event panic attack (I don't really know if spiders have any of the above capabilities, to be honest I doubt it, but I'm just relaying the story as Ant told it and if you remember when you nest see him, you must get him to act out "the plight of the road crossing spider"... Its a masterpiece!).

Other than spiders and the potential for future recurring nightmares, Belen(d) turned out to be a very pleasant town and not at all the "sleepy town that shows all traits of being in the middle of nowhere", that the guide book insinuated. The main hotels were fully booked (joys of Friday night cycle touring), which was a shame as we felt we'd earned a tiny bit of luxury, but we found a mediocre (isn't everything!) hostal (Fredy) to tide us over and offer a hot shower.

A parillia fed us brochetas and black pudding sausage (nom nom nom) even if we did have to wait an hour for the chef to arrive after they opened (9pm eating man, they love it here!). But that gave us plenty of time to demolish a bottle of local white wine (finally!) and very tasty it was too!

We were soon in the beautiful square with two giant ice creams, listening to a band play what I'm convinced was incy wincy spider, whilst some strange local latin dancing group waved a few white hankerchiefs and then it was time for bed... And time for me to miss my mouth completely and tip the remnants of mint choc chip all over my navy trousers... Eeek!

Tomorrow we head for another 100km empty plain... But let's worry about that then... Today was a good day... Now I shall dream of spiders... Adios!
)

Day 35 - Childbirth

Santa Maria to the middle of (insert swear word) nowhere (80km) Thursday 22nd September


As well as my strange obsession with daily travel journals, the reason I wanted to write this blog was to give a more realistic view of the cycle touring highs and lows. So many blogs out there scream how wonderful the place/trip/cycling/food/mountains/kit ( You name it) is, but the reality is of course slightly different. I suppose like childbirth, with time you forget the horrible bits that make you scream and throw rocks at the road and just remember the awesome accomplishment and beautiful scenery, so for me it's important to record the days as they pass.
Today was a day that needed time before I could even bring myself to reflect on it! For a good 24hours post event all I could come up with was a sentence that involved a LOT of swearing and something about going home. But time has passed and rose tinted glasses have been found, so here's my attempt at recording today...
It sucked... It sucked big time!
From the start my head was down (I think I needed food), and I was struggling to see the good in anything (sever case of hanger). After a few pastries and a sandwich early on I lifted my spirits enough to match the gleaming optimism of Ant and we cycled through the first 30km of small towns and villages, chatting away and watching the lunch places pass (another 10km under the belt then we can stop).
The scenery was nothing to shout about but a world away from ugly; desert, sandy, mountains but still trees initially.  As what we would later realise was our final lunch opportunity (shabby little unappealing hut advertising sandwiches that we contemplated stopping for but held out for better) came and went, so did the trees and signs of life (except bugs and the occasional bird).
We were cycling along a river (dried up of course) with sand dunes on our left and mountains on our right...  Cue Stealers Wheel. This was still nothing too bad. We'd picked up enough supplies for lunch from the bakers this morning so could eat those, its just nice to have food in reserve... Just in case and all...
We had to climb a hill to get out the valley and onto the plain that would yield 50km of flat for us to plug on through, before the promise of hot springs and a camp site (which may or may not have supplies).
It was this 40km where the labour started... A head wind like no other head wind struck us. I don't think either of us has ever fought so hard to cycle at 6km/h, even up a hill. At times the wind was so strong it would almost bring us to a standstill and leave us gritting our teeth.
As we ground our way along at snail's pace knowing the only way was forwards as there was literally nothing behind us except hills for over 10km and definitely nothing ahead for at least another 40km, things just got worse. We'd never cycled through a sand storm before and to be honest I think neither of our lives would have felt empty if we hadn't been blessed with this experience.
It was horrible.
Sand hitting you at what was probably 50km/h with every gust, wind stopping you dead, scenery disappearing into a sandy mist in all directions. The speed we were travelling at was akin to cycling up a 6-7% gradient for 5 hours.
I can't even begin to describe the feeling of knowing you have another 30km ahead, knowing your legs are at their wits end, knowing your mind is going to lose every ounce of positivity soon, knowing that those last few bits of positivity are the things that are keeping your legs turning, knowing that you probably don't have enough water to wild camp and shelter it out and even if you did, getting the tent up would be impossible, knowing that you're both suffering but looking to each other for anything positive to cling on to, knowing that at the very least you would be reminded of this for weeks when you find more blasted sand that had somehow worked its way through the panniers and inside the camera case?!!
By this point we were taking it in turns to lead the way, the other one sheltering in the draft to get a little rest (Ant later told me he was giving me 2minutes on the front each time because he'd worked out it was about 30s longer than he needed to recover and about 30s shorter than it would take for me to blow up physically and mentally!). The km markers on the side of the road seemed to take an age to show themselves... Would 4200 ever go away? (Routa 40 counts down all the way to Tierra del Fuego). After about 10minutes we could rejoice... 4199... It was insane how long it took for one measly km to pass. I remember thinking it seemed impossible that we would ever get to the next big town at just under 4100, our original goal for tomorrow (and a town named 'Belen'...by this point I'd taken to adding a 'D'... He he he).
We were stopping every now and then to give our heads a rest... They needed the recharge much more than our legs... And try out a new mantra... For Ant: "if I can run 100 miles I can cycle another 20km into this"; for me: "one more step along the road I go, one more step along the road I go..." sang in its entirety, on repeat, in my head (Ant is thankful for this!), with each pedal stroke as my metronome. I'd found my mantra only worked for limited repeats at a time and was interspersed with exhaustion and hunger driven anger followed by tears... Many many tears (note tears, sand and not much water not an ideal combination!). Ant just reminded me of the (now hilarious) moment I threw down my bike grabbed the nearest rock an hurled it into the distance telling the wind to just "fucking fuck off".
In the 30km we cycled, we saw only two shacks that almost resembled houses. One of them actually had people in it (on horses rounding up cows, sheep and goats... Where did these animals come from and why do they live HERE?!!) who were thankfully kind enough to give us water, though just like every pick up we'd attempted to flag down, were equally uninterested in our plight and happy to let us battle on through.
Was it in our heads or was the wind easing slightly? It was still hell, but we were now sometimes travelling at nearly 10km/h and not quite getting pushed to a stand still. There was a distinct possibility. Perhaps, we thought, this was one if those winds that would ease up after sun down... (we'd later realise we were wrong!)... So when we finally turned left of the ridiculously long straight road, but still into a head wind (you try and work that one out!) and still 20km short of the next dwelling (likely 3hours away at this speed) our aim was to keep cycling into the dark and hope it eased.
About 10 minutes after we'd agreed this plan a huge just of wind crashed me mentally and I started to talk of finding a camp spot here and continuing our suffering in the morning... I just wasn't sure I could take any more. About another 10minutes and what felt like 10mm up the road, and Ant was in the sane head space. "fuck it, its not going to be fun but I'm fed up too, it's probably sensible to stop".
So we started to hunt for a sheltered spot in a very unsheltered area. There was a slight upward slope in the road and a few bushes that promised a little let up, and we even found some sandy patch hard enough to peg out the tent.
Our home made, our bellies empty, we ate what was left in our food bag (a couple of pasteries, two day old blue cheese that we wrapped in tortillas, plain tortillas once the cheese ran out, and a handful of crisps) and snuggled down for the night, listening to the wind very much NOT letting up, and mentally preparing for the next two days of doom (figured it would take us that long to get to Belen(d) now).
Remember this is my version after 48hours so the actual events were probably a lot worse!!!

Day 34 - The cycle touring pessimist is born

Cafayate to Santa Maria (80km) Wednesday 21st September


Despite our tired heavy legs we both agreed
that it felt good to be back on the bikes and on the move.  On the way out of town we bumped into two crazy cyclists (one Polish one French), brandishing sheep's skulls on their handlebars (we didn't ask!!) who were unfortunately travelling in the opposite direction (figured they would have been fun to hang with for a bit!). The polish guy had come all the way from Tierra del Fuego in 7months (eeek!) and the French guy had taken a year to travel up from Buenos Aires, apparently due to making a video?! Both were wearing very little and had a dusty hue to their clothes, kit and bikes making us look positively vibrant. They also left us contemplating how long we should leave it before we start to delayer and attempt to even out the cycle tan - suns out guns out and all!! To the relief of the onlookers we kept our pasty white bodies hidden for at least another day!
As for the road today, it was long, curvy, dusty, sandy, gently rolling, and the trees got more crispy and less green, but thankfully were still present. As the day went on and the sun got hotter and hotter (lower altitude and clear skies!) the trees earned their worth by being shady as well as punctuating our landscape.


After days of challenges in Peru I promised myself I'd try to stay as positive as possible when writing these posts. A good way to do this is to ask Ant to summarise what he thought of the day - he usually picks out some interesting and quirky detail I'd missed. So I will give you his report from the day:


"suffering, pain and misery... Followed by more, bumpy, suffering pain and misery"


Well there you go!


In fairness it wasn't anywhere near 'Peru' bad, the road was pleasant (initially), the distance manageable, the scenery beautiful if not a little deserty - we both just found it hot and difficult. Perhaps our bodies were suffering from hamburger for breakfast' withdrawal symptoms - the fruit and pastries were good but seemingly not enough.
So we suffered along for the first 55km until our first major decision of the day: Take routa 40, positives: a back, quieter, flatter road towards Rioja; negatives: Less towns and amenities, more camping and carrying supplies in days to come; or take the main road towards Tucuman, positives: Food, water, places to stay; negatives: Main road, traffic, less adventure, oh and a bloody big climb over a mountain.
For me the decision was easy (I'm not climbing over that thing!), for Ant the decision was easy, (bloody hate traffic), so we turned onto routa 40...
...which turned into rippio...
25km of bumping and grinding (no not like that Tom... Waaaay!!) - our heads down, our bikes rattling, our hands numb, the sun boiling hot - and even I started to think that climbing might have been preferable.
But the rippio got firmer and more manageable, and the road at times even showed signs of its 'paved' past. (I'm not sure if Ant was more annoyed that there WAS rippio, or that his map told him there was definitely NOT rippio... He's just summarised his feelings about the map: Turns out he's not angry just " disappointed with its sloppy Portrayal of reality... I mean it's not hard is it!!").
As the road progressed it unveiled that it's actually the purgatory between the old and the new. A half attempt to resurface this section, clearly abandoned some time ago, with the pot holed paved road hidden underneath the flattened gravel, just waiting for its friend Tarmac Adam to come along. I fear he will be waiting rather a long time!
5km before Santa Maria and our eyes lit up - a new province and perhaps a new road budget? Either way the tarmac not only helped us reach out destination for today, but gives us (probably false!) hope that the next 500km to Rioja might not actually be the suffering bumpy hell we've resigned ourselves to... Cross your fingers and toes and we shall do the same! Perhaps mappy can redeem himself in Ant's eyes after all (Ant shakes his head... Perhaps not!).
So after a cycle around town to find its centre, we came across hotel plaza (650pasos), a quaint but comfortable, if not slightly smoke and sewer smelling room, with an awesome shower! All we needed now was a long cold beer to wash the day away...
... Oh yes of course... Today is the day of no alcohol in this province!!
Dinner was expensive, with all the promise of taste and tenderness, but again displaying the arrogant mediocracy we've come to expect (this nation sure have perfected adding essence of rubbery leather to their world renowned beef... For the record, Ant is again not angry... Just disappointed!!), oh and they didn't even have a large bottle of water to wash it down with... (Ant might be angry at this point!).

Cayfayate - today we shall mostly be drinking wine...!

... Except we won't!
At some point over a lovely (yes you read that right!) breakfast of fruit and pastries, we looked at each other, established we were both looking incredibly rough (thanks darling!) and played the touring lottery - did they have the room for another night? Turned out they did... We almost jumped for joy! So we put our maps away and decided to spend the day exploring all the wine houses in town and drinking the wine.
Well that was the least successful wine drinking I've ever done... (went to only place in town that doesn't serve alcohol, went to vinyard, bought wine, had sip, did not like wine, went to another vinyard got intimidated by posh fast Spanish speaking wine man, ran away, went to wine museum, learnt a lot about wine, did not drink any, they did not offer tastings, gave up, bought apple juice, drank apple juice, went back for siesta). Piss up, brewery, can't and organise spring to mind!! Best stick to cycling from now on :-)
Slept for a couple of hours, then ventured out again. This time for dinner and WINE.
We didn't get wine (this should now not be a surprise to you!), but we did find an awesome sandwich place on the square (el zorrito) for some much needed yummy veggie sandwiches (ahhh vegetables heaven!) and a (few) litre(s) of beer.
At some point, when we'd drank enough beer to be merry, but not enough to be hallucinating, a very large papier mache monkey drove passed us... WHAT?!! Followed by a trailer full of Disney characters, followed by a giant panda!! Then a music stage in the centre of the square (when did that appear?!!) started playing awesome dance music. Our faces lit up. We asked the (surprising friendly for these parts) waitress what was happening, "its the start of the festival of students" was all we could make out. We didn't really know what this meant, but were buzzing from the music and beer and super excited to see what would become of the giant, monkey, panda creatures.
It turned out to be a very slow moving but spectacular carnival with intricately made dinosaurs, preying mantis, ice age characters and replica volcanoes, all carefully welded and hitched up on pulleys to make them move in the most amazing fashion. Our favourite by far was the cycling, roaring 5m dinosaur!
As much as we'd (I) would have loved to stay up all night and partied, it was well past our (Ant's) bed time, so we left the vibrant lights of the square and mooched back to our home for the night.
Tomorrow we would definitely go... Really... Promise! Well put it this way, we shall be much more successful at cycling tomorrow than we were at finding wine today!

Day 33 - We finally broke 100km!!!

La Viña to Cafayate (105km) Monday 19th September


Wow what a day! And it started with an awesome second breakfast of hamburgesers and fries at the service station down the road from our hostal (unfortunately dancing towel man still clung onto the stale bread and marmalade tradition... He did smile and say "orange" when he put down the jam though... The pride!).
We climbed over 700m, but it really didn't feel like it. The road from Viña was long and sweeping following a river up the valley, which meant rolling ups and downs that we took in our stride, and with the beautiful scenery we hadn't really noticed there were more ups than downs!
The first 20km took us into the valley and towards what I like to refer to as the 'toppled cake' mountains. Such beautiful multicoloured layering it was stunning. Another 10km and it looked like someone had put a red filter over the mountains, still layered but now with a 'Mars-like' hue and we were ready for a quick feed of jamon crudo crisps (almost bacon!) and apple juice on a clearly hand made stone and wood bench (stacks of stones with a plank of wood balanced on top) - we were grateful for the seat. It was only really when we stopped or looked behind that we realised we'd gone up quite a way.
Another 20km and the river got wider and the mountains changed colour again - first a blue- green filter, then a yellow sandy filter; but don't panic, there was still an abundance of tall green elegant trees to keep us happy.
After a quick half way cereal bar we started to see tourist signs indicating we were getting ever closer to the 'garganta de Diablo'. This led to several conversations about which part of the devil we were about to be graced with: his 'seat', his 'bottom', (according to Ant's experiences in Latin America the devil has chairs and bottoms in several places!), my guess was we were about to see a 'giant devil'... We turned the corner to see a towering red mountain with a huge crevasse running up its side stretching a few hundred metres above us and clearly showing layers of rock up the thin passage... 'the devils' throat' ahhh that makes sense.
Ant had a quick peek in his throat and I was guard Em for the bikes (surprisingly for me more interested in getting back on the road and making progress). A few 100m after the devils' body parts we came across something that we'd only heard of in legends, but we first heard it mentioned by the cycle tourist in Bolivia... A touring tandem, containing a French couple... And a trailer for their baby! Wow! Now that's how it's done hey! We couldn't resist another quick stop to chat, talk kit and routes (quietly... Baby asleep!), and once we'd passed this left Ant and I pondering so many questions over the next 10km, that we'd either forgotten to ask or deemed too personal: "how fast can you corner on a tandem with a trailer?", "how does it handle on rippio", "how much weight do you have to carry for food and water", "can you get nappies everywhere", "how do you manage feeding", "where do you all sleep", "do you get enough sleep"... The list went on and with every question we conjured up, our admiration grew more and more.
Before we knew it we were heading out of the valley at the top and were ready for a late lunch of bread, avocado and blue cheese that we picked up in Salta yesterday, before contemplating what these rocky lumps would do to the wind. It was a valley, it was 3pm, that meant there would be wind, it was just a question of direction.
As we set off on the last 30km into a strong head wind we groaned a little but soon became resigned to our fate. And no sooner had we accepted our destiny than the wind became a cross, then a tail... What! An actual tail wind for the last 20km? And a strong one, pushing us along the flat? This is amazing!
We were still puzzled as to how this is a wine region, only a few signs of vines just outside town. We decided to head in to the centre rather than try to stay at a vineyard - fancied the variety of being able to wonder and explore and get supplies, plus would probably save a few pennies!
We found a lovely hostal (kappa) run by a very friendly family for $50 USD a night and despite the abundance of restaurants, struggled to find a decent one (the joys of a slightly pompous wine town that thinks its amazing but is actually mediocre). My watery creamy bacon pasta and Ant's plate with nothing but a large tortilla slapped in the centre were nothing more than fuel, but we were so hungry, that was ok. It was mire the terrible house wine that we were surprised with?! Isn't this supposed to be the wine capital of Salta?!!
Oh well time for a good night's sleep then we can work out where we go tomorrow at breakfast.

Day 32 - Overextending the metaphor

Salta to La Viño (100km) -Sunday 18th September


Neither of us really wanted to get up today. The thought of another lazy day was just too tempting (can you actually have a food hangover!?). As ever, we left this decision in the hands of the cycling gods... Ant Sleepily called reception to see if we could have the room for another night when the alarm went off, they tried and failed to arrange this for us, so we dragged ourselves up, fuelled our breakfast addiction and begrudgingly set off to find an open supermarket (they definitely sell food, but definitely don't sell sun cream or maps), and then onwards to a petrol station (apparently they sell maps... They don't really sell maps... nowhere sells maps... Except the 5th petrol station we tried... That actually had a map... Finally!!).
Eventually we were on our way South out the city and heading on the tourist trail towards Cafayte. We knew we'd not get there in one day (over 200km), so were aiming for some towns about half way just before the climb.
The first 30km was a traffic fuelled gauntlet escaping the city (isn't it always!), but we did at least pass several cute and bustling towns (promising that we will find a home this evening). As we were both lacking motivation and the scenery and road wasn't really taking steps to help us, I channelled Nike in the way only a moderately frustrated Emma can (bugger it... let's just do it). Before long I was head down and pedalling like there's no tomorrow taking the rolling countryside in my stride. Ant with his 30kg heavier load was clinging onto my wheel like a lost puppy. (note I'm probably strong enough to take more weight now... Or perhaps I'm still flying on 53% haematocrit... Maybe I'll wait till after the climb tomorrow!). At some point we realised our road could have been transported to the North or South downs and no one would know the difference - it felt like a Sunday outing. You'd think after days of pining for anything other than desert, that the familiarity of "home" would push us along. Although we were loving the gentle ups and downs and lapping up the now much more beautiful scenery, this also bought thoughts of family, friends, pubs and roast dinners. Not good thoughts for a day where you're "just doing it".
Now to feed our habit: It seems that Sunday is barbeque day. Almost every block has someone barbequing a heap of meat and selling it.  In a rather drug like fashion, even if you can't see it happening, you can smell it... in private gardens and behind the hedges. From about 1pm Ant started listing all the charred meat he could see and reporting what he'd eat for lunch!
And then it happened - the rave to our drug addiction... I don't really know if it was a special occasion or a weekly thing, but in El Carrel there was something that resembled a Sunday fête... Barbeques, music, cake stalls, freshly pressed orange juice, tables set out... Our eyes lit up, our stomachs pleaded, we didn't think twice. Come to think of it I don't think we even communicated to each other that we would stop, we just instinctively cycled our bikes off the road, like two synchronised swimmers, towards the charcoaled meat!
An orange juice and many chunks of BBQ goodness later and we were smiling again. I'd even forgotten that a bee had bit my temple just before the town (like a proper bee that you find in hot countries, not its weaker UK cousin... I was not happy... But now I was happy... I had my drug to lift me... Food!).
Soon we were on our way and churning out the last 50km. We stopped half way for some custard filled croissants that Ant had sourced this morning (he kept that quiet! Nom nom nom) and then counted down the km all the way into town.
"Town" is a rather ambitious title for a very sleepy dwelling. We'd had it under good authority (Ant's research and the lady in the tourist office (yes! They actually had a TIC there!!) calling cabiñas and hotels to confirm), that there would be plenty of places to stay. There were NOT plenty of places to stay. There were no places to stay. This was not pleasing, not pleasing at all. Luckily there was a hostal 2km North of the town, that we'd dismissed as looking a bit shabby and plumped it into the "well that's there if we really need it" category... We did really need it, so we did something we try never to do... We back tracked...(cue dramatic sounding "dum dum duuuum").
Turns out it just looks shabby from the outside. A guy (who reminded me of a 60year old Argentinian version of my cousin Drew) showed us to a lovely room with a sofa and TV too! He gleamed with joy when he pointed to things and said their name in English, we gleamed with joy when we spoke Spanish... There was a lot of giggling and some terrible miscommunication. Like after we'd confirmed that "yes, lomo and vino tinto with papas fritas sounds more than OK for supper" (we'd assumed we might be eating stale bread again), and both parties were pleased to have communicated well, and thus perhaps slightly overconfident in each other's ability.  He asked if we would also like "toales"... We looked puzzled... He said "toales", and held his arms up doing what us only described as "a little wiggle"... We started dancing and said..."dance?!"... "salsa?!!"...thinking this was slightly strange, but you never know in Latin America! At which point he was giggling almost uncontrollably and went inside telling us to wait a moment... slightly nervously we awaited his return... He produced two "towels".  We, all three, giggled some more and talked about dancing in the shower in the strange language we'd managed to create!
Dinner was lovely, wine was good, desert was terrible, but best of all we slept really really well... No noise except birds and animals in the trees, pitch black countryside... And a smile on our faces from when we took the wine back to our room and the cheeky chappy did his "toales" dance and said "good night... Try not to dance on the table!" with his trademark chuckle and a grin.
ber

Salta - Saturday 17th September

Breakfast, OMG an actual breakfast!! Croissants, fruit, cereal, yoghurt, coffee and hot milk, toast... Oh yeah!

Followed by... Breakfast coma... Oops! Is it possible to overdose on breakfast items?!!

Followed by... Breakfast come down... Severe breakfast withdrawal symptoms as we walk the half hour trek to bike shop to buy new inner tube for Jamlings paws

Followed by... Breakfast withdrawal shakes... As we collect washing from lavanderier
Conclusion... must keep fuelling habit and find good food.

Followed by massive asado (barbeque) lunch of, steaks, pork, sausages, ribs and chips for good measure!

Followed by massive need for immediate carbs... Cue ice creams in the park listening to a gig that turned out to be a church concert... Interesting.

Followed by... Massive meat and sugar coma... As we struggled to walk back to hotel without falling asleep. (I've developed a habit of needing to get as horizontal as possible after a good feed... I guess my body can't digest and recover and remain vertical at the same time!)

Followed by...afternoon of rehab... Laying on bed watching whatever non-dubbed English tv we can find (frustratingly there are numerous excellent films on Argentinian cable... Infuriatingly unlike in Peru where persistence will yield one or if you're lucky two left in English, Argentina only leaves x-factor repeats and the occasional downtown abbey replay un-dubbed... Once these were over we were left with "generic Latin American game show where many young people are scantily clad trying to do strange things... Like swing from trapeze into water whilst a guy dressed as a teddy bear raps in the background"

Followed by... Withdrawal shakes...

Followed by... Immediate Dilemma... To sleep or fuel the habit with room service... We slept!


(Ps Salta is quite pretty, a very bustling town with a gorgeous square, good food, chilled atmosphere and good beer. It's undoubtedly lovely...but we prefer Jujuy!)

Day 31 - The altitude training pays off!

Jujuy to Salta (95km) Friday 16th September


Today was a daunting day. We woke up with 100km ahead of us including a climb of about 500m. We didn't realise that this would be one of the best days cycle touring we've had so far.
The first 25km was standard "getting out of city on fairly busy roads" territory, but then we found a cycle lane and an outdoor gym with a tap of drinking water (wow we really have reached civilisation - not in the middle of the dessert now!).
After fuelling up on the sandwiches (note not empanadas, but actual sandwiches!!) that we bought on the way out of Jujuy we were preparing for the drag up ahead of us.
This turned out to be a beautiful sweeping Forrest that swept up and around the mountain, the road trailing alongside lakes (called "diques" cue girlie giggles - from Ant!!), in-between draping trees, and most of all surrounded by green! Even though the gradient was a by no means timid 5%, we were racing up it - oh hello red blood cells! So THIS is why you altitude train! When you've spent a month and a half tackling slopes at 4000m, you laugh in the face of 5%!
I can't begin to describe just how refreshing this cycling was - physically we were strong - but more over mentally we were at last in a place that felt it could sustain life, birds singing, water flowing leaves rustling, we were literally on cloud 9 and cycling like we had wings.
Out the other side of the Forrest we were super happy to see the green still persist, though immediately change from humongous dwarfing trees to fields, bushes and diques (this time the girlie giggles are on me! he he he!).
We punched out the remaining 40km into Salta in no time and were soon exploring hotel Ghala - a moderately expensive but very pleasant place with a huge bed and amazing breakfast! Not a stale bread roll in sight!
So San Pedro de Atacama to Salta - Done! Our mini mission complete we'd earned ourselves a rest day, more ice cream and a LOT of time spent doing very little at all!

Day 30 - Well that was better than expected

Purmamarca to Jujuy (pronounced Hoohooay) (60km) Thursday 15th September


Now some people (guide books, Olivier) say Jujuy is a "bustling commercial city" "one to be avoided", so you can understand our surprise when we fell in love with the town.
As expected the first 20km of our day was a downhill battle against the wind, though not quite expected was just how green the scenery would become. At some point the sand turned to mud, the yellow straw spikes turned to grass and the cacti turned to full blown trees - like actual trees with leaves! I think there may have even been a trickle or two of water in the rather ambitiously named "Rio Grande"!!
And then a 100m climb hit us out of the blue! What?! We thought we were going down hill! Thinking positively we were at least relieved it would shelter us from the wind for a few km. What we hadn't bargained for was the amazing 400m fast descent that followed - yeah baby that's more like it! And it took us far enough down the valley for the wind to lose its ferocity and us to feel stronger than ever as we cycled downhill into the city.
Ant was stoked, green trees, green square, ice cream, fountains, beautiful hotel, supermarket (that wouldn't sell us beer (grrr!!), It really was a lovely place to spend the night. Arriving mid afternoon gave us plenty of time to explore the city. This involved sitting in the park watching the fountains for an hour or two, then sitting in a cafe drinking beer and playing poker for an hour or two. The bet - minutes of massage time. Now sometimes I am awesome at poker, especially after a beer or two - this was not one of those times. I now owe Ant 270 minutes of massage (yep 4hours 20minutes!) bugger! That's not how I imagined this playing out when I suggested it!
We found a wonderful pizza and pasta restaurant and had a lasagne for starter (Nick would be proud!) followed by a pizza for main. This was the first of two nights in a row that we got stopped half way through our food order and told we were ordering too much!
So we like Jujuy and would happily go back, but tomorrow we leave and head for Salta.

Day 29 - Pedaling downhill, we loce pedaling downhill

Green spot near dried up lake to Purmamarca (50km) -Wednesday 14th September


After spending about half an hour hiking out of our lovely camping spot we were on the road again and ready to face the remaining 500m of the climb out of the valley, this time very definitely with the wind on our backs pushing us up hill. I was feeling strong as steel, Ant slightly less so. Our road was painted out ahead of us like ribbon up the mountain, showing us exactly how many switch backs were left to tackle. Eventually we got to the top, took the obligatory "on top of the world" photo - you could actually see back to the Salina in the distance - mui Bonita, then wrapped up in our wind shirts getting excited about the 40+km of downhill ahead. Our goal was Jujuy which was about 100km away, but we figured it would mostly be downhill, losing over 2000m altitude in the process.
Just one slight problem... The wind! Of course, it blows up the valley and gets stronger the further you go up. So when you're sitting on your saddle at the top of the mountain, there's limited chance of the wonderful whizz down the other side that we were expecting.
The first 10km we were struck by a bitter, really cold gust that had us adding waterproofs on top of the wind shirts, the next 20km was sweeping downhill with wind stopping us instead of breaks, not too bad, just need to keep head together. And then we started pedalling, pedalling very VERY hard, to go down a 5% gradient. This simply was not fair! You expect to work up hill, and can put up with the wind turning a kamikaze downhill into a gentle sweep, but when you actually have to pedal hard to go down it makes you very sad indeed!
So much so that our "lets stop there for a good lunch" spot (Purmamarca), turned into a "sod it let's just stay here", at some point between the sandwiches arriving and us finishing our first litre of beer!
Having decided to save the remaining 60km descent into a head wind until tomorrow, we drank some more beer, found a hotel, met a Swiss cyclist called Olivier coming the other direction, had dinner with him and exchanged some good tips for the rides ahead, drank a lovely bottle of Cafayate wine that Olivier insisted on paying for (think he was glad of our company after 2 months of cycling alone!), decided not to replace Ants sun hat but nearly did, realised that despite selling lots and lots of alpacca based goods there is now an absence of cute baby jumpers - sorry George we tried!, got a good night sleep and got ready to face the wind tomorrow!
What a difference the wind makes hey!!

Day 28 - Susques to a beautiful spot by a dried up lake (90km) Tuesday 13th September

What a difference a tail wind makes... If only we had one!
Despite the promise of a new country, a new hotel, thus perhaps a new breakfast regime, we were treated to a meager two butter puffs and a thumb size stale scone for breakfast. This was NOT pleasing!
We quickly packed our bags and headed to "town" to pick up supplies to fuel us for two days. This was not easy. Not easy at all. 55 minutes later we'd visited almost all the unlabelled shacks in the street and asked for bread and empanadas with varying success. Sometimes we left with nothing, one time I left with an egg and cheese burger (!?!) a much better breakfast!
By 11.30 we were armed with 12 litres of water, two day's worth of fried empanadas, bread and cheese and were plugging our way up the hill out of town. Burger fuelled I was climbing well, but Ant not so much. The heat and lack of breakfast sugar was getting to him a little, but onwards and upwards and soon (well by 1.30pm) we were up and over the lumps and onto the huge flat basin that would eventually lead to the Salinas grandes (the salt flats).
This was a basin surrounded by mountains. A beautiful, flat road, long and straight, and long and straight and long and straight.  In fact so long and straight that we watched cars sink into the horizon over about 10minutes. The wind was for once on our backs and we punched out the first 10km no problems and were soon ready to stop for lunch. A few empanadas and swigs of apple juice later and we were ready to tackle the next 50km before heading up the mountains in the other side.
Now here the wind has no rhyme or reason and just does its own thing like a wayward teenager. The only certainty is that it gets more stroppy as the day goes on. Despite sense and reasoning telling us that heading almost directly East, should yield a strong tail wind all day as the prevailing wind is almost always westerly, we were of course greeted by an ever increasing cross-head wind, despite barely changing our direction since before lunch. Clearly the mountains and valleys were messing with the order of things!
So we plugged on, more slowly this time, heads high and enjoying making progress. Eventually we reached the Salinas, which were pretty, but not as pretty as Uyuni and this time we sat up tall and slightly smugly as we rode past the hordes of mini vans letting tourists out of their cage to see the sights. Our freedom and sense of accomplishment was just about enough to push us on strongly, despite the new development of the road being "under construction for 5km"... This means one thing here... Rippio. Nevertheless we were soon out the other side and back on our friend tarmac with slightly more tired legs, but definitely more weary minds.
About another 10km on this straight monotonous road and then we turned left and started to climb... But strangely at the same speed as we were on the flat. Could it be... Could it actually be that the wind is on our back? Geographically we thought this made no sense, but man oh man we would take it. And as our legs got weaker, the wind got stronger pushing us uphill for 15km.
We soon worked out that it is not the compass that guides the winds, even in massive expanses between mountains, it is the valleys and convection. Blows from bottom to top and increases in strength throughout the day. Great if you're climbing, horrid if you're descending... But we won't need to worry about that until tomorrow.
So once the 15km had come and gone we were acting like llamas peeking around trying to hunt down a camp spot, suitably seclude from both the road and the wind. As we got further up the valley, this got more and more challenging as the sides got steeper and more full of falling rocks... Not ideal. Ant thought he'd found an awesome spot, but then a flock of green birds warned him of the rocky heavens above... We moved on.
Like the mist clearing, or the curtain lifting on an opening scene in a pantomime, suddenly out of nowhere, we saw it... "green" said Ant, followed by the uncharacteristic phrase "honey I think I've found us a campsite".
As we'd turned the corner the would be river had once got fat enough to leave a few grassy banks in a flat expanse close to, but well away from the falling rocks. Of course the river was dried up, but this was perhaps the first real green we'd seen in days of desert. Not only did this lift our spirits enough to help us tackle the rocky and steep descent into the basin, but it also promised to be good solid pegging out ground... Ant was a happy man when this proved to be true and he'd built us a home on clayey mud that was strong enough to stand up to the battling wind.
We tucked ourselves into the protection of our new home, and having learnt not to bother trying to cook, ate a replenishing supper of now cold, fried empanadas, chewey bread, cheese, salami and crisps.
A quick game of cards and we were sleeping with the fairies.
Well I was... Ant woke every time there was a rock fall... Not scared of the rocks, but it sounded very like a person walking next to our tent... Must protect the boys.

Day 27 - Somewhere windy to Susques (65km) Monday 12th September

We woke up to the sound of birds for the first time in a long while, which was rather pleasant. Of course this was interrupted by a lorry or two passing by, some decided to beep us, we assume in a friendly way!
Looking out of our temporary home we realised that it was less the nightmare side of the road scene we'd interpreted last night in our freezing cold tired state, and more a beautiful but arid basin on with a salt flat and mountains in the distance, not so bad after all. Still roadside though!
We hit the road as early as two sleepy people can and were delighted by the 1% downhill and tail wind for the first 10km.
Our excitement rose exponentially as we passed a sign for a tourist centre (artifacts, cafe, shop) and i started dreaming of lattes and bacon sandwiches. But two things stopped us: 1- we had no Argentinean money (no cash point on the border) 2-they had no cafe. So we ate some cereal bars and biscuits, drank some water and chatted to the ladies briefly.
Not quite the dreamy experience we'd envisaged but you can't win them all.

Then it was head down for about 30km alongside the salt flat. The scenery didn't change at all on this vast basin, which was insane. Distances are just different here. To put it in context, we cycled from North to South London without seeing anything around us change, not one bit. The same road with the same things left, right, up and down. Just a slight variation in wind (which was thankfully much weaker this morning) to keep things interesting. But then again over the past few days we cycled the equivalent of London to Wales just to get between the two nearest tiny villages!


The flat section came to an end and we were ascending up the 300m climb out the basin. This was a very welcome break from the slight monotony of the morning and we enjoyed gently plugging up through the mountains.
At the top we were greeted by something we'd thought we'd said goodbye to - llamas. Wahoo! Cute little dudes all peeking their heads up to see the crazy gringos! At this point we realised we'd also got very hot, possibly the hottest we've been all trip.
Then we descended the 15km down the other side of the basin and into the most stunning, greener, mountain scenery. From the top the mountains looked like a bowl of whipping cream that someone had left soft peaks in! So we whizzed down the gradual descent, Ant gleaming at his top speed again, and eventually found our goal: The town of Susques.
Things you need to know about Susques: Its not really a town, more like a mountain dwelling; it does have a hotel; the hotel is very pleasant after  camping but its restaurant promises much more than it delivers; it has a cash point so we can finally get money out; the hotel has a friendly dig who barks at everything except bikes- we like this dog!
So we laid down on our comfy beds, cooling down and waiting for supper, drank a huge bottle of beer and caught up with the world.
Tomorrow we climb out the town and try for a big day before camping.
Sleep now.

Day 26 - a salar more like 35km short of the Argentinian border to somewhere windy (85km) Sunday 11th September

When travelling you appreciate all the opportunities given to you, and you especially appreciate and miss life at home. Today I've been thinking a lot about my friend Welshy.
So today was, like so many days, a day of two halves. It's funny how you brand a country as great cycling or bad cycling after very little exposure to it. Chile for example is tremendous: Super friendly people, great food, fresh bread, glorious roads with strong tail winds to give you a helping hand on the uphill and help Ant break his land speed records on the down. Plus the scenery has been stunning. Snowy mountains, red desert, salt lakes, flamingos, vicuñas. Of course we've only really met anyone in San Pedro and only cycled a tiny fraction of the country, but we love Chile! This morning (or nearly afternoon by the time we got moving!) was exactly the Chile we've grown to love, be it a vastly short love affair! Simply glorious cycling. We realised just how beautiful our camp site was as soon as we opened the tent and Ant was stoked we'd shared the lake with flamingos who were huddling in its centre to keep warm.
Although the first 15km was uphill, we were fuelled by beautiful scenery and a strong tail wind. Then we swooped down to the Argentinian border.
This crossing seemed somewhat overly complicated. On entry we were given a piece of paper where we had to collect stamps. A bit like drinks tokens at a beer festival and had to go to six different adjacent desks in order to receive the stamps. At desk number 4 we were rather concerned for the boys... They wanted to see our documents to prove our vehicles were ours and that we weren't trying to import them into Argentina dressed covertly like cycle tourists. Eventually they believed us and we were in our way.
50km of flat road and we could start looking for a camp site. Except its never that simple is it! No matter which direction we turned we seemed to be struck by an intense cross wind. "its ok the next 90 degree turn will make it a tail wind", except this never seemed to happen! So we settled in for an afternoon of either cross or head winds and decided to grit our teeth and just get in with it!
Now there are two things you need to know about us: I do NOT like hills; and Ant does NOT like wind, not one bit! Its not that he cant cope with the extra effort physically, it's just that it messes with his mind. Churning the peddles on the flat and not getting anywhere is his idea of hell. So it was my turn to carry him. I got on the front and let him huddle in pretty much the whole way - payback for all the help he gives me carrying panniers up the hills.
With every km, the wind seemed just to get stronger and stronger, until we think it reached close to 70km/h, and consequently we were struggling to push beyond 10km/h.
Eventually we turned a corner that actually did give us a tail wind and we spent the last 10km, whizzing around trying to find somewhere sheltered for our camp site as the Sun started to set. The pressure on, Ant trekked away from the road for about 10ninutes at a time, only to fall into sandy animal holes (OMG animals live here, we've not seen animals for a while!) and get blown by even bigger gusts.
Getting very cold and watching the Sun disappear, we eventually settled on an almost sheltered lump of Earth just off the road on a very large plain. The ground, unlike yesterday, was sandy, which meant pegs would go in, but quickly wiggle their way back out again. Not ideal when you're trying to build a wind proof home! Some cunning engineering by Ant and he'd secured the guys with water bottles and large spikey sticks and soon enough we were ready to settle down for the night (this time we didn't even bother trying to cook, but instead enjoyed a supper of avocado, salami and cheese wraps followed by a desert of cereal, pure heaven).
Lesson for tomorrow - get cycling as early as possible to avoid the afternoon wind!

Day 25- San Pedro to a salar 20km short of the Argentinian border (Saturday 9th September) - 87km

Today was the day of possibly the most beautiful cycling we've ever done... Oh and Ant went the fastest he's ever been in a bike!
After our very friendly pick up driver dropped us off near the Bolivian border, it was a day full of rolling hills in the middle of Mars-like desert. Our bikes were heavy as they are carrying the supplies and water we need for three days as there's not much between us and Argentina, but we're both ready and raring to go and are stoked to be back on the bike.
After being treated to a gentle morning with the growing stronger every second wind on our backs, a 400m climb into a cross wind going to the highest we've been yet (4850m) took us both a little by surprise. Ant back to his former cycling strength took it in his stride, I quickly burnt my legs out but kept plugging along. Both of us breathing very heavily now trying to make the most of the thin oxygen up here.
Then we got to the top and were treated to the most glorious descent with the most amazing views, and a lake that was far more colourful and beautiful than any we saw on the jeep tour... Oh and did I mention Any broke his speed record... He wants to make sure I record that and keeps reminding me! A whopping 87km/h!! Crazy boy, though I wasn't that far behind!
The rest of the day was a windy but gentle ride alongside the lake, then alongside a salar, occasionally stopping to take shelter and have a bite to eat.
The beautiful cycling came and went and soon we were ready to camp at around 5pm, ever grateful that the clocks went forwards again here so it doesn't get dark until 8pm giving us plenty of cycling time.
Then the day decided to throw some challenges at us. We (Ant) found a beautiful spot to camp overlooking the salar, but soon found the sand was only a few mm deep and beneath it was rock... Rather difficult to peg out a tent! Our stove took an hour and a half to cook our pasta supper, half due to altitude, half due to its own inefficiency. The wind got windier and the cold got colder, and colder. Even Ant was feeling it! So huddled in our tent porch shivering  still trying to cook the pasta at 9pm we were a little perturbed and very hungry!
Eventually the pasta cooked, we ate and were able to snuggle under the three down duvets we'd bought, which were only just enough to protect us from the -10degrees C INSIDE our tent. It was probably a good 5-10 degrees lower outside.
Though I have to say neither of us was quite as cold as we had been in the shelter a few nights ago - testament to Ant's awesome ability to prepare and pick the best kit for the job!
We slept with our milk and cereal so it doesn't freeze for the morning and woke up with the sun and a very civilised 8am (thanks again to the Chilean time zone!).
And when we emerged from our shell we were reminded of just how beautiful this camping spot is and how much we are looking forward to today's cycle and border crossing.

San Pedro - a place to see the stars (Friday 9th September)

If you're ever planning a trip this way, definitely go to San Pedro. It immediately felt much more civilised and modern, and restaurants felt clean and enticing. There are so many tours to go on, from sand boarding down dunes, to seeing sunsets in the moon valley and venturing into the desert to see stars.
As ever, we found it difficult to way up our options especially as we both had an overwhelming desire to get back on our bikes after the week or so break. We decided to opt for a "big bang" astronomical tour that evening with "time travel tours" and used the day to sleep, clean bikes and relax. Possibly we should have gone on other tours - the Vallee de Luna is supposed to be spectacular at Sunset, but our rational was we would see many a sunset over the desert in the days to come, that wed actually earned on our bikes.
I have to say that the Astro tour was simply amazing. After a talk about the big bang and origins of our universe, we went out to the desert to star gaze, first by eye, then by telescope. Got some fantastic pictures of the moon, Saturn, globular clusters and a nebular as souvenirs and had a generally lovely evening.
It was late when we got back, but we'd managed to find a pick up truck to take us back to the border tomorrow morning (we weren't going to go all the way up the 40km, 2000m ascent having not had the payback!), so we snoozed and were excited at the prospect of being on the road again.

Jeep tour day 3 - Thursday 8th September, and arrival in San Pedro

So today pretty much went as planned (except we were running half an hour late... OSCAR!!!).
We saw the geisers which were pretty spectacular, stripped off at 4000m (bloody freezing!) to hop into the hot springs (to our surprise these were actually hot... Heaven!), saw the white lake which was indeed white, saw a volcano, which was indeed a volcano, then got to the border half an hour late. The minibus driver did NOT like this and Oscar started hurting us along, quick quick they are waiting. That's all very well Oscar but we have to go through immigration!
Proud that Ant escaped the 50bolivianos "tax" to leave the country by asking for a receipt!! We were eventually on our way, bye bye Oscar!
As the bus took the 40km swooping descent into San Pedro we wished we were on our bikes. We've not yet had full payback for our climbing into the mountains, so doing this on a bus hurt a little. But equally we'd nit had the suffering of cycling across Bolivia so we couldn't really complain.
After slight fear when the driver told us we were the people with the bikes (yes!), and one bike was in his house (one?!!), we were very relieved to be reunited with both boys and to see that he had looked after them remarkably well.
When we got to San Pedro we realised this was possibly due to the many many bikes and bike rental shops here, seems they understand bikes and cyclists a little better.
Relief also hit us when we found a lovely, if not slightly over priced, hostal (Sonchek) to stay, and after a wonderful hot shower found a glorious cafe to have a super tasty lunch on the square. (an actual sandwich amazing!).
San Pedro is a wonderful little town and we fell in love with it almost instantly.
A quick wonder around and we found ourselves back at the hotel, asleep in bed, only to wake up just in time for supper! That is we think it was time fir supper, we hadn't really established the time zones here yet and what with sleeping in the day were thoroughly confused! We decided to chill out in the evening and work out a plan tomorrow.

Jeep tour day 2 - Wednesday 7th September

Today was a fairly challenging day. Not only did we spend A LOT of time in the car, but it was Ant and my turn to take the cramped bumpy back seats - definitely got the short straw here! The 6am start was not really needed as Oscar was typically half an hour late, but a breakfast of stale bread and jam reminded us of the good old days!
I'm pretty sure we saw some cool stuff but I cant really remember much of it (and neither can Ant!), but he did remind me it was hugely windy and very cold every time we had to dance to the beat and hop out the car to see whatever rock or cave was next on the agenda. We saw another hole, although bigger with two levels, this one was just a hole and most definitely not a hole hole, according to Oscar. A dude had found it when he was looking for burial sites and named it Galiaxia! A grand title for a small cave filled with fossilised algae and coral that like everything here looked like something from another planet, or science fiction film. We then saw the neighbouring burial site which was definitely moon-like and super eerie.
We were on the "road now very long" part of the journey away from salt flats and into pure Mars like desert. We were stopped a few times and instructed to "please now time for take photos" of the rocks, and usually given a time in which to do so, "we stay 10miniutes". As the day went on and the wind picked up, our collective voices began to object to the times given. Particularly when we were given nearly three quarters of an hour to look at a red lake. More amusing was the time it took for Oscar to come up with his answer to the question: "why is the lake red?". After some considerable thought leaving the car in suspense... "it is red... Because... It is red". Well that solves everything! We didn't bother asking why the "stone tree" was given its name, but his explanations were only bettered when he pulled the car down a very rocky path overlooking a lake and under some large alien like rocks and said... "now we will have lunch here because... (anticipation as whole car awaits explanation about landscape and scenery)... Because (glances at watch)... Because it is time to have lunch". I'm not sure what was more awkward, the slightly hysterical laughter from a car full of 6people who've not had much sleep, or that we had to try to explain what was funny without insulting poor Oscar who was just trying his best to do a very tough 14hour day driving and speaking a foreign language. Our bad. But like I say, faulty towers springs to mind! Glad we paid an extra 30 USD per person for an English speaking guide!
After investigation we discovered that the red lake was red because of algae, the green lake is green because of copper, and the stone tree is indeed a stone that looks like a tree! Formed after a volcanic eruption many many years ago. What was made very clear by the small hidden information sign about the stone tree, was that you should definitely not get too close to the stone tree (for preservation purposes I guess)... Said whilst we watch Sandra climbing the stone tree and me hugging the tree! Oops! Oscar, knowing that would have been helpful!
So a day full of rocks, dessert, winds and Oscar, and we were ready for the next shelter (6person dorm with absolutely no heat whatsoever!) and were looking forward to the warehouse next door where you can buy beer, wine and water... Yeah baby! Warehouse was a grand Oscar term for "very small shop", but we did indeed buy beer water and peanuts.
"what's for dinner Oscar?"... "Pasta with pie meat". Oh dear lord this filled us with dread for over an hour. But again, pie meat was Oscars' words to describe pasta with tomato sauce... Relief... Especially for the two vegetarians! (pie meat... Pimento? Perhaps? Who knows!)
A cycle tourist had also found the shelter and man he looked very rough. We had a little guilt that we'd taken a jeep, but after listening to his tales, were very very glad of our decision... Even after the day of being thoroughly fed up with being in a car. He'd struggled to find sheltered places to camp, eat, refuel, find water and had struggled to go more than 500m at a time on the sandy, rippio, rocky terrain. I offered him my pasta with pie meat, but surprisingly he refused - he'd prefer to cook his own food - testament to just how good our food looked!!!
"So Oscar what are we doing tomorrow?". "yes, now we will have a small talk about tomorrow..." We settle down comfortably to listen... "tomorrow we wake up 4.30" (gasp and giggles) "then we drive in jeep"... Cue end of talk.
After some questioning we managed to work out that we would be seeing giesers, taking a bath in hot springs "will they provide towels Oscar" "yes... You definitely will need bring towel" (sigh!), seeing the white lake (not even going to ask why it is white), and then heading to the border at 9am to catch the bus to take us into San Pedro.
So knowing how late Oscar is we set our alarms for 5am and tried to sleep. It was too cold to sleep. We didn't really sleep. We just laid there shivering pretending it was warm enough to try to sleep. It was cold. Very very cold. We couldn't sleep. And that's all I have to say about Wednesday!

Jeep tour day 1 (Tuesday 6th September)

Wow today was super fun. Our initial apprehension about being in a car with 4 other people was soon out to rest as we met an amazingly fun couple from Germany (Sandra and Fabian) and a couple who lived just at the end of our road in the UK, but are now moving to Australia (Natalie and Tim). Our English speaking guide Oscar  was more the type of guide you might imagine would be on a tour led by faulty towers, but as he kept saying... "don't worry, you with Oscar".
We ventured onto the salt flats, this time by jeep, and soon realised just how vast they really are. We also spent a LOT of time with Sandra and Fabian jumping around like excited 3year olds and posing for all manner of creative photos (I shall leave these for you to enjoy once we manage to upload them!). An almost pleasant lunch was then followed by a trip to cactus island, where Oscar said he would leave us for 2 hours... What?!! I guess its a big island... We were up and down it in about 30minutes, but oh yeah baby, they have a shop that sells beer. Several cans and an hour and a half later we were ready to meet Oscar (he didn't bargain for that when he left us alone for 2hours did he!).
We had a few more stops, before watching the sunset. One being the magnificently named Pira Pira cave, which Oscar was delighted to tell us was so creatively named because it means... Wait for it... "hole hole". Now maybe it was the beer, or simply the way Oscar delivered it, but whilst we were stood in the very obvious hole hole, we found this incredibly amusing, I was almost in tears!
Nevertheless we managed to hold it together for a few more jumping photos in the sunset before going to our home for the night... The Salt Hotel as it had been advertised to us.
The Salt Hotel had moved down in the world as the day progressed. This morning it was the Salt hotel, by lynch time it had become the Salt Hostal, and now Oscar was fully ready to reveal its true status... "Its more of a Salt shelter really". It certainly lived up to its new title, but showed little evidence or its former two!
It did give us the chance to sample two bottles of Bolivian wine and run semi naked from the shower to our room! And the salt beds weren't too bad, if only we hadn't been instructed to be ready for breakfast at 6am, we might have had a decent night's sleep!

Day 24 - cycling the salt flats (60km), Monday 5th September.

Still both a bit warn from our poorly tummies we decided to tackle the salt flats unloaded. Even this was proving a bit much for me as we struggled into a super strong head wind and put down an immense amount of power to go a measly 15km/h on flat tarmac to get there. 20km later we decided to turn off the road early to try to avoid the tourist jeeps (of which we would be one tomorrow!). This turned out to be a brilliant decision. Before long we'd survived the muddy bumpy path onto the flats and were gliding around in pure white heaven, wind now not bothering us.  Slaloming all over the place just because we could, we felt a complete sense of unburdened freedom. In the distance Ant saw what we thought were flamingos and got boyishly excited again. As we got closer we realised they would have to be bloody big flamingos! They were actually heaps of salt that the workers had and were in the process of, piling up.
A quick stop on the bumpy salt for lunch and we were ready for some more salt bike dancing before heading back to Uyuni - this time with the wind on our backs... Wahooo! 30km/h never felt so easy!
What a splendid and amazing day, in a strange white world that is nothing like we've ever seen before.
A quick fill up at the Lithium Club ( a pleasant atmosphere but expensive food not quite worth the money, with strange owners looking at mild soft western porn in their laptops whilst we ate... Hmmm!) and we were ready for an early night in preparation for our trek tomorrow.

La Paz to Uyuni (Saturday 3rd - Sunday 4th September)

So there may be no trains in Bolivia, but they do tourist busses in relative style. Not a chicken or goat in sight! Reclining seats, a film to watch and Todotourismo branded blankets and pillows! Even a functioning and surprisingly pleasant toilet! We boarded at 9pm for what we thought was a 10hour journey (knowing Bolivia this means 12 hours minimum) so after watching "London has Fallen" we settled down for a good sleep. It wasn't long before they had switched on the blinding bus lights, handed out breakfast and demanded blankets back. It felt as though it was 6am, probably because it was 6am!!  What?! The one time you don't want Latin America to be on time, let alone early, what do they go and do! Rather than staying on the bus and sleeping until sun up we were ushered off, bikes and bags in hand, left standing on a street corner or a desert town at 6.30am. And man oh man it was cold. Luckily Sunrise was done by 7am and we'd now managed to migrate to another street corner, outside a hotel that is recommended for its amazing breakfasts and pizza (hotel tonito). 
Now I don't know if you've ever tried it, but finding a hotel room in a small town at 7am for the night is fairly difficult. Especially if you're two shivering gringos with bikes looking somewhat out of place. The cycle touring gods were smiling on us, as for some reason at just past 7am a guy decided to leave the hotel. Turned out he would later be the reception guy, yep he has a room from about 10am if we would like it... In the mean time perhaps we would like breakfast... SCORE!! Wiggle wiggle... Happiness all around!
So we sat eating pancakes (yes pancakes!!!) and drinking tea by a fire, playing cards until our room was ready. Then we let all our intentions of going to explore this sleepy little town fly out the window as we drifted off into a very deep 4hour snooze!
By the time we woke up the water heater had enough Sun to give us a toasty warm shower and most of the restaurants had closed after lunch! But we found one open and not in a rush to serve us at all. About an hour later we had spaghetti, quesadillas and chips (what you've never heard of that combination before?!!) served to us by a cheeky little niño who corrected our Spanish and told us we were German!
A trip to World White Travel to organise our jeep tour to the border for two day's time and impress upon them the importance of keeping our bikes safe (the boys were going in a separate vehicle and we would be separated for three whole days, we were more than a bit anxious about this!). How do you tell someone that the bikes are super valuable, without implying they are worth a lot of money, and that no we couldn't just replace them, our trip would be over, we would be going home. Ps please don't just throw them on a roof... Oh and watch the derailer... Eeek... Close eyes and hope is the only way.
So back to the hotel for a bit of sorting and a brilliant Minuteman pizza in the restaurant (so big we had to save some for lunch tomorrow!) then ready for a good night's sleep.

No pro cycling any time soon! (Saturday 3rd September, La Paz to Uyuni)

Ok so there are many reasons why this statement is true...
Let's assume a mythical world where: the women's scene has finally caught up with the men's; I've managed to double my output power and have the tiniest chance of chasing Lizzie Armitstead up a hill; I'm ten years younger; I've won a few races at neopro level and have been signed by Sky, yes they have a pro women's team in this new equal world (if we're gonna do this let's at least aim high!!)...
The point is, (and this is obviously the main thing standing in my way), we found out today that my haematocrit levels are a whopping 53!! 50 would get me a three year ban from pro cycling and all my yellow jerseys stripped away from me (common a girl can dream!) and a life ban from the Olympics!
For those interested, haematocrit is a measure of the volume percentage of red blood cells in your blood. The normal levels are 45% for blokes and 40% for ladies (according to the thoroughly reliable wikipedia!). As red blood cells carry haemoglobin and hence transport oxygen around the body, one's haematocrit levels are a measure of the ability to use oxygen. At altitude, the body (amazing thing that it is) adapts and makes more of these little bi-concave ruby gems so that it can cope with the severally reduced oxygen concentration in the air we breathe (less pressure means fewer molecules per unit volume, hence fewer oxygen molecules per breath). This (along with several other adaptations to increase oxygen affinity) is why athletes altitude train. So that when they are back on their normal turf they can use the more abundant oxygen more efficiently than the next guy. It's also why cyclists (not limited to cyclists but that's what I know about) dope, either using EPO to increase their haematocrit levels unnaturally, or more drastically use blood transfusions to do the same. Any cyclist with a haematocrit of 50% or higher is considered abnormal and thus is banned from the sport. (It should be noted that the 50% limit is for male pro cyclists, the fact I have no idea what the female limit is and if it is different, I suspect lower if anything, speaks wonders for the inequality in pro road cycling... Or just that I read a lot of cyclists books written by men!).
So the long and short of it is, that I'm super stoked and dancing about like a monkey on heat (do they do that??!) because I'm illegally high in the cycling sense. Ok so I had to go to the doctors today and poo in a pot and get stabbed and faint (can grit teeth and hurt on a 4 hour climb, cannot have a small spikey object stuck into my arm), just to prove that Ant and I (extrapolating to Ant, he DID NOT have the pleasure of pot pooing and spiking) have not one, but two strains of salmonella* (which explains our fevers and fatigue...and other things I'll leave to your imagination).
(*we're fine, our bodies have coped admirably well with the gremlins, the doctor who was superb and hilarious was super chuffed that his diagnosis was better than ours... We thought we had giardia... I think he would only have been happier if we had all four strains... We rated his competitive pride!!)
So armed with another course of antibiotics that we'll not take yet (feeling much better, and don't want to weaken immune systems for future gremlins or contribute to evolving the resistance of the little critters) we prepare to hop the over night bus to Uyuni tonight. Just enough time for a few hours kip, pie and chips and sausage and mash in the English pub (appetite back then!) and we're on our way.

La Paz - Not quite as bad as we imagined! (1st - Saturday 3rd September)

For a big city La Paz is actually rather pleasant. It's clearly on its way up in the world, with development everywhere.  Other than the first 30km or so, the rest of the journey was a building site, with roads being laid, dug up, and converted from rubble to tarmac for almost 60km, I've not seen road works quite like it!  We were actually thankful - if ever there was a day to be ill and need a taxi this was it. Just about bearable in the 4x4 car, this would have been a hideous bone shaker on our bikes.
So we got dropped off at El Alto, near the airport and about 10km outside the city. Our thoughts of a quick 10km downhill cycle whizzing into central La Paz were soon hindered. Initially the side streets were absolutely rammed with bustling markets (Ayamara folk apparently make their living here, out on the streets all day, singing their chants to sell everything from tomatoes to washing powder) and any hope of weaving in and out of the folk crammed shoulder to shoulder was dashed by the millions of minivans (combo taxis) weaving across the road trying to do the same.  All in all, this made for an interesting, but petrifying 5km.
And as for the downhill, if it was a ski run it would definitely be classified as a black slope! So steep you had to lean back to stop from going over the handlebars, with giant cobbles and pot holes for moguls.
But once we found our hotel "Rosado" ; we were absolutely delighted. A wonderful room, warm shower, and huge big bed for Ant to relax in. We managed to venture out into the city, found the buzzing a vibrant central square and a cute cafe (cue bacon and avocado sandwiches!!!), ladies in absolutely huge petticoats and a city with a bustling yet somehow relaxed atmosphere.
We were soon collapsed in bed, giving me the chance to realise I didn't feel quite right either.
So we booked the hotel for an extra night, spent A LOT of time sleeping there, only to venture out to book the overnight (no one seems to run one in the day!) bus to Uyuni for a couple of days time (Todo tourismo), and chilled out. Perhaps not making the most of La Paz, but doing enough to get a feel for the place and definitely making the most of the hotel's huge double bed.

Day 23- Copacabana to Huatajata... (70km Wednesday 31st August)

Ant's buzzing this morning, he can't wait to get on the road again, hoping around like a little puppy. As always I'm slightly slower to get moving and much more excited about the prospect of breakfast than the ride ahead. Breakfast being fried eggs, home made soda bread, muslie and yoghurt from the Irish cafe, a pure treat... No stale bread and jam in sight!
Not just useful for food, the Irish cafe man was super helpful recommending routes and keeping up to date with news. For example the fact that the miners have decided to strike and killed the deputy minister of Bolivia by brutal beating a few days ago... Its ok though, their striking methods are quite simple, block major roads into and out of cities and play with dynamite, possibly in an alcohol and coca induced frenzy.
Its not like were going on any main roads to La Paz or anything...oh wait!
A quick message to Jemima to let her know our plans and expected arrival times, just in case,  and we were off, trying fairly hard not to think about miners. Except to contemplate their predicament. It sounds like an incredibly tough life and you can understand the want to strike, but not sure they have chosen the best method of demonstration or the best arguments.
In any case, we were on our way up the beautiful 400m ascent out of the town, winding its way gently up and over the the mountain, and how absolutely stunning it was.  We were on a peninsular that almost thought it was an island and were super high (4300m) surrounded by lake and snowy mountains. Pure 360 degree heaven. Yes it was proving fairly hard work, but man it was worth every pedal stroke. The road seemed to just keep climbing, and I was living every minute, getting stronger and stronger and fueled by the views I was pulling away from Ant. Very strange, oh well I'll enjoy it while it lasts!
Them the inevitable and well earned descent to lake level to get a "ferry". Ant managed to hit 70km/h on the descent and was super proud! I forgot how to turn corners, but woosh it was fun! Until we discovered just how big the Bolivians like to make speed bumps... These are definitely worth slowing down for! Bike churning people throwing nasties... But somehow we managed to keep the boys upright.
So the ferry... Well not so much a ferry, more a floating (just!) plank of wood that somehow had us, a bus and a minivan balanced atop it. With every wave the bus lurched, and with every bus lurch, the wood creaked and twisted. We were fairly sure there were three possible outcomes of this ride: 1-death by toppling bus; 2- death by sinking under toppling bus; 3- survival. And we were never quite sure exactly which outcome would transpire!
Thank full that outcome number 3 decided to win, we were soon in our way back up the hill on the other side of the water, but not after the boatman had tied several knots in metal chains to secure the plank of wood and the bus had tightrope walked its way ashore!
Fuelled by popcorn and salteñas, we were on route. Another 25km or so and we would find the "town". After about a 250m climb up it was a fairly pleasant ride. Gentle downs and only a few small lumps to get over, but all alongside the lake, though strangely we were both finding it incredibly tiring. The last 6km seemed to drool on forever, but eventually we found a settlement that must be the town (not a placename in sight!). It seemed less a town and more a few fields, the odd restaurant on a field, and a couple of hotels. We stayed in the "hotel and spa" that was really just an expensive hotel ($60), but it had a lovely restaurant with cool Bolivian music (cue panpipes, miniature guitars, and multi coloured cloaks dancing), and seemed to be the base for several mountaineering groups.
An early night and we soon discovered why Ant had been so tired... Fever, shivers, cramps... Oh no! A night of head strokes and comforting was ahead and a strong chance there would be no cycling for us tomorrow.
The morning offered me the chance to practice my Spanish... "I breakfast here but my wife breakfast in room, little bad well" is what I think I said, but nevertheless it worked! Almost as well as at reception... "a question, today we go La Paz with bicycles, but no, my wife little bad well, is possible a car, taxi with two people and two bicycles?". Again a slightly confused receptionist managed to decipher the message and a man with a Rav 4 turned up half an hour later, ready and waiting to drive two people and two bikes! Proud Stewie!
So an awesome day of cycling followed by a day in a car, but what amazing views we've seen .

Copacabana (no not that one, the real one!), Tuesday 30th August

Interesting fact number 1 - although we've spent quite a lot of time telling family and friends that no we haven't grown wings and ended up near Rio and that yes there are two (at least I suspect) Copacabanas in South America, it transpires that our one is in fact the original. It has a beautiful cathedral and was typically the focus of pilgrimages (alongside its companion the Isle del Sol).  People still bring all manner of moving vehicles to the church square to get blessed before a journey. As far as we can see this involves hanging decorations that look like an enthusiastic 5 year old has given the car a brightly coloured charm bracelet, some of the charms being fake dollar bills.  Feeling relieved that, all those decorated cars we passed coming across the border in both directions, didn't actually mean we'd managed to miss some massive festival, we took a look inside the church and said a few prayers. (despite the slow progress when we left the city, our bikes managed to escape being decorated, to their (and Ant's) relief. They would definitely not look cool with rainbow crape paper between their ears).
In the church yard, as you might expect, were several beggars. This raised an interesting moral question for me that I feel I should share. When you are lucky enough to take a break from work and travel the world, you feel you should help the world in some way too. If that means handing out a few bolivianos to people who have sat in the sun all day hoping for some charity then so be it. But ladies with disabled children screams either of desperation (of course we'll help) or exploitation (I'm not going to support and encourage this). Of course you give the benefit of the doubt, but having seen crowds of people gather in a square a few days ago in Ayavari to cheer and clap (and possibly laugh?!) whilst watching a very disabled person (with no legs) hobble around on the pavement, you get the impression opinions towards disability might be very different here. (Ant thought (hoped) it might have been some sort of healing the sick type of show, I'm not so sure, it felt uncomfortable to watch even though we only got a glance as we scurried quickly (and probably in a typically British and awkward fashion) passed. So to support a family in need of help, or promote exploitation of severely disabled children... I leave that thought with you as for me there is no clear solution.
After much deliberation as the alarm went off at 6.50am, should we bother to get up on our second rest day and do our own mini Isla del Sol pilgrimage, or should we just sleep, we did the comical thing of deciding to sleep, spending the next hour feeling guilty we'd decided to sleep and being unable to sleep, got up, and by now had a mad rush to get some breakfast and packed lunch and still make the 8.30 ferry. Somehow we managed this and were amused to be the only gringos crazy enough to turn up in shorts and down jackets (you may laugh at us and yes it may be icy now my friends and yes right now we may be more than a little cold, but just you wait until lunch time when you're hiking across a big old rock in the midday sun at altitude, you'll sure wish you weren't wearing your 3 thermal layers, super layered hiking trousers and questionably heavy hiking boots then!).
Somehow (and I'm still not sure how we managed this) we bought a ticket for the MOST degraded, dilapidated excuse for a boat that existed (no seats just planks and padding). This was no mean feat as there must have been at least ten plush (relatively speaking) boats to chose from. Anyway our bed was made, we hopped in the boat and the driver closed the window* to allow us to warm up. *window is a lose term for a pane of glass that at some point had been broken in two. The top segment was now placed at the bottom of the main segment, except when the window needed to be closed, then it was balanced precariously back in its original position and held with masking tape!
So the next two hours were not the most comfortable, but we got to the island (despite the creaking and lurching of the boat everytime it hit a wave!) and started the 8km hike up and over the 9km long (still haven't quite managed to square that circle!) island. At this point we were thankful for two things: 1- that we'd actually got up to see this beautiful place, clear blue lake water all around, with hills and huge white snowy mountains rising up in the distance; 2-that we had our shorts and t-shirts (said smugly as a French couple walk passed us trying desperately to roll up their trousers and delayer!!).
So the walk was fairly knackering, (I guess we can cycle at altitude now but not hike!), but it was stunning and well worth it. We managed to get back in good time for the return boat home (not quite enough for a beer or two in the port as we'd originally hoped for, but plenty of time to get water and tickets) and this time made quite sure we bought a ticket for a boat that actually had two engines and seats!
Back on shore we found a lovely Mexican restaurant (trip advisor number 2) to have a tasty and plentiful supper before getting an early night sleep in preparation for the start of our trip to La Paz tomorrow. Oh and the restaurant owner got super excited to show us the beautiful sunset over the lake... Man was it beautiful... If only we took the camera with us... Phone pics will have to suffice.