Highs and lows

My equipment is not getting better, my eye swells, I am "saved" from a hole by a New Zealander ... But little by little my optimism returns!

Fret there!

I had underestimated the South American winter. It was probably the word "south" that misled me. Still, I'm not even that low in latitude. At Mendoza, around the 32nd parallel, it is similar to North Africa or the US-Mexico border in the northern hemisphere. But western Argentina is dry, very dry. And as soon as the last rays of the sun disappear from the horizon, no moisture in the air retains the heat. It is therefore in my interest to be in my tent and under my sleeping bag from 18 p.m. when the mercury drops to less than 5 degrees.

However, I have known colder than that in the past, especially in the mountains of Central Asia. But I think the down may be starting to type more in my sleeping bag and two coats. In addition to these, I wear a t-shirt and a fleece at night, a few pairs of socks and a toque. It must be said that I have now also abandoned the project of trying to repair my little silk sleeping bag that I use as a lining, and which is now almost in tatters. And that despite daily repairs, my sleeping pad invents new holes every night. I fall asleep early, not even being able to read with my frozen fingers. My computer shuts itself down and even my frozen toothpaste requires me to crush it with both hands to get it out.

Several times a night, I wake up like this, lying down directly on a hard, cold floor… With all this, I usually wake up late in the morning, around 10am when the day is just starting to warm up. I thought I preferred the cold to the heat and the extreme humidity. I'm starting to doubt it.

The entrance to the small village of La Toma, Argentina.

The NAP

But the difficulties for the bicycle trip here are also linked to the Argentinian culture. In almost the whole of the country, people are nap all afternoon. Shops, including grocery stores and restaurants, are almost all closed from 13 p.m. until sometimes 20 p.m. This leaves only the morning to buy fruit and vegetables in a fruit store or to go to the grocery store. Then the villages are also far from each other in this desert pampas, and since I camp often, I usually miss the opening hours.

Poverty

This makes it difficult for me to cross Argentina from west to east. The start of this route is in the province of Mendoza, at the foot of the Andes mountain range. The region is recognized worldwide for the quality of its wines. But grapes grow in a dry climate, and dust is everywhere in the air. By the light of my headlamp at night, I see sand flying into my tent. I'd rather not imagine it entering my lungs.

Houses are also built on sand. And the poverty of the latter marks me. Later towards the east, as a middle class grows larger, it will be explained to me that people are generally much poorer in the west due to the lack of mechanization of agricultural work. The manual labor of reaping the fruits, be it grapes, apples, peaches or whatever, pays far less than driving tractors or combine harvesters in the more central section where the grain fields reign supreme.

Many workers from neighboring countries also come to seek this manual labor which pays little but still more than in their countries of origin, including Bolivia. A situation that is not totally foreign to the seasonal work that we know well in Canada.

A few poor houses in western Argentina.

Hotel adventures

Since obviously everything must happen at the same time, I find in this drought a symptom that I had already had a few years ago. in the desert in Kazakhstan : an eyelid that starts to swell for no apparent reason! Is it because of a grain of sand or a dog that I flattered somewhere? No idea, but the puffy eye hurts and affects my morale.

Still, I have to keep an eye out (!) For the trucks. Shoulders are nonexistent and there are few road options. I try as much as possible to find secondary roads but I find myself more often directly on the highway. At least the trucks usually give me enough space and even give me a nice tail wind as they pass me at high speed. I am a positive.

The swollen face, the loose equipment and the cold of the night convince me a few times to let myself be tempted by a hotel. Including the one where the water flows so little in the shower that I have to flatten myself naked against the cold tile wall to enjoy the thin stream of warm water flowing from the showerhead. Meanwhile, my feet on the ubiquitous tiles are completely refrigerated in this small room where the heater produces more gasoline vapors than heat…!

I also let myself be tempted by this hostel in San Luis where I will notably share my bunk bed dormitory with a traveler from New Zealand. After a few hours of sleep, I half wake up in the half-light of the bedroom and my body sweaty and all hunched over the floor. Luckily, I have one of the beds below and I don't fall from a great height. In my drowsiness, I look at the ceramic on the bedroom floor and cannot understand where I am. Lying on the ground, I'm convinced I'm at the bottom of a well as I gaze at the high bunk beds on either side of me. I am suffocating so much that I wake the New Zealander. She gets up and asks me if it's okay. I answer him by shouting ...

I'm in a hole! I'm in a hole!

Obviously, the girl doesn't understand anything about what I'm saying about being at the bottom of a hole. She turns on the light on her phone and points it towards the ground to find only the very normal floor and me blowing on the ground like a madman… Then she goes back to bed.

I get up and see in my turn that I have just dreamed. A little (not bad) ashamed, I in turn go back to sleep. The next morning, before hitting the road again, I try the joke by thanking her for saving my life the day before ...

Me, driving very small on this long road which bypasses the El Morro volcano.

It gets better (a little)

After San Luis, the grass will gradually begin to reappear. The shy green that is starting to show up makes me feel good. I also have the impression that the cold is less harsh. The landscape becomes less flat and I see beautiful hills emerging in the distance. There is even a small mountain range that pierces the horizon and that I will go around.

People are also getting a little more curious at the sight of me. A lady from a bakery told me about a Quebecer who was a geologist in her village before moving to Australia. She asks me if I know him. I don't want to hurt her and maybe I answer.

My road gradually becomes less monotonous. There are cows on either side of the road, a few wind turbines in the distance. The light from the sky is soft and beautiful and there are less and less thorns on the ground. I fear less for my punctures. This beautiful landscape makes me happier. As if the aggressiveness of the decor and the vegetation had previously taken my personality by storm and that I was gradually freeing myself from it.

A few sheep gaze at me in the municipal park of the mini-village of Saladillo.

Illuminated landscape shortly before La Toma.

It is always cold. I know it will be cold for several months. I am in the dead of winter and will be driving east at the same latitude for quite a while. I just have to arm myself with patience that the beautiful season returns eventually. And in the meantime keep trying to repair my mattress every day!

Anyway, better to laugh than to cry. It is certainly not with the sun and the favorable wind that one writes books ofhistoires à dormir dehors !