I arrived in San Martín de Los Andes a shell of my former self.
Just kidding. It wasn’t really that dramatic, but I was tired and emotionally drained, I had no place to stay, and I had a bunch of bike bags with no bike to put them on. Bike bags are one of those things that are really convenient when performing the function they are made for (hanging off a bike while filled with stuff), but pretty inconvenient for almost any other activity. Come to think of it, they’re a lot like bikes in that respect (have you ever tried to store two bikes in a tiny apartment?).
So I called my mom, just in case she knew of a good place to stay in San Martín. She did not, as she has never been to South America. But she was very encouraging, as mothers often are. Feeling like a slightly more capable human being, I asked a nearby taxi driver if there was a campground nearby and if he could take me there. He said there was, but that I should just take the public bus because it would be cheaper.
Following the taxi driver’s advice, I stumbled onto the bus with two bags in each hand. I accidentally sat in the section for people with accessibility needs, but my jumble of belongings made it almost impossible to move. Thus, I became one of those people who obnoxiously sits in the accessible section of the bus even though they have no right to be there. Oops.
When I finally made it to the campground, the put me in a site about as far away from the office as possible, so I dragged all of my things through the campground and finally, finally set up camp. And somehow, after all that, I still had the energy to go explore San Martín… or maybe I was just hungry, because I was running off two mini croissants and a bag of chips.
As it turned out, San Martín is basically Banff, but in Spanish. Throngs of people covered the sidewalks, upscale restaurants lined the streets, and kitschy souvenir stores were on every corner. Muy bien, I guess. I ate some blissfully olive-free empanadas and went to bed.
Fast forward to the next evening, and I went to the Via Cargo office to pick up my bike.
But there was no bike. There weren’t even any people around. The sign on the door said they closed at 5.
I have come to the conclusion that opening hours in Argentina are essentially imaginary. Want to go to a museum at 2pm? That museum doesn’t open until 6. Want to get a coffee in the morning before you start biking? Not a single coffee shop in the area opens before 12. Does the sign on the store say they’re open from 9-5 on Saturdays, and it’s midday on Saturday and you’re standing outside the store? Nah, still closed.
Did the Via Cargo office in Zapala very specifically instruct you to pick up your bike at 8pm from the office in San Martín de Los Andes? They did! But is it open? Heck no, that would be ridiculous.
However, I actually had more pressing concerns than my lack of bicycle – which is odd, because you would think lacking a bicycle while on a bike trip would be pretty hard to beat. But I also had almost no money.
My understanding of Argentina’s economic problems is shaky at best, but for whatever reason they have two exchange rates. The official one is quite bad, and would make Argentina a very expensive country to visit. This is the exchange rate you’ll get at ATMs and a lot of currency exchange shops. The unofficial rate, however, is much better and makes Argentina quite affordable.
There are a few ways to access this better exchange rate, known colloquially as the “Blue Rate.” One way is through black market money changers, which are apparently not as sketchy as they sound but can be hard to locate outside of Buenos Aires. Another way is through the Western Union money transfer service, which will give you a rate maybe not quite as good as the money changers but still way, way better than an ATM. For example, when I checked, the “official” rate was 140 Argentine pesos per $1 Canadian. The “Blue Rate” through Western Union was 273 pesos per dollar. That’s almost twice as much. It cuts your expenses in half.
Of course, it could all be different now because Argentina’s currency also fluctuates wildly. They had 90% inflation last year, which makes Canada’s 6.8%-ish rate look very manageable by comparison. I would be happy for anyone with a better understanding of Argentina’s economy to chime in on the situation.
Back to me – I had the equivalent of about $5 in pesos. I had bank cards and my credit card, but with those I would get the bad exchange rate, and my credit card has also decided it’s not really into paying for things in South America, so it’s just biding its time as a mostly useless piece of plastic in my wallet.
I figured this was no problem. I would just transfer some money to myself with Western Union! Easy peasy lemon squeezy.
But Western Union had other ideas. I transferred the money. The transfer said “pending.” I waited, and waited, and waited… and it still said “pending.” I waited some more, and then they sent me an email saying they would not accept my transfer. So transferring money to myself was actually turning out to be difficult difficult lemon difficult.
I figured that, for the moment, I would just get some expensive money from the ATMs. Expensive money is better than no money, right?
I started my hunt for ATMs. One was out of cash. Another was closed for maintenance. Yet another was closed for probably the same reasons everything else in Argentina closes randomly without notice. And the final one did not seem to exist at all. Now I had no cheap money, and I couldn’t get expensive money, so I just had no money at all.
So I called my mom, who in this case could help me in a very tangible way. She transferred some money to me via a Western Union office in Canada. I’m very lucky to have a family that is supportive of my wild endeavours and can also help me out in sticky situations. Shout out to my cool mom – thanks for not letting me get stranded in Argentina.
Crisis averted. And the next day I was able to get my bike. The day after that, I biked up, up, and away from San Martín de Los Andes.
I really do mean up. It was all uphill for the first 15km, and then turned into rolling terrain. Finally, a bit spent after my first long distance bike ride in a week, I set up my tent next to Lago Villarino in an area designated for free camping.
It was a beautiful campsite. On one side, a shimmering blue lake was flanked by green forested hills. Behind these hills loomed rocky peaks. On the other side, across the highway, a jagged mountain cut through the sky. It was reminiscent of Castle Mountain in Banff National Park. Argentines barbecued all around me, in classic Argentine fashion. I met a couple from Córdoba who were biking Argentina on a tandem bike.
There is one downside to free camping. The upside, obviously, is that it’s free. The downside is that there are no facilities, and a lot of people don’t really understand/practice Leave No Trace principles. I had this drilled into me by Scouts Canada, who instilled the fear of god in me via an old bearded man nicknamed Cookie, who I was told would inspect my campsites and find even the smallest piece of paper or plastic that I left behind. I once carried someone else’s banana peels and granola bar wrappers in my backpack for three days because I found them by a volcanic lake in New Zealand on the second day of my hike, and someone had to do something, right?
But apparently a lot of people who used this site did not get metaphorically beaten over the head with this concept, so the site was surrounded by what I will forever think of as “Poop Forest.” Streamers of toilet paper decorated the undergrowth. Anywhere you thought might be a good place for a pee, someone else had already thought the same thing. Poop Forest was also home to very cute rabbits, who I hope lack the intellectual capacity to understand that they live in Poop Forest.
This isn’t the first time I’ve been dismayed by the lack of respect humans have for the natural world. In Nepal, there were near-infinite piles of toilet paper littering the ground on Annapurna Circuit. This was especially obvious once I reached the alpine – partly because there was no vegetation to hide it, and because things don’t really decompose once you reach altitudes like 4500m above sea level. So if you make a pile of toilet paper, it’s going to be there for a long time, for lots of people to see and experience as part of their journey.
My thesis here? Pack in, pack out! Even if it’s your dirty toilet paper. Take some responsibility for the areas you’re visiting.
Okay, soapbox complete.
Over the course of the next few days, I carried on biking to San Carlos de Bariloche. I’ve a read a couple books where the characters visited Bariloche, and they made it sound like a quaint mountain town. For some reason, I decided this was probably an entirely accurate description and there was no need to do more research.
Bariloche is many things, but a quaint mountain town it is not. It has over 100,000 people and is one of Argentina’s biggest tourist destinations. It was busier than Banff in July. People everywhere, decked out Switzerland-themed chocolate shops with costumed workers, Saint Bernard dogs you could get photos with for a fee… come to think of it, maybe Banff should get some Saint Bernards.
My first two nights, I stayed with a WarmShowers host a little ways out of town.
Miguel, my host, is a bit of a character. He is very passionate about bikes, but specifically retro, old-fashioned bikes. He says bikes now are too boring because they are all the same no matter where you go. I would argue that this is not entirely true, because I once rode a high-performance folding bicycle around Taiwan and I have not seen high-performance folding bicycles in any other country, but I digress.
Miguel collects and builds bicycles. He has a self-made “museum,” complete with informational placards and fancy lighting. He gave me the tour, telling me about the history of bikes across Europe and in Argentina. He also showed me his workshop, where he builds custom bikes for clients, as well as replicas of interesting bikes he can’t get authentic versions of. Sometimes he also builds replicas of models he does have but that aren’t in his size, because he wants to try riding them. All in all, quite impressive.
I slept on the floor in the back room of the bike museum. I shared my space with several homemade bicycles. There was also a tiny bathroom, with a toilet that inexplicably geysered water out the back every time you flushed it, until there was half an inch of water all over the bathroom floor and I was frantically trying to push the water into a tiny drain using a long-handled squeegee. Say what you want about Canada, but I do think we’ve achieved great things in the realm of indoor plumbing.
After a few days at Miguel’s, I moved to a hostel in the centre of the city. I drank a lot of fancy coffee. I went for a hike. I talked to strangers. And I played the Giant Claw Machine with my new friend Luki from Austria!
The Giant Claw Machine was the biggest Claw Machine I have ever laid eyes on. It is the size of my childhood bedroom. It is filled with stuffed animals as big as Kindergarteners. It plays music that stresses you out. It flashes lights and is full of wonder and possibility.
Luki and I were not the only ones drawn in by the Claw. We switched off with a number of Argentinians, all of whom wanted to claim Claw victory as their own. I had my eye on a stuffed Saint Bernard. Luki was after the penguin.
But, naturally, it was rigged. The claws had no tension, so every time you got your prize more than a few feet off the floor, it fell back to the ground. We tried and tried, and failed and failed.
Perhaps it was for the best, though – my trip has been wacky enough so far without strapping a giant stuffed dog to the back of my bike.
Luki and I finally accepted that we could not beat the Giant Claw. We bid farewell – he was heading out on a 3-day hike, and I was heading over the Andes, back to Chile, and to whatever awaited me there.
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