Do you ever have things in your life that don’t really go the way you imagined? Like, maybe you’ve always been a dog person but you accidentally inherit a cat. Or you get your dream job but it turns out to be a dumpster fire. Or you think you’ve met ‘the one’ but then you find out he breeds illegal toxic snakes in his garage and refuses to eat anything except hot dogs, mayonnaise, and Cool Ranch Doritos.
My current experiences are maybe not quite as extreme as that last example, but I think it would be fair to say this trip is not going quite how I expected it to. I’m not sure exactly which decision set off this chain of events, or if it’s just been a weird unrelated series of unfortunate incidents, but the trip in my mind and the trip in reality have been two very different things.
I guess my last post was also about something that didn’t quite go to plan, but it wasn’t the last misadventure. I’ll start where I left off. This story takes place over two instalments. It has good parts, bad parts, and parts where I cry in a bus station. Essential features of any narrative writing, as I dutifully taught my grade 7 students last year.
So. I woke up on my first morning in Argentina. My room included an enormous, delicious breakfast that I couldn’t even finish. Feeling well-nourished and optimistic, I jumped on my bike and pedalled the 37 easy kilometres to the tiny town of Bardas Blancas. After the previous day’s epic journey, I was in the mood for something relaxed.
In Bardas Blancas, I met the first cycle tourist of my trip (other than myself, of course). His name was Vicente and he is from Argentina, near the border with Uruguay. He’s headed somewhere south, but I’m not sure exactly where – that kind of got lost in translation.
Vicente and I camped at a little campground outside of Bardas Blancas, run by an older man named Juny. Juny wears coke bottle glasses and sweatpants pulled up to his chest, with his shirt tucked into them. Juny has a lot of cats and a fridge that he sells salami out of. Juny is a legend.
Also staying in the campground were a group of young Argentinians from Buenos Aires. They are currently on their own epic journey, hitchhiking across their country and selling bracelets. The previous day I had learned about Chilean generosity, and now it was apparently time to learn about Argentinian hospitality.
Even though I’d just met them and couldn’t really talk to them in any meaningful way due to the language barrier, I found myself sitting in a circle sharing Yerba Mate, a tea-like drink that is quintessentially Argentinian. It is made in a special cup with a special metal straw, and everyone in Argentina seems to have one on them at all times. When in doubt, whip out the Yerba Mate.
As the evening proceeded, the barbecue began. Barbecues are nothing short of a national pastime in Argentina – the people of this country know their way around a chunk of meat. Somehow, my new friends used a small stone wall, a pile of deadfall branches, and an ancient metal grill to create the most delicious chorizo sandwiches I’ve ever had. They showed me Argentinian music, introduced me to their dog Bebe (Baby), and invited me to drink from the communal pitcher of wine that had appeared at some point. And not like, pour the wine from the pitcher into a glass – everyone was just drinking straight from the pitcher.
It was a great night. I was getting really good vibes from Argentina.
The next day, I set out down Argentina’s Ruta 40. This road runs almost the entire length of Argentina, and is one of South America’s most famous road trips. I was excited to explore part of it via bicycle.
It started out great – smooth, brand new asphalt with a tailwind. My tracking app told me that at one point, I was going 48km/hour, which is pretty wild. It was amazing! I was having the time of my life! I was the fastest, most badass cyclist in all the land!
Annnnnd then I hit the gravel. Or ‘ripio’ in Spanish. And everything kind of fell apart from there.
Gravel on Ruta 40 is not like gravel in Canada. It’s… well, most of it is basically sand and rocks. Have you ever tried to ride a bike in sand? Or through loose rocks? Or both at the same time? It’s not great. So I was going a lot slower. But slow and steady is a way to get something done, right?
But the problems didn’t end there.
When I consulted the map beforehand, I saw that the road followed a river the entire way to Barrancas, the next somewhat sizeable town. That was great, because it meant I could just filter some water whenever I needed to.
Unfortunately, the map I looked at was playing fast and loose with the topography lines. The river was right there, but it was at the bottom of a cliff. So the water wasn’t especially accessible. And it was really, really hot. And there was no shade. The landscape was kind of like Drumheller on steroids, if you added a few volcanoes in the background. So between the slow progress, relentless sun, and lack of water, I was starting to think to myself cool, I’ve always wanted to get heatstroke.
Luckily, the people of South America had my back. 3 cars stopped and gave me water (and a can of coke, some trail mix, and some candy). About halfway along, there was a little farm where an old man sold drinks out of his window – I bought some orange juice (it was more like Kool-Aid, really) and I got to sign his guestbook, which he seems to get all the foreign passersby to sign. Someone even offered me a ride, but it was early enough in the day that I hadn’t yet realized what I was getting myself into, and I said no.
But the road kept getting worse, the sun kept getting hotter, and the river kept seeming further and further away. The end of my braid was matted with dust. The water I did have was so warm it was like drinking bathwater. I decided to wild camp and tackle the last 30km of nightmare gravel in the morning (I had already done 70, plus the initial 15 of asphalt, for a grand total of 85 slow, sweaty kilometres).
As I was approaching a place where the river was finally, finally accessible, a van pulled up. Five people jumped out. They refilled my water bottles and we had a short conversation about ourselves. They were an Argentinian family, biking the length of Argentina… except for the gravel. Because the gravel sucks too much. So they’re skipping those parts. The adults take turns driving the van while everyone else bikes. The youngest kid with them was 12.
I bid them farewell and watched them drive off into the late afternoon. I forced myself to carry on, because I needed to be closer to the river to set up camp.
As I crested a small hill, I saw the van pulled off on the side of the road. Huh.
As I approached, a person got out of the van. It was Eduardo, the patriarch of the family. Then his wife got out. They asked if I wanted a ride, at least to the end of the gravel.
And I was basically like ‘hell yes, get me out of here.’ So I got in the van and they loaded my bike on the rack, and we set off down the road. I ended up riding with them to where they planned to camp for the night, a little municipal campground in a tiny village called Ranquil Norte. When we arrived, Vicente was already there. Turns out he only biked 40km of the crap road before calling it quits and hitching a ride. So I guess I was the grand winner of the unofficial Ruta 40 gravel biking competition that day, with 70km under my belt.
But I didn’t really feel like a winner. I felt tired, and dirty, and thirsty, but also like I was failing at I set out to do – go on a bike trip. I’d ended up being driven somewhere twice now. I was feeling like a silly little girl in over her head instead of the epic adventurer I aspired to be.
And Ruta 40 wasn’t done with me yet.
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