So, we are in a different country, right?  And one of the most obvious differences is in bathroom customs.  First off, few flush toilets (and I am only speaking for the ladies’ rooms obviously) come equipped with 1) working flush mechanisms, 2) toilet tissue, and 3) toilet seats.  But hell, what does it matter?  After a few days in the woods, any thing like running, clean water is pretty nifty.  Most Argeninian women carry toilet tissue in their purses, and many seem to carry soap as well.  The bathrooms are generally extremely clean, and there seems to be a small army of women employed to keep them so.  In campgrounds, the few bathrooms available are more or less deserted until after 6:00, or post-siesta, when everyone in the campground is standing in line to take a shower.

Personal grooming is very important here.  I feel a bit ackward, in my bike shorts and jersey, hair clean only because I jumped in the lake a couple of times, covered in dust from the dirt roads.  We are so clearly forigners, but so far that hasn’t earned us any dirty looks or negativity.  Quite the opposite. When we first started out, we didn’t know what to expect, from people along the way or from traffic.  It became clear that traffic was going to be mellow once we were off the major roadways.  Most cars pass us with a couple of quiet, gentle, sweet honks, or thumbs ups, or just big huge grins.  When people stop to talk to us, or when we are in a shop, they all enquire about us-where we’re from, where we’re going, where did I learn my spanish. No one thinks we are crazy for wanting to bike tour in South America.  No one even thinks it’s a bit weird.  Nice change.

Of course, the reason for that became clear as soon as we entered The Tourist Zone- from San Martin to where we are now (Villa Angostura).  We have seen a lot of bike tourists, mostly Argeninian, and met a couple of Europeans as well.  Not to mention the hordes of backpackers that are everywhere.  It’s great.  Imagine if you could travel all over the USA via bus with your pack, stay in campgrounds or cheap hostels in town, and it was considered a normal way to spend the summer (instead of something that crusty punks do via train hopping and spanging)?  Wouldn’t the US be a nicer place to live, with all those kids having seen Yosemite, and the Rockies, and all the amazing places?  Would the Park Service have to struggle so hard for funding?  Just a thought…

Wow, they call this place the Lake District for a reason! We´re currently in touristy Villa Angostura, Patagonia on the shores of Lago (lake) Nahuel Huapi. The last two weeks since we reached the Andes have found us camping next to a river or a lake every night but one, and if we´d gone another 3 km that day a gorgeous trout stream awaited. Instead we camped on a high plateau with a huge view of the desert & various mountains. After our longest day in the saddle that was just fine. Superbe, in fact.

But we´re now nearing completion of the ¨Seven Lakes Drive¨, which is the scenic way from San Martin de los Andes to San Carlos de Bariloche. We´ve covered 110 km in the last four days, snaking our way between spectacular peaks and ranges that still hold snowfields on the heights. It looks alot like the Sierras in California, only different. The lakes have been the stars of the show, however. We´ve passed thirteen of them, ranging from un-named blue jewels a couple hundred meters across to endless, deep blue inland fjords stretching to the horizon amongst majestic granite mountain walls. I have managed to swim in nine of them so far, not including the one we´ll be camping on tonight. Each one gets really deep really fast, and the water is crystal clear. You can feel the cold depths at your feet when you tread water. Our first night out we had a small lake all to ourselves and we camped on a beach you could dive straight off of. The next night we took a short side-trip to impossibly-large Lago Traful, staying in a peaceful campground with cows and horses wandering around amongst the tents. Last night we had a lake-side site at Lago Espejo where you had to swim through slender ten-foot tall reeds to get into the open water. It was quite a neat sensation!

As for the roads, we covered 45 km of ¨ripio¨ (gravel road) and often had to breath through wet bandanas over our faces because of all the dust. This is the height of tourist season and the lakes drive is extremely popular. But drivers are very courteous and it´s not unusual to get cheered on by passers-by. We´ve seen dozens of other bike tourists, all on flat-bar mountain bikes. Lots of young backpackers taking buses around too. Fly-fishing is really big here too.

Clear, warm, breezy days have been the norm, though twice we´ve been treated to evening thunderstorms. That helped keep the dust down on the roads though! Otherwise the air clarity is amazing.

All in all that was hands-down the nicest 110 km of bike touring I´ve ever dreamed of.

Next up are a couple days in Bariloche to re-fit and re-supply before either riding to Chile or taking a boat up the lake to the border with Chile, riding to another lake and taking another boat across it. Either way Puerto Monte and the island of Chiloe, Chile are the destinations.

Thanks for checking in! Ciao!

-Andy

In case you did not know, we are currently in the early stage of a bicycle tour in South America.  Thank you Wend Magazine, we are taking tons of raw format images!

I will try to keep this as interesting as possible. 

 Everybody speaks Spanish here and Elicia has been doing a bang-up job of speaking it for us. Absolutely no Argentinians appear to be fluent in English. I am getting by on a few words and many gestures, learning more every day. Most Argentinians speak very fast and their pronunciation is very different from anywhere else. Fortunately almost everybody is very friendly and helpful.

We were worried about eating, and our first dinner in Buenos Aires did not help. I took a stab at the menu and got a scary meat plate that we ate but almost gagged on. But since then we have been eating very well. Italian food and sandwiches are available almost everywhere, home-made empanadas are sold in the campgrounds by nice men on bikes, and a liter of beer costs about 2 bucks. We’re on our own for breakfast, since we require protein in the morning and sugary pastries are all anybody eats before about noon. The grocery stores have just about everything but peanut butter. We’ve had lots of rice, lentils, salami, cheese, crackers, carrots, potatoes, and tomato-shaped zucchini. I think I’m eating better than I did back home!

 We’ve had no trouble finding camping on the roadside, though we try to get out of sight unless we’re along a creek and it’s obvious that a million people have camped there before. Actual campgrounds are big, friendly places full of families and young travelers, but privacy is non-existent. You just squeeze your tent in where ever it fits. Adults and children stay up playing music and laughing around barbecues until at least midnight, there are lights strung up all over that stay on all night, and believe it or not, it’s really nice! Argentinians clearly enjoy the outdoors. The few RV’s we’ve seen are small and tasteful. Most people sleep in tents. They spend the rest of the day sitting around sipping mate together and doing laundry or some of the personal grooming that makes them so incredibly clean and immaculate-looking all the time.

Patagonia is dry, gorgeous, sparsely populated, windy, and hot.

Well, that’s a slice of life so far!

Ciao,

-Andy

San Martin de los Andes, Neuqen, Patagonia, Argentina (from Elicia)

We have been on the road for two weeks now.  And a hell of a two weeks it’s been.  After a few days in Buenos Aires sorting out our Bolivian visas (the Bolivian consulate moved addresses, which then took an entire day to find) and a long bike ride through the city on lovely bike paths, we boarded a bus for Neuquen, the capital of the province. 
   For some reason, we really wanted to ride to the Andes, not just wake up one morning and be there.  It turned out to be a good, if interesting, choice.

From Neuquen, we biked west.  Through the desert.  In the summer.  Our second day, we had to quit early because the thermometer read 106 degrees f.  And since it was a windswept desert, there was no shelter other than the tent, which we were forced to set up and crawl into.  I have never been happier to see the temperature drop to a mere 100.  But we figured it out.

The next day, we continued through the desert, but we started at sunrise and figured out how to carry even more water. 

In Cultral-Co, a town named in the indigenous tongue for fire and water (lots of oil there) we met a boy scout troup leader, who took us home and gave us fuel and invited us to stay.

At a roadside fruitstand, a young man asked where we were going.  When we told him, he suggested that we go this other way, it was much prettier. 

Well…he was right.  After the Most Grueling Day Elicia has Ever Had On A Bike (up a 6500 meter pass through wind strong enough to throw me backwards on the bike, barely able to stay upright), we camped next to a crystalline stream in the Andean foothills.  It was glorious. 

We ended up in the tiny resort (but not what you might be thinking as resort) of Villa Pehuenia, where there are ancient forests of monkey puzzle trees and crystal clear lakes that go on and  on.  We spent some time in that area (Lagos Alumine and Moquehue), then began the journey south to Junin de Los Andes, and finally on to San Martin.

Andy has jumped in a river or a lake almost every day, usually two or three times.

 This is fun.

 Pictures when we actually figure that part out.