New Years in La Pampa

Belén

Ah New Years...what grand expectations I had for 2012. Roland Emerich and Terrence McKenna set the bar pretty high as far as apocalyptic visions go, so I was kind of dissapointed by the lack of earthquakes and/or satanic minions scooping up babies and stuffing them into stomach pouches then dissapearing in a cloud of smoke, returning to the gates of hell. 

Deciding where to be for the big New Years Day bash was a little difficult since there weren´t too many places for atleast a few hundred kilometers down the road from Chilecito. It was only by chance that after two rough days of slow ascension up ruta 40 that I came across Belén, a decent sized town with all the fixins of a big city, despite it´s remote location. After wandering around the city center for a few hours and asking random hippies for free places to stay, a family invited me to set up my tent in their backyard, and for a few pesos, use their laundry equipment and shower.

I thought for sure I found my New Years day city. The family was planning a big party for the 31st and out of the kindness of their hearts invited me to attend as well. My two hostesses took me on a grand hike up a steep mountainside for a great goat´s-eye-view of the town and snapping a few shots of a very ostentatious statue of Albert Christ´s mom. It was here under the watchful eye of Baphomet´s one night stand that I made a fatal error.

One of the hostesses, Lucianna, asked me to go dancing with her later that night, and as I tend to do when I´m answering a request in spanish, I responded in the positive rather hastily without taking into account that I was still hella tired from my ride and had absolutely no energy for a crazy Argentinian dance party, especially since they go hard til four or six in the morning. So, after saying yes like a dumb dumb, we all head back to the house, cook a massive feast of meats and greens, and prepare for the night´s festivities...except for me. I pass out in my tent as soon as the eating is done.

So much for a care free New Year´s eve party. The next day I wake up to a lady with an icy-cold death stare who absolutely refuses to to say a word to me, and while my spanish has improved immensely since I left Cordoba, I´m not yet at the point where I can console or give a sincere apology that goes beyond five words. I screwed up for sure, but without the means to convey my regret, the day grew painfully awkward. Dusk was approaching, and not wanting to spoil these ladies´ New Years eve festivities, I pack up and head north into la pampa for a night of storm watching in the desert. This turned out to be an absolutely amazing experience despite the solitude, for that night I camped out underneath an old gas station and watched one of the most magnificent electrical storms I´ve ever seen light up the desert plain for most of the night. Damn, I love lightning.

The next day, I wake up to an apocalypse-free Catamarca landscape and ascend some more. In Huaflin, I find myself in wine country once more and the whole town is still awake, drinking heavily, and are all really excited to see me. An off duty police detective makes me chug down a half flagon of wine, which instantly results in headache. I hit the road hard and fast, trying not to focus too much on my throbbing eye. Extreme physical exercion always helps mitigate the effect of these things, and within a few minutes, the pain is gone.

By mid-day, I reach the peak of ruta 40, and for the first time in three days, I am descending...really really fast. Right after I reach the peak however, I have to pull over to enjoy the sights for a bit. I am in the middle of this vast plain surrounded on all sides by steep mountain ranges that look like they reach 5000 meters in altitude. With not a soul in sight for twenty miles, I lay out my poncho and sit on the side of the road for a good two hours, watching a dozen dust-devils tear ass through the plain and listening to the white noise of la pampa--that unceasing breath that fills the air with the steady hum of spiralling pillars of dust and vegetation. You need nothing but your eyes and ears to enjoy this place.

I somehow pull myself out of the trance, hop back on the steed, and descend really fast for the next three hours, going fast enough to pass trucks and Dutch campers on the way down the mountain range. I´m in wine country again and camp in a small town named Santa Maria. The next morning, I wake up stressed since I am missing one of my sandals, and since a good pear of sandals is hard to come by in these parts, I absolutely have to find the thieves that made away with my sandal. I go to the cabaña to ask for some help when I see a gang of vicious perritos using MY footwear for a bed and a chew toy. Well...I just couldn´t find it in my heart to be mad at these guys. It took every bit of my willpower to stop myself from buckling up one of these pups to my trailer. Cute little minions of darkness they are.

I was off to Cafayette, a much talked about locale a hundred kilometers down the road that is said to bring good times and has all kinds of cakes and cookies and pies and sugary delights, like one of those little disneyland villages. Upon entering Cafayette, I found myself in tourist country, surrounded by Europeans and cool kids from Buenos Aires, and while I have nothing against tourist towns, I have a hard time connecting with local folks the way I do in other villages on the road. Everyone´s looking to make a buck off of you, so it´s almost impossible to find a place to spend a night for free. I had to head 5 km out of town before a nice family agreed to let me setup camp in their front yard.

The next day, it was on to Moab, UT, for a weaving ride beside the Colorado river. I´m sorry to be using so many references to places in the states when it comes to describing all these different environments a country half way across the globe, but the similarities are so apparent, there are days when I think my folks have paid a gang of private detectives to travel to South America, drug me, fly me back to the states, and have me wake up in southeastern Utah none the wiser (protip: I´ve also met Mormon missionaries out here). I wouldn´t put it past them, but that just shows you how much love is in my family. Anywho, putting aside such grand delusions, I was transfixed on all the sights around me. I was deep in canyon lands and I couldn´t be happier.

Then midday hit, and traffic became absolutely ridiculous. I should have explained earlier...as soon as New Years is over, everyone who isn´t a student has another week or so of vacationing before they have to go back to work, so as soon as the family festivities are taken care of, the roads become inundated with tourists, and eight times out of ten, these tourists are from Buenos Aires, and having witnessed and written about the driving qualities of these city dwellers, it goes without saying that biking conditions become a hell of alot more dangerous as soon as these types start filling up the road. Whereas traffic for the majority of my trip has given me plenty of space on the road, these tourist have clipped me once already and have me giving the finger while screaming BALUDO!!!! (thanks Paula) at the top of my lungs.

Also I mentioned the wind briefly in my previous post, but I have to reiterate this point: every time a cyclist mentions that I´m going to have a fantastic tailwind on my route, it´s like they´ve summoned a hex that instantly curses me with a crippling headwind for the rest of the day. Despite some positive reassurance from a German cyclist earlier that day, the wind was against me all the way down to Salta, and even though I was following the river downstream, I could--at most--shift to the mid gear range and keep a steady pace at 12 kph, which is too damn slow. I will say one good thing about the wind: it keeps all these friggin flies from always buzzing in my ear.

Enough writing for today. I´m here in Salty city for a few more days as prepare the DreamCrusher for Bolivia. I´ll have more posts on the way, so stay in touch folks...