Hello from Mendoza

Claire says... So we are here in Mendoza, Argentina, having completed our first week of pedaling. Here is an overview of our journey so far:
Nov. 24-25: Santiago-Valparaiso. About 80k. With the excellent guidance of Elba and Jose we left Plaza Italia in Santiago early on Saturday morning and headed off to Valparaiso. The weather cooperated and it was cloudy and chilly the whole ride until we arrived in Valparaiso to a beautiful sunny day. There we met up with Andrea (who came in bus) and thier friends from the Ciclistas Furiosas in Valparaiso, Otto and his friend Patricio. Otto and Patricio were amazing hosts and instant friends and showed us all around Valparaiso (including the bike lane on the beach!) by bicycle. We drank Mate on the beach and returned to Patricio´s house to spend the night as his family graciously allowed us to stay. The next day we went on a long bike ride all over the hills of Valparaiso with the group of Furiosas Ciclistas (the most active bike organization in the city). It was amazing! We learned so much and the Furiosas were such good hosts, so generous, open and welcoming. They pinned us with thier logo-pin as honorary Furiosas. They even came to the bus station, all 40+ of them, to see us off in our return to Santiago! We will never forget the generosity of the Furiosas in Valparaiso and the wonderful work they are doing to promote the bike as alternative transportation in Valparaiso. Also I met an amazing women, Elena, who´s 54 years old and bikes about 30k daily to her job and back. She´s an older lady but so strong that she was beating everyone else up the hills! An inspiration for us all, thank you Elena!
Nov. 27, Tues.: 79.28k varied terrain. Santiago-Los Andes. After a lovely goodbye party with our ciclista friends in Santiago (who have been so good to us and whom we will never forget... thank you so much Andrea, Elba, Jose, Mario, Fabiola, Leslie, Rodgrigo, and everyone else who shared thier time with us... we will never forget you! Thank you!) we awoke early to head out from Santiago. The journey started wonderfully, and fast, but later we were hit with the extremity of intense sun and heat in a desert with no shade. One climb up to a tunnel took us by surprise and almost made us pass out, but it was a good test. After the tunnel everything was downhill, into a beautiful lush valley with an incredible backdrop of the Andean mountians. Incredible. It was our first night with out a place to sleep and so we took a nap in a park in the town Los Andes before we could think clearly about what to do. Thanks to recommendations from a friend, we decided to ask the Bomberos (firemen) to camp out near thier station for security. We were nervous to ask at first but it worked out wonderfully. The 6th Cuerpo in Los Andes were incredibly generous and kind to us and thanks to them we decided to stay another day in Los Andes as they explained to us just how dificult the climb over the Andes is, and told us we needed to rest and prepare. We camped in thier patio and cooked in their kitchen.
Nov. 28, Weds.: Rest day in Los Andes, to do shopping and to find ways to get rid of wieght. This early in the trip and we already realize we´re carrying too much. I donated clothes to the Red Cross and sent an important book back to Quito (I hope it arrives!). A bit of advice for future cyclists... bring many less clothes than you think you need. You can wash things each night at camp and dry them the next day biking. Bringing 8 pairs of underwear is a waste of space! And books? Only ones you can give away without crying!
Nov. 29, Thurs.: 40.5k mostly uphill. Los Andes-wild camping near Rio Blanco. The climb to the border with Argentina in the mountain pass started out surprisingly easy, except for the intense sun that hit us about mid-day and caused us to want to sleep while pedaling. We arrived in Rio Blanco mid-day and continued on to find a wild camp site, at the recommendation of 2 U.S. bikers who were coming down the opposite direction. It was a pleasant surprise to meet other bike tourers so soon in the journey, and it gave us animo (positive energy and motivation). We found a really cool camp-site behind a rock and by a waterfall, but unfortunately it was also up a steep gravely hill. It took us about 2 hours to bring our bikes into camp and set up a nice site in a grove of trees and 2 hours to leave again in the morning, but it was worth it for a beautiful safe private site with a breath-taking view of the andean mountains.
Nov. 30, Fri.: 29.5k all very very up-hill. Near Rio Blanco-Las Cuervas. The big day! Our last day to cross the border before Cristhian´s visa ran out. And our day to climb the infamous Caracoles which is a frightening climb up a very steep mountain with 32 quasi-hairpin curves. We were very intimidated at the foot of the climb but we gave it our energy and arrived at Portillo at the top within 2 hours. It wasn´t as hard as we were told, and it was a climb with a view I never ever thought I´d see. It was an unforgetable experience. At the border we decided to “out smart” the customs agents (who told us we couldn´t bring any food into Argentina) by cooking and eating almost ALL of our food in an abandoned shack near the border (ironically, we were never stopped or questioned by customs agents anywhere! All eaten for nothing... haha). We ate so much we felt sick and had to sleep it off for a half hour. Then, to our surprise, there was a 4k climb after customs until the tunnel that would bring us to Argentina. This bit of the climb was the hardest because mentally and physically we were not prepared. What a relief to finally see the tunnel! We were taken across by an Argetino with a strong accent who was drinking Mate. Ohhh Argentina! On the other side we decided to splurge and stay in a hostel as it was very late, cold, and we were exhausted. We fell asleep at 9am and slept 10 hours. The climb was relatively short but very steep. At the highest we were at 3,300 meters. We climbed, from Los Andes, over 2,400 meters in 2 days.
Dec. 1st. Sat.: 45.3k all down-hill, less than 2 hours biking. Las Cuervas a Polvaredas. The lady at the hostel was so kind and generous, and gifted us oranges and Tang, and hugged us as we left. We slept in and showered and took a kind of rest day as the climb really took it our of us. We left Las Cuervas late (2pm) having eaten only bread (pan) as we were out of money and eaten all our food before the border crossing! This day we had some of the most exciting downhills I´ve experienced... with breath taking views, including Concagua, the 2nd highest mountain the the world! It was humbling to have the opportunity to cross the Andean mountain chain by bicycle. The rapid drop in altitude was dizzying so we stopped to stare at the mountains. We decided to ask to stay in someone´s yard in Polvaredas, a tiny little town. A teenager kindly took us in (we´ve had good luck with staying in people´s yards, no doubt thanks to Cristhian´s ability to communicate in spanish and his politeness).
Dec. 2nd Sun.: 57k mostly downhill but also climbs. Polvaredas-9k beyond Uspallata. We started off good, but this day ended up being a bit tricky because we were very low on cash and the banks in Uspallata were closed due to it being Sunday so we were very hungry and confused in an expensive tourist town. In addition, when we tried to leave we were hit by one of the strongest head-winds I´ve ever experienced and we were going 8k downhill. It was so bad it was funny. Lucky, we found an oasis of trees in the desert where a family let us stay the night. The children were very kind to us and gifted us 4 eggs from their chickens. We slept to the sound of hens, roosters, pigs, ducks and turkeys. Note: The upside of Uspallata is that many people ride bikes there, and we actually saw more women than men biking! And many women were biking thier little children and babies around. In addition there were many children biking, many of whom had adult bikes. It was impressive how many women and children were biking, and we were very inspired.
Dec. 3rd Monday: 88k Uspallata-Lujan de Cuyo. This day I started out super opstimistic and energized. We had a beautiful downhill that was a mix of semi-flat and downhill. With a slight head-wind we had to pedal constantly—but, having lived in MN for a while, this was the kind of terrain that I am used to and that I enjoy a lot. It was along a river as well—very beautiful, but very much a desert. If it wasn´t for the wind we would have fainted for the sun and heat. There were a lot of tunnels without lights or shoulders, but luckily we were going downhill so we could look to make sure no big trucks were coming and sprint on through. The biggest danger in the Andean crossing were the big giant trucks (camiones) but luckily most of them supported us with honks and thumbs up. Only one tried to run Cristhian off the road, which was quite scary to watch. Anyway, in the blistering mid-day heat of the desert we had the luck to run into a fruit truck in small town and buy some fruit and veggies, because everything else was closed due to the Argentinian Siesta (almost everything closes between about 2 and 6pm for the people to go home and eat and sleep). The siesta has taken us by surprise and caused us some problems. After running into a biker from Swedan, and passing by an oil refinary (where Mendoza gets a lot of its wealth, along with wine, which, by the way, is extremely cheap here, you can get a giant bottle for $2) we arrived in Lujan and looked for the fire station. We were again welcomed in by very kind volunteer fire fighters. Never before have I appreciated fire fighters so much, especially the volunteers, who risk thier lives and sacrifice so much of thier time to help out other people in need. And they are so passionate about thier work. It´s really touching and inspiring, and I now have a much greater respect for volunteer fire fighters.
Dec. 4th Tues.: 32 km flat. Lujan de Cuyo-Mendoza. We had a slow start as we stayed and had good conversations with the fire fighters in Lujan. We went to the center of Lujan to run errands and ended up running into a couple from the U.S. who are bike touring (and have toured 60,000 miles together in the past 20 years...wow! They really live the life-style). One of the things that impressed me the most about them is that the only material items they own in the world they have with them on thier bike. Talk about anti-consumerism! They live from thier bikes. It´s impressive. Not ten minutes later we ran into an Austrian biker with whom we traveled on to Mendoza where we spent many hours looking for a place to stay, and finally ended up staying with another group of voluntary fire fighters in a poor suburb of Mendoza where we were welcomed with open arms and, of course, Mate. We slept in a big room and had a dinner of pasta and cabbage salad.
Dec. 5th Weds, Dec. 6th Thurs, and Dec. 7th Friday we spent in Mendoza working on the educational aspects of our trip, studying the bike culture in Mendoza, and preparing for our up-coming journey into the blistering heat of desert in summer-time—that is North-West Argentina. Mendoza is a beautiful city, with many sidewalk cafes with an aesthetic that reminds me of Paris. Atlthough the fire fighters told us the “mountain folk” of Mendoza are unfriendly and conservative, we have found people to be very friendly and open. We´re staying in a Hostel with free internet (very useful!) called Itaka... similar to my hometown, Ithaca.

Here in Mendoza biking is very popular as a sport... but as transportation, only a few men are riding around. The car culture seems strong here, and there are no organizations that promote the bicycle as a medium of transportation. As you can see in this photo, UN AUTO MAS (one car more) seems to be the motto!