Mendoza, Uspallata and Salta

The best view of the Andes behind us

We left Uspallata for Mendoza. It was a very pleasant 80Km or so of beautiful scenery. The road been very recently built and to a very high standard, which after my last experience was a pleasant relief. In fact, it was just a nice days driving.

We went to the garage to see about the repairs that we needed. The mechanic was very nice and was very happy to do the work but it was Friday afternoon and he would not be able to do it till Monday. He also said that his friend would do a repair on the exhaust pipe that afternoon. So off we set to get that done.  

Pipes fixed while you wait

The exhaust man was very happy to do the repair which turned out to be a bit more urgent than we had first thought. He gave us a price which was very reasonable and did the repair there and then. He and his crew were so nice, willing and helpful. They plied us with cold water ( it was very hot) and connected Ping to the internet. Clearly they realised that she might die without that precious connection. A couple of hours later and just $50 poorer we left. Such a good experience.

We found ourselves a place to stay for the night. Which was right in the centre of town. It was rather oddly in a commercial town centre car park. Who were happy for us to stay in the van, use their water, toilets and electricity. On first look it appeared rather grim but as is so often the case it turned out to be very pleasant indeed. Albeit a bit noisy. It was safe, secure and friendly.

The next job was to go and see the gasman, to get our gas bottle refilled. We found his shop such as it was. Actually it was only because of good directions as we found once again that it was cunningly disguised as something else. This time it appeared to be a garage. You may recall that the last time we tried this we ended up in a florist.

On arrival we found another couple of overlanders already getting their tank filled  having had considerable difficulty.

We got chatting to this German Couple who we shall call  Reika and Thorsten. The reason for this is that is because that was their names.  

Reika  and Thorsten and their Chevy

When they were sorted out I asked if he could top up my bottle. He just said no problem. I was impressed by his enterprise. Firstly what he was doing is illegal. The gas is normally sold at subsidised price. To oblige us he charged us about double  which is still quite cheap. Not only that he employed a simple process of joining our cylinder with another by a hose and inverting it. Now here is the really clever bit. The bottles he used were the ones that had been returned with some gas still in them so he was using free gas. We were more than happy to get the job done and for him it was money for old rope. Everyone is a winner!

Dinner in the car park, I so wish we had a table cloth and candles

That evening we met with our new friends for dinner in a restaurant. They were such excellent company and we invited them for a curry dinner at our temporary home, the town car park the following evening. Given the nature of the venue I rather wish I had bought a Linen table cloth and candles, but never mind. Reika and Thorsten explained that they had been in Canada and had bought their Chevrolet van there and had driven down the western coast of The USA and then central America. At some point in ther travels It occurred to Reika that she might be pregnant, and pregnant she was!

So having had some very good travels they were now having to consider a revised plan and very happy with their change in circumstances but determined to still get the best out of their journey.

So now it was time to go back to the garage they did the jobs as arranged, though there was a bit of a sting in the tail. As despite my providing the necessary parts they decided they were not suitable and supplied their own. We may have been ok with that except they charged a fortune for the parts. Sometimes it is too difficult to argue in a foreign language.

So with everything done we moved on. Ping will take up the story for a bit here.

Ping’s bit:

So proud of the old man, after his last experience, there was always the concerns about how he would cope with  narrow, winding mountain roads with paths that are the width of the van. But then, we are driving in the Andes and to get from A to B, we have to cross

 these mountains,

and these,

and these………

We left Mendoza, but the sat nav, having being set for the shortest route possible, found us at the start of the problematic Ruta 13. It was easily recognisable because we were told that it started as the town’s rubbish dump, the first job that Noel had to do was to do a precarious 3 point turn between mounds of decaying rubbish and oncoming rubbish trucks who were not giving way to a little overland vehicle which had found itself on the wrong side of the town. 

Eventually, we were on our way, via Ruta 52, smooth tarmac, long straight road, and Noel was happily singing along with Joan Baez. I happened to look at the map and saw that there were a lot of wriggly bits further along this road, thought to myself, that we do have some rather high mountains to cross, but I won’t tell him as yet. 

Last 45 kms over the pass to Uspallata

50 kms down this straight, smooth tarmac road, we arrived at a visitor’s centre. The nice lady gave us a lot of information about the pass that we are about to drive through and that it was over 3000M high, mainly gravel and there will be bits that are narrow and winding etc etc. 

"Beautiful drive ahead", said the nice lady

Noel visibly froze as she carried on telling us how beautiful the drive would be, and there were places that were quite narrow, you could look down the ravine and into the valley as far as your eyes can see! We were committed, there was no turning back as a detour would be a 100kms or so.

What's over the edge?

 Noel performed magnificently, I tried my best to offer comforting words like

“it’s only 45kms

“this is a well used highway, it will be well maintained”

“what’s the worst that could happen?”

“you’ll be fine, and you will feel so much better after the drive” 

What's round the corner? Oh God!!!!

In the end, I thought the best thing to do was to keep quiet, amidst the grunts of “Oh God”, Ooooo dear” and lots of expletives for the next 2 hours as we climbed higher and higher, the road sometimes narrowing to such an extent that the van just about getting through. 

Fresh rock fall, causing the van to lean right over

 In one bend, there was a fresh rockfall and it meant he had to drive over a mound of rocks on 2 wheels, causing the van to lean at a precarious angle over the side of the ravine. There were many bends and points where the road sloped off at an angle, mostly driven with gritted teeth and heart in the mouth.  I am not sure whether Noel sometimes had his eyes closed or he was squinting so hard that they were closed anyway, it was tense and dramatic until we drove over the pass and began to descend into the valley. The sigh of relief was so intense, and he was rewarded with a bar of chocolate and a big sloppy kiss.

Back to Noel..................

White horse at the window

We left Uspallata for the final time now heading north toward Northern Agentina then for the Atacama desert.

Donkey in the road

mountain road tunnel

Looking out over  the landscape

Taking an unpaved road with mountains on either side of us  I was still a little apprehensive that I may have still to navigate some difficult mountain roads actually it turned out not to be so. After driving about 15 km of gravel road, suddenly we hit a beautiful tarmac surface I was very relieved this continued right until we got to the first major town. Where rather strangely the tarmac ended and gravel took over through much of the town.

Farm boys at work

Eventually we stopped in the town square parked outside the tourist office we were able to use their wifi. So we caught up with correspondence and chatted to a nice Belgian couple who were doing much the same thing. They were at the end of their travels and were about to turn toward Uruguay for a ship home.

All our correspondence done and a bit of shopping, we left town. Once again we followed gravel road out of town which then miraculously turned to smooth tarmac. There  was one stretch on mountain road, not too bad, but rather alarmingly there were fresh rockfalls all along the winding road. It was not difficult to imagine what could happen if just one of these rocks should fall on us. I was in the midst of a worst case type of daydream, when Bang! We had a blowout. It scared the living daylights out of me.

Oh Bum!!! our first flat tyre

In a funny way I was pleased as this was the first puncture we have had on this journey. On our African journey we of course had  26 tyre incidents, and just as in Africa they invariably occur on a winding mountain road. This was no exception.

An all too familiar scene

Our practiced routine kicked in and although a little rusty we had the wheel change in just under half an hour. Our record was 15 minutes dead. It was incredibly hot the sun beating down as We worked. Also while we worked some flying insects kept landing on our hands and hanging on. We did not know it until we set off that they had given us some of the most unpleasant bites either of us have ever had. It was compounded by my seeing one such fly attached to my finger while I was under the van. I was a bit freaked out by it and in an attempt o flick it away I hit my fingers on the road! It really hurt. Any way with the wheel changed  I  examined the tyre and found that a sharp rock had ripped a 3 cm wide hole in the tyre. 

‘Gomeria’ is a Spanish word which I had assumed was a social disease. Not so apparently I was glad to know for two reasons; it actually is a tyre shop, but it also meant that Penicillin injections were unnecessary. However the nearest such ‘Gomeria’ was going to be more than a hundred Km away  in the city of San Jose. So I said to Vasco,the navigator ‘Do you know the way?’ 

Unamused she gave directions and off we went. The rest of the journey was unbelievably hot and our newly acquired insect bites  were starting to hurt. Ping with great authority identified the offending insects wit their scientific name. It seems they were ‘Mutant mosquito flies’ well you live and learn don’t you.

Mutant Mosquito Fly!!!

We arrived in San Jose hot tired and unpleasantly sweaty.

There were no really suitable sites to spend the night and in desperation we went to a kind of sport centre where they said we could stay for the stunning fee of about £20. We really were in no shape to discuss the matter so we stayed.

The next morning went off to get ourselves a ‘Gomeria’. (snorts of schoolboy giggles). I have up to now resisted stories of hot weather out of respect to friends and rellies in Britain who are freezing their bits off. However, It will give an indication of the extreme heat, when I went to check the radiator water The next morning I found it was still hot. The previous night we slept with all the doors and windows open and fans on.

Anyway we set off and drove about a hundred metres where we found a very professional looking tyre shop.

Paulo and daughter   a good job done 

I was expecting to have to shell out more that £200 to replace the tyre. First off he had never heard of the brand of tyre we use. But he insisted that he could have it repaired. In the end several things happened. We got our spare tyre changed over, the damaged tyre was repaired incredibly well with a vulcanised filler in the tear and a very neat patch on the inside leaving us once again with four wheels, a spare wheel and another, repaired spare tyre, all for £25 and on top of that we have new friends in the the tyre shop man and his daughter who are planning their own overland journey. 
Not half bad eh?
This area is dominated by the wine making industry  with massive vineyards stretching off into the distance as well as some that are very small. We even saw a couple that were completely dead, all said wine making is a very big deal here.

once a public bus now???

Massive loads of grapes awaiting  Weighing in at the wine maker

Through this day it was unbearably hot we look at our temperature guage and saw it was 50 celsius! The ‘Mutant mosquito flies’ had done their work too both of us had our hands bitten and we both had really badly swollen hands which were more itchy than you can imagine!

The next night we spent in a filling station again with everything open fans grinding away all night. I woke up with my hand almost on fire with itching and swollen. I have never known anything like it. I spent the rest of the night smearing hydrocortisone crème on this continued for both of us for 48 hours more. 

As we are heading north we had already known that our friends Alan and Sue who are travelling in the opposite direction where not going to be meeting us as they had to return to UK.  We were looking forward to seeing our friends Ben and Jen ( How I wish that they run an ice cream shop!) they were planning to come out to Peru to do some touring with the loan of Alan and Sues Land Rover. Unfortunately they have had to cancel due to important domestic matters. We are very disappointed but nevertheless wish them a very satisfactory outcome.

In this despatch I have focussed on the minutiae of our tribulations. This partly because we both feel that there has to be a limit of the number of times we can describe the beauty of the mountains around us.  I am very conscious of over using superlatives.

This is nevertheless true. Stunning scenery+++

We proceded along a valley which turned out to be a string of villages. Only later did we find that were some pretty important ancient history sites here. We were a little preoccupied with getting some diesel after many kilometres of hopping along these villages, we finally found a filling station.

Our Malaysian friends what a great meeting!

Having filled up we sat in the van eating some snacks. A couple of motorcycles pulled up alongside us they appeared also to be weary world travellers. Initially I paid them scant attention until one removed his helmet and I said ‘He looks Indian to me, I had noticed his number plate as being familiar to me but could not think why. At this moment they had both taken off their helmet and Ping said they are speaking Tamil! She jumped out of the van saying are you from Malaysia!? Oh yes they were and we were very soon joined by 5 more motorcycles also from their party. A very interesting bunch they were too. They very much enjoyed meeting another Malaysian traveller, there really are not many around, They spent quite a lot of time discussing food. This is a group of very experienced BMW 

Here is the whole gang.

Motorcycle adventurers some of whom have done an impressive amount of travel. Their bikes,  all BMWs, really looked the part as they were dirty  and looking pretty well seasoned. They were anxious to move on as they were up against a deadline but we still spent a good hour enjoying their company.  Ping was presented with, what I perceived was a major sacrifice, she was given several packets of Malysian favourite ‘Maggi Mee’ noodles!

As we spoke we talked about how overland travel is pretty much unheard of in Malaysia. They agreed, but then said that after Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman doing ‘Long way down they realised there are some interesting long distance adventures to be had if you just stick your bike on a ship'. And they have been doing this ever since. Great work chaps! I am sure we will meet again.

Londres a long way from home

After a couple of days we are both fully recovered  and have made our way as far as a small village called Londres!

We again stopped in a petrol station. Here they seemed not to be particularly geared  to having campers overnight. However  the staff  greeted us with pretty much boundless indifference.

We discovered nevertheless that close by to our spot was a water tap and an outside electric socket. We only found next morning that there were quite nice showers there. I am beginning to learn that the most surprising places afford us great comfort. 

Andreas and Bethina

At this site we parked alongside  a nice German couple Andreas and Bethina with whom we had some very interesting conversations. Not only are  they quite experienced travellers. Which is always appreciated, but also he is a former senior policeman whose entire service was in Berlin. He has been witness to some extraordinary events and has played his part in some of Europes most important history. Very interesting especially some of the more incidental event that he recounted.

Of course to hear this one might think it has nothing to do with South America. But as I have always maintained this kind of travel is all about the people you meet and what you learn along the way.

We drove to provincial town called  Cafayate we were unsure where we would be parking for the night. As we arrived in town they were just packing up after a major festival that had been on for more than a week. There was nowhere to stop every available space was occupied by tents. And worse yet, people were still enjoying themselves!

We decided to leave town and see if we could improve our situation.

First we had to navigate path through a police roadblock which was plainly set up to catch drunk drivers. There were plenty of cops and several coaches to take prisoners away.

What was interesting for me was that my policeman's eye spotted a number of people who shamelessly parked up on the side of the road with all this activity around them and then get out and walk or swap drivers. It may sound mean but I was glad to see that they all got spotted as cops left the shade of a tent and went after them to haul them back.

Kissing Llamas

We already knew that the next 30km or so was very famous as a particularly important scenic drive. A few miles out of town we left the highway and went a mile or so to a village adjacent to a large winery. We found a huge unattended carpark and set ourselves up there with the colourful and peculiarly wonderous shapes of the mountains all around us. We were completely alone  no one around  not a car in sight, there was an open air church but that was deserted. Amid this picture of isolation I notice that  as it got dark there were street lamps.

And during the evening we could hear sirens along the distant highway, presumably as the local cops mopped up the straggling drunk drivers. It was indeed very strange, as we retreated back into the van just in case there were pumas around.

The next morning we set off to drive through this mountain pass that was interesting and beautiful in equal measure.

All around us such beautiful shapes and colours

On to the northern most city of Argentina, Salta.

We already knew that there is a municipal campsite in the city that was said to be very good.

What we found was quite beyond our expectations. We drove through the city that had had several thunderstorms in quick succession and may roads were properly flooded  we found the camp with ease thanks to Vasco. On arrival what we found was a huge campsite which because it was the last summer holiday weekend was crowded out. Of course because it was the last summer holiday weekend it was completely rain soaked there was the biggest swimming pool I have ever seen. Which was full of people enjoying themselves! 

The biggest swimming pool ever!
Ping met a Canadian woman by chance who told us that there was space for our van next to theirs, but that it would be very muddy.

Our armed guard

More cops

The other surprise was this; I have never been in a campsite where there were armed police patrolling! Not only that but half an hour later two mounted cops turned up! Even if some kind of trouble were anticipated everyone was too wet  to make mayhem and in the slippery slimy mud it was quite difficult to remain vertical, as I discovered to my cost. 

The Law Family

Our new Canadian chums turned out to be very nice and we found that we had a great deal in common, in our work experiences and personal interests. Mel and Kah Hung and their 11 year old son Dante’ were great company for the evening.

                                                                                                                                          The next day we went looking for some information in the city and were greeted by a very interesting woman. She stopped to give us directions and it turned out that she is originally a refugee from Zimbabwe with extraordinary tales to tell. Having actually been driven from their tobacco farm pretty much at gunpoint, there was a fire fight and the farm was taken over, her husband was shot and badly wounded. Now here for the past 3 decades, she is teaching English to Argentinian students. 

A great night with good friends

We had lunch with her, after this we arranged for her to come to our camp for dinner. The next evening Ping put on an amazing meal and our new friend Sheila together with our Canadian friends  we had a really nice evening.
Sheila then invited us all to visit her at home the next day.

Ping coaching young people in gambling arts.    
 Shame about their pocket money! Ah well.

We all went together and had such a lovely afternoon at her home with Mel's + kah Hung's son Dante playing with Sheila's grandchildren in her pool Ping ended up playing Mahjong with a couple of 11 year olds and a 9 year old. Such a nice day! 

Lovely Sheila and grand children 

Dead pool!

Finally we went to sleep at around midnight and awoke the next morning to find the massive pool had been drained during the night. The season is officially over  people are leaving in droves  and treasure hunters are scouring the bottom of the pool for lost property.

 And it is here, dear reader that we leave our tale,  but just for now.