If you read some of these posts and find they are making little sense, blogger.com seems to have taken a dislike to the apostrophe and sometimes (only sometimes) uses it as a signal to scramble the post. So no, the stream of consciousness is not any more confused than normal, it is the technology. I will try to fix it in due course.
The Editor
Author Archives: The Chronicler
Buta Billon to Bardas Blancas.
Camped high and wild, amongst the cactus, ridden the ripio down, down to an ashen grey Rio Grande, all to the sparse accompaniment of the occasional passing car. Found the tar and sailed out onto the open strath. The river removed from the constraints of it’s volcanic corset, exhales and plaits braids across the wide, flat lands. For a background we have the world’s greatest concentration of volcanic spouts. Payan Matru has been our constant companion for two days, sitting high and elegant on our eastern horizon. Last night, dressing in a thin mantle of cloud, a gauze negligee that barely preserved her modesty. Then as darkness descended, she stripped off and flew her garments like a flag in the rising night wind. An exquisite, classic near symmetrical volcanic cone, standing clear above her neighbouring siblings. Lower down, a sloping table land is softened by low vegetation and a low rising sun, that accentuates with deep shadows the numerous small volcanic eruptions. The slanting light also captures and enumerates the encampments of portacabins, the derricks of drilling rigs and the plumes of dust disturbed by servicing fuel tankers and speeding pick-up trucks. An acne of exploration among the volcanic pimples. Now we understand the bright light, that we initially took to be a star, one that never seemed to move. It was more flood-light than epiphaneal nova.
Reverence and Homage for a Mountain: Aconcagua.
It’s sat on my left shoulder, sat at ten to the hour, for the better part of a cycling morning, only starting to recede back to a ‘quarter to’ as the day’s heat reaches it’s zenith. We’re running up the Valle del Uco, heading for the stretched out conglomeration of towns that makes up Mendoza and it’s environs. Still in an infatuation with Ruta Cuarenta. Aconcagua is so massive a mountain that it takes it three whole days to pass us by. It’s prominence is immense, yet scale is hard to apportion. A weather front spreads, rolls out from the east, out from the Pampa and approaches the Andean cordilleras. It only reaches part way up the slopes. It’s only then that you start to realise the height and size of the barrier. Those low ridges that you took to be mere hills , are in fact high mountains in their own right, and would grace any north European bagger’s tick list or postcard collection. Only today these poor hills are down graded to ’Class II’, and accorded the graceless title: ’pre-Cordilleras’ Each day, as we slowly pass by, we have a repeat of near identical weather patterns. The rising sun hits the high glacial slopes, casting in soft peach and pale pink, whilst we, down in the valley, are pottering around in head torches. It’s a clear, warm morning as we set off, the prospects look good for another hot day. A thin blanket of cloud forms up, and slowly approaches our mountain, offering a respite from the sun, stealing our shadows but not our heat. It’s a slow, tentative convergence, a supplicant’s advance to the altar of the high gods. A penitent’s plea for absolution and exoneration from the paramounts. The request for advancement or preferment is rejected, onward passage is refused. Rebutted, the clouds melt back, dissolving, reduced to wisps and tatters, and our purloined shadows are reinstated.
The day advances, the sun climbs, a haze builds, dislocating Aconcagua from it’s earthly tethers, smothering out the brock of low grade tops. Now elevating the glacial and snow covered ridges to an ascendancy, to a dominium and a superiority far above a mortal’s world of nodding donkeys and grape vines, rushing trucks and fanciful cyclists. Hovering over, floating up, drifting off, wandering away.
“Argentina in a Nutshell” – The Ultimate Single Image.
If, after four months, much of it in Argentina, I can take just one single image away with me, one that sums up our experiences here, then I caught it today. It’s cerebral, rather than digital in depiction, although a re-enactment could be created for the blogosphere. However it wouldn’t include the surrounding, and preceding impressions and images that have been built together to create my mood, temper and humour at that moment.
We’d solved the techie issues, survived a dose of retail therapy, sourced last minute, walk-in, city centre accommodation, all with the novelty of a bath. We’d lain long past sun rise in a youth hostel, just so we could avail ourselves of the price inclusive breakfast. The coffee alone was worth it. Exited alive from yet another city, and we’re now cycling through heavy dapple. The road lined by hefty, shading plain trees, riding past butternut squash, honeydew melons and table ready grapes.. Stopped to eat chocolate cake in a bus cum sun shelter, chatted with two inquisitive boys and watched the last of Aconcagua float away in a heat haze. Life is good.
Late Saturday morning and we ease our way into Valle Tumulaya, an agricultural service town, that is in a bustling, unaggressive, pre-siesta mood. We’re circling the plaza; inevitably it’s another San Martin. Traffic is heavy, we’re moving slowly, spying out anything of interest. Which is a synonym for a coffee or an ice-cream. We ’re passing the end of a row of double parked vehicles, just as one pulls away. We were probably in his blind spot, but actually he hadn’t looked either, but in this instance it didn’t matter. A situation in, say, Haddington High Street, where I would have happily let rip with a choice of expletives and gestures, suffering afterwards the effects of an adrenalin rush. Not this time. I’m watching this from an vantage point to the rear, all of this slowly unfolding. The driver realises his error and apologises; The Navigator laughs and offers a ’de nada’ – it was nothing. A conversation ensues. ’Where have you come from?’, and ’where do you come from?’ It took us a while to distinguish the subtlety of the distinction. The driver’s hand comes out the window with a huge bunch of grapes. All whilst both are gently rolling along the street. It’s just so typical, so Argentine. Had it been Paraguay, he would have scored a telephone number just as instantly. The ease with which a conversation can start, the uninhibited offer of assistance, the proffered present, the pleasure of a minimally comprehended conversation. It’s all so positive. Life is good.
Forget coffee or ice-creams, we’ve got fresh grape pips to spit, so we retreat to the depths of the plaza, and are talked at by an old boy who used to race road cycles from BA to Chile and back. So typical. So Argentine. Life is Good.
Pottinger’s Law
One of the lesser known axioms from the canon on “temptations of the fates” is Pottinger’s Law. As against the more generalised decrees promulgated by the ‘doom mongers of destiny’, this one is directly associated with roads and those who use them.
First brought to the attention of the general public, or more specifically the BBC Radio Four public, by the efforts of the late John Peel. Mr Pottinger, unlike a racially derogatory Irishman or the more generic ‘lump of turf’, is a particular, identifiable person. An Orcadian, acting as the islands’ BBC weather broadcaster, he noted that if two cars are motoring towards each other, they would inevitably meet at the narrow bridge. Simple and specific. It’s also remarkably accurate, and if you substitute bridge with dog walker, horse, cyclist or sheep for example, then the rate of incidence increases proportionately.
Saturday morning, the traffic is slight to negligible, we’re approaching El Cholar, visibility and sight lines are measurable in kilometres. A pick-up with it’s tethered, attendant plume of dust is in my rear view mirror, in front are three gauchos with a posse of dogs spread across the road, behind them another pick-up. Along with ourselves, we are the mobile imponderables, now fit in the one tangible fixed asset. A single lane bridge. You can see the inevitable unfolding.
Of course we all meet at once. As with ‘sail before steam’, so with ‘four legs good, two legs bad’ – our wheels counting as legs, dogs, horses and bikes assert their precedence and we all pass in a wave of good humoured greetings. A perfect Pottinger
Pacha Mama Manifested, Recreated, Resurrected as an Ant.
Pacha Mama is the earth mother for the Quechuan nation, who’s god leader in pre-Colombian days was the Inca. Reverence for her is typified, even to day, by making an offering of a small morsel of your food, thrown out over the earth. A piece of crust, A cut of fruit, a sliver of meat. We do the same, although our act is more inadvertent. A scattering of crumbs, a crushed cracker, a mush of pear pulp. 
Once our bequest is earth bound though, ants will soon detect our offering, crumbs will soon be heading down a motorway that’s been swept of grit, cleared of any obstructions. Size offers no complication, bulk no problem, co-operation and team work are paramount. A gobbet of corned beef, slowly but purposefully heads towards a cratered hole in the ground, I can count over twenty ants assisting in the removal. Yet, even in these ordered, co-operative societies there are the rebels, the obstructives, the jokers. A large flake of crust follows the meat down the trail, several are involved in the project, yet there are two who seem intent on thwarting the flitting, tripping the workers, clambering and riding on top of the bread. Comedians or the transport manager? The Conspiracy
(Note from The Editor: blogger.com seems intent on screwing this post up. Seems to have taken a dislike to apostrophes. So if nothing makes any sense, for once you do not have to blame The Chronicler.)
Slowly but surely I am coming to the conclusion that there is a deliberate conspiracy afoot. An intrigue between anywhere with photograph-ability and the electrical supply companies. It’s global and spreading like a mutating virus. This has been finally proven. Roadside signage has been erected, instructing, commanding, dictating me to take a photograph. “Thank-you, I wouldn’t have noticed those fantastic, sculptured, eroded rock towers if you hadn’t brought them to my attention, you even offered me a scripted title. You then allowed a column of pylons to march right across the foreground. Like lumbering enslaved giants, cowed and dejected they stretch out across the hillside. Maybe the conspiracy doesn’t place natural phenomena against the utilities industry, maybe we are being prepared, manipulated by a more subtle machination. Could this be a scheme hatched by the photographic industry of Japan, whereby the next generation of cameras will automatically include ’photo shop’ soft ware that will immediately erase all poles, wires and cables, all for a small consideration, the cost of a new upgrade. Old camera cost plus 15%, sorry, no trade-ins: nobody wants them. Cynical? Who, me?
There is also, on occasions, the unintended, interesting consequences of the utilities existence. To remove them from my viewfinder I’ve walked a short distance away from the road and their alignment. I’ve found a perfect camp site. This on comes with a patch of compacted, thorn free sand, tree shade and a visual screen from the road.
So if you can’t beat the parade of poles, and let’s face it, I need their cargo to charge up my camera battery, then you just have to join them. Yet, there is a certain beauty in their outline and a degree of anthropomorphism. The tall structures found in the UK, I liken to an elegant patrician spinster; the more squat pylons of northern Europe are Homo erectus, new down from the trees. The trick is to incorporate the offending impedimenta, using their structure to tell a story, lead the eye into the picture or as a construct in their own right. There’s the tilting telegraph, like staggering drunks, that place and locate the grass swamped, disused, railway. Or the near infinite line of concrete poles, fusing as one with distance, breaching the distant horizon. The strung out pylons playing to the undulating road, rising and falling like a set of scales, metronomic in beat, scripted musical notation. Now, stand with your back propped against one of these wooden poles and you can feel and hear the song and the tension in those strung out wires. Then there’s the tall thin skeletal erections, their lattice work enmeshed with a thatch of twigs, the condominium of parakeet’s nests. Out here in the open, in-between spaces, they and the asphalt are the only reminder of human existence, and for ourselves, a tentative tether that prevents a vague shadow of angst or loneliness from settling down on us.
Last night you gave me air conditioning and a fan, tonight you showed me to a camp spot.
Thank you power people.
Wild and Not so Empty Campings.
The digger has scraped out the sand choked gullies, the storm cundies that run under the road, a preparation for the next flood. The spoil heaped in a bing that offers us a perfect screen from the road. We ’s a bit like two nights ago. Again a wild desert camping, surrounded by heavy thorn, a compacted area with a narrow tunnel for an entrance, a discrete entrance along which I shredded irreparably my only shirt. There is, however, a pony trail near by, and I had at first considered it for a site. It was bigger, flatter, but we’ve seen what speed a spooked, unbroken horse can do. We’re pitched, we’ve cooked a meal and just about to turn in for the night. The frogs and the hoppers are in full chorus, yet above their clamour I can hear a human voice singing. Vaguely falsetto, fully off key and it’s coming our way, getting louder, less harmonious. A gaucho passes on his horse, waves and passes on. It would appear that he’s seen it all before, gringo cyclists camped by the side of the road. It was his path that I’d considered for a site.
It
‘it’s safe out here in the campo’ roadside camps aren’t a felony, it’s quite acceptable, even normal.
Towards the beginning of the trip, we might have considered a pack-up and move on, to find a new, secretive site. Not now: our streetwise senses have for some considerable time been saying
’s rolling stock. A level of screech, that in the industrial work place would arouse the interests of the safety officer, and require the mandatory use of ear defenders. They could out perform, out compete any Argentine camp ground a 3am on a Sunday morning, however unlike their electro-amped competitors they come with an ‘off button’. They can all stop instantaneously, for no apparent or obvious reason, stop in perfect unison, an achievement that any choral master would be proud off. Our cola lorry site had it’s excavated drains, but what I hadn’t noticed on my initial inspection tour was the muddy puddles that had formed out of the last downpour, a short walk along the road. Now muddy puddles in the desert have the attractive ability of an electro-magnet in an iron fillings factory. In Australia, to encourage patrons to put the lights out in the toilet they place a notice on the back of the door: ’s pure coincidence, but our amorous amphibians have acquired an amped sound system that any stadium rock concert venue would dream about. A man-high corrugated pipe, two full carriageways wide. It’s remarkable what a din a combo of five frogs can achieve, it’s got the insistence of car alarms, yet without the annoyance. They employ the speaking tube, the sounding horn to maximum efficiency, sending echoing calls, love songs far out into the bush, far into the night. In the morning I check out the muddy hole; it’s pock marked with flooded hoof prints, each off which are a bubbling agitation of mosquito larvae, the whole area a churned up soft red glutinous ooze, into which our frog chorus plop. They’re no bigger than a thumb nail. Only proving the adage: ’small bodies, big noise’.
Our supposed, quasi secretive sites have one character in common. They come with critter noise. Our gaucho spotted place has cicadas and grasshoppers who set up a cacophony of chirrups, that merge and amplify as the sun wanes, a collusion of noise that sounds like the un-lubricated wheel bearings of Scotrail
Lights attract moths,
Moths attract frogs,
Frog attract snakes.
Now put the lights out!
Our water hole attracted the bell clanking cattle and the frogs. It
’s all too easy to look at these ’big open spaces’ and to expect to encounter emptiness. The tracks disappearing off from the highway will lead, eventually to a habitation, the dried out dung will have come from a cow, goat or horse. It might look like a semi-arid desert, but as our last two desert campings prove, it’s not depopulated, it’s not deserted.
It
Varying and Irrational Standards or The Fickleness of a Traveller.
Chos Malal municipal campground is shown on the tourist office’s drawing as being on the banks of the Rio Curi Leuill, a small tributary of the considerably more consequential Rio Neuquen. The inference being tenting spots with immediate access, or at least view of a river. What the drawing omits are the excavated pits of river gravel, the flood protection gabion boxes, a gravel road and a link net fence. It’s a site that’s suffering under the weight of high season visitors, a spot of deep cleaning and bin emptying would help. It’s a dusty site, but the water tanker makes regular visits, one of which coincided with our ongoing research into local customs: the manufacture of artesanal ice creams. He soaked both ourselves and our field work. (The blue stuff: Cielo Azul turns out to be a bland generic whose interest lies entirely in the colour.) Not our best campground, but it’s safe, we can leave the tent unattended, a precaution not afforded on a wild roadside pitch or some of our pre-Christmas deserted camp grounds. In Scottish terms it was cheap, but we’re well converted to a South American economy so it lacked a certain level of VFM. We pay the tab, but feel slightly cheated, which is inconsistent, as we voluntarily contribute the same, for less, the following night.
We’ve found our way to our ’spa’ resort at Buta Ranquil, found our family, by the time this is posted number six will be in evidence, found the roosting chooks and the cold sulphur bath. When we arrive, like good little non-Latinos, we offer to pay immediately, ask the charge and father places his hand on his chest and says “what ever the heart considers right”. It’s also obvious that he isn’t expecting the pesos right away. It’s all very relaxed, all very easy, all very Latin. I’m distinctly unrelaxed, uneasy, very Scottish. That problem is all mine. I’m well outside a comfort box, but there’s no way that we can back out, conscience and credibility outweigh the anxiety. The tent pitch, or just the act of activity, help to create a bridge over the language chasm. The youngest boy is dressed for a dapper gaucho, eschewing the swimming attire of his brothers and sisters, bombacha trousers, checked shirt and soft leather shoes, is the first to inspect our abode. His older brother is the wheeler dealer, keen to sell us a bag of plums. We negotiate on weight rather than on price. He starts at a half carrier bag, we at a more carryable amount. We settle amicably at a quantity that will fit in our panniers and won’t leave us with upset stomachs. Then he disappears to climb through the fruit trees, returning soon, we pay and solemnly shake hands. A concluded deal. The epitome of a gentleman; he’ll enter grade three in the New Year.
What political correctness won’t readily allow, but what is very apparent; this is a form of poverty that is a challenge to my sensibilities. There’s no vehicle no machinery, no apparent means of employment. A recently extended slab sided house that asks the question, ¿How do seven, soon to be eight live in such a small space? Even with a communicable exchange, there’s no way I could ask. Yet the body language of both the parents and the siblings, speak of easy co-existence. To our own eyes, our meagre collection of western goods look and feel like oversized, overstuffed baubles. In North America we’d felt undernourished, our tent a thin disguise beside the monstrous RVs, our lack of outdoor heating mutinous, of air conditioning but a sure sign of deviance. Heretical to consumerism. We were subversives operating under the radar, and I gloried in challenging their perceptions, in being seditious, rebellious and different. Tonight it is we who are the fat, bloated face of first world western merchandise. Where a bicycle dynamo light is an extravagance, mud guards mere profligacy, travelling time a decadence. Not so gloriously revolutionary now.
Father and sons come down to our camp, ostensibly to put on a light, but there‘s no way that we could accept that expense; we‘ll be bedded down long before dark anyway. We exchange the near standard repartee of our route, the beauty, the tranquillity, the friendliness……. We try to ascertain the road conditions, the reprovisioning possibilities further up the road. But it’s obvious that his world is centred on this town and his family. The lamp lighting exercise, a polite cover for collecting our camping fee. We’d both agreed previously that a contribution that matched our previous night in Chos Malal was in order. It’s accepted with grace and an easy acceptance. What degree of our account can be set against guilt is not easy to calculate, but I can reassure my conscience that at least these pesos go direct to a beneficial cause, and not into the coffers of a local government. I was also buying, not only a pitch and a bath, but also a story and an experience. Sometimes it’s views down alleys, glimpses through windows, a spectacle from the safe exposure of a moving bicycle or the security of a tinted glass window of a passing car, that are our only exposure to a differing financial world. Voyeuristic tourism. Occasionally we need to be denuded, stripped of our protective covers, the anonymity of the traveller. If at the same time we are discomforted and challenged, then it’s these episodes and exposures that add to the travelling experience.
Hunting the Iconic Fauna
Parques National come with conservation, protection and an engorged budget for roadside signage, or so it would seem. Hunting and the dumping of rubbish are crimes, a fact of which we are repeatedly reminded of every few kilometres. We are also requested to respect the ‘cruising animales’. A row of differing species are pictogram out of carved wood. It’s a row of the icons, a row to be ticked off. Some we can recognise, others we’ve seen but are unable to name. A visit to the park’s visitor information centre offers no enlightenment. First up is a ‘rhea’: tick, one running away into the bush a few kilometres back. Next, a grouse-like road-running bird, that with a Wiki search, suggest that it might be a ‘caracara’. It’s odd the lengths contributors will go with words to describe an item, when a picture would be such a simple solution. We claim a positive sighting on a few occasions. The third we take to be either a vicuña or a guanaco. It’s a question of size, both being members of the camelids. We got quite excited about these two, they stood on a sand hill ridge for some time, unperturbed by our presence until a car came along. Big tick, they’re high up on the Americas icon stakes, alongside pumas, condors and gauchos. The fourth is a rodent with a scaled tail, nocturnal, so all sightings are road kill. The fox is the easiest to identify, and as the cubs are just starting to leave the dens, we get to see quite a few. The last is an unidentified silhouette, that could be an armadillo and, if so, is in a living form remains un-ticked.
It’s one of the advantages, one of the joys of cycle travel, moving so slowly there’s the opportunity for the pull over for a curiosity or the sudden appearance at the side of the road. So for this sign, we have four hits, one miss and a question mark. Unfortunately cars seem to have a habit of hitting them all.
