Great journeys: Argentina by bike
In the final instalment of his three-part adventure, Mike Carter travels through the Valley of the Butterflies towards the home of South America's most famous biker Che Guevara
Mike Carter
guardian.co.uk,
Thursday June 19, 2008
In the final instalment of his three-part adventure, Mike Carter travels through the Valley of the Butterflies towards the home of South America's most famous biker Che Guevara
Mike Carter
guardian.co.uk,
Thursday June 19, 2008
Pictures: http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/gallery/2008/jun/17/southamerica.roadtrips?picture=334985869
Gaucho country ... on the road in Argentina. Photograph: Julia Sanders/Mike Carter
The Argentine conscript border guards were as charmless a bunch of fellows as you'd expect to find dispatched to a deserted road on top of a freezing cold mountain. I imagine they are still there, which makes me feel better.
Shortly, we were plunging down again, every 100-metre drop bringing air more syrupy and rich; every degree of temperature raised bringing back the real prospect that one day I might be able to straighten my fingers again. I was breathing extra gulps just for the fun of it.
We pulled over at a cafe for coffee. Having coffee in Argentina after being in Chile should be the first thing one does, like the Pope kissing the ground at the foot of the aircraft steps. For coffee in Chile means a sachet of Nescafe and tepid water producing a lumpy gloop of extraordinary vileness. Great dogs, rubbish coffee.
In Argentina, it involves a loving process of alchemy with freshly crushed beans and warmed milk and an end product of such ambrosial ecstasy that you instinctively close your eyes as it slides down your throat and sigh loudly.
As in San Pedro de Atacama, things felt like a Paramount set. Gauchos tethered their horses to the hitching post and walked past us, ponchos and all, raising a finger to the rim of their cowboy hats, Cuban heels click-clacking on the ancient wood floor as hard as granite. Chevy and Dodge pickups circa 1930 filled up at the single pump, its dials whirring round.
We spent the next few days riding through north-west Argentina. First down intestinal tracts of roads – the kind of roads that fill bikers' winter dreams – that wound their way around bald, crumpled hills that changed colour at every bend – green, pink, yellow, even aquamarine – like your TV being on the blink. Then along arid valleys of sandstone, with fluted columns like giant organ pipes and eroded rocks forming fantastical sculptures.
We rode along the Valley of the Butterflies, millions of them forming fluttering clouds that we passed through, like riding in a kaleidoscope.
Down from the mountains, we hit the plains. Mile after mile of vineyards, then brilliant yellow tobacco crops, their leaves drying on the walls of the pueblos we passed through, each with a whitewashed church and a dusty football pitch, the twin obsessions of Argentina. In the middle of nowhere, we passed processions of devotees, walking who knows where, carrying aloft the Virgin Mary. And always the waving and the smiling. Surely, if there was a country to steal your heart, this was it.
Gaucho country ... on the road in Argentina. Photograph: Julia Sanders/Mike Carter
The Argentine conscript border guards were as charmless a bunch of fellows as you'd expect to find dispatched to a deserted road on top of a freezing cold mountain. I imagine they are still there, which makes me feel better.
Shortly, we were plunging down again, every 100-metre drop bringing air more syrupy and rich; every degree of temperature raised bringing back the real prospect that one day I might be able to straighten my fingers again. I was breathing extra gulps just for the fun of it.
We pulled over at a cafe for coffee. Having coffee in Argentina after being in Chile should be the first thing one does, like the Pope kissing the ground at the foot of the aircraft steps. For coffee in Chile means a sachet of Nescafe and tepid water producing a lumpy gloop of extraordinary vileness. Great dogs, rubbish coffee.
In Argentina, it involves a loving process of alchemy with freshly crushed beans and warmed milk and an end product of such ambrosial ecstasy that you instinctively close your eyes as it slides down your throat and sigh loudly.
As in San Pedro de Atacama, things felt like a Paramount set. Gauchos tethered their horses to the hitching post and walked past us, ponchos and all, raising a finger to the rim of their cowboy hats, Cuban heels click-clacking on the ancient wood floor as hard as granite. Chevy and Dodge pickups circa 1930 filled up at the single pump, its dials whirring round.
We spent the next few days riding through north-west Argentina. First down intestinal tracts of roads – the kind of roads that fill bikers' winter dreams – that wound their way around bald, crumpled hills that changed colour at every bend – green, pink, yellow, even aquamarine – like your TV being on the blink. Then along arid valleys of sandstone, with fluted columns like giant organ pipes and eroded rocks forming fantastical sculptures.
We rode along the Valley of the Butterflies, millions of them forming fluttering clouds that we passed through, like riding in a kaleidoscope.
Down from the mountains, we hit the plains. Mile after mile of vineyards, then brilliant yellow tobacco crops, their leaves drying on the walls of the pueblos we passed through, each with a whitewashed church and a dusty football pitch, the twin obsessions of Argentina. In the middle of nowhere, we passed processions of devotees, walking who knows where, carrying aloft the Virgin Mary. And always the waving and the smiling. Surely, if there was a country to steal your heart, this was it.
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