Cruz del Eje - would we ever leave?

With all the fun and frolics of recent weeks - the thousands of kilometres NOT on bikes (sorry!), the social whirl of Buenos Aires, the spectaculars of Salta and Iguazu, the weddings, christenings, parental visitations and all the rest alluded to in Liz's last blog - there has been one constant.  Cruz del Eje.

We first freewheeled in well over a month ago, hot, exhausted and bitten by ants, having earmarked it on the map as a decent strategic spot to dump our bikes and kit - at an imaginary location as yet unidentified - and head off for a couple of weeks R&R.  My how that snowballed.  That first late summer afternoon, we pottered into town on bikes that were also panting for a rest, and hardly warmed to the place.  No, it was worse than that.  We could see nothing remotely appealing about this little railway hub - now seemingly dead - that had had its day.  It felt like Argentina's answer to a Welsh mining town whose mines had long since closed.  We scampered back from the centre to the motel that we had found right on the main junction, whose 'highlights' were a couple of service stations, a set of traffic lights, a hot dog van and a selection of motley strays padding around.

24

24 hours to go.

24 hours until we re-mount our bikes and head north from Cruz del Eje. 24 hours in which to cram in food shopping, pannier re-packing, bike chain oiling and other vaguely familiar tasks. All rather distant memories after our 5 recovery weeks off.

5 weeks during which we have travelled over 10,000kms of Argentina by car, by bus, by foot. But absolutely nowhere by bike.

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness...

The leaves are turning, the grapes are being crushed, the days are shortening with the heat of the sun dimming, and all around us people are gathering, picking, plucking and reaping the rewards of the labours of spring and summer. Autumn has arrived in Argentina.

And so have my parents.

Waiting for them at Mendoza airport had a slightly surreal quality. We had washed ninety nine percent of our clothes earlier in the day and so had to manifest ourselves in outfits very definitely on the damp side of dry and quite certainly on the wrong side of weird. I have surely started a racy new fashion trend with my windproof biking jacket and sarong combination, to say nothing of Phil's down jacket and shorts number. The glamour.

School´s Out!

We are in a state of high excitement. Liz´s parents arrive tomorrow, and that means ´Holiday Time´! We are rewarding ourselves with a week off. This may sound a bit odd. ´But they´re on holiday anyway, aren´t they?!´ Well, kind of. But we´d been warned by those wiser and more experienced than us in this long distance cycling lark that after a while on the road, it becomes almost like a day job. You get into a routine of sorts, you spend the day in the same old seat, going through similar tasks. The difference is that the telephone doesn´t ring and the commute is built in. The days off become a naughty treat, to be looked forward to (not least by our legs) with almost indecent levels of excitement.

Small town fun, facial hair and The Fuzz

General Alvear seemed to us like a pretty big place. A pretty big place before yet more 'Nada´.

It really doesn´t though to the teenage son of Ana Maria and Nestor, our physio and her husband, who so kindly had us over for dinner. In the midst of what was a wonderfully homely evening - joining the family round the table for homecooked dinner, great chat, maps out for our route ahead, three lovely sons messing about and hovering around us very politely and proudly showing us their World Cup planners, pets barking and meeowing, Facebook glowing away from the computer in the corner -they were describing just what a tranquil a place it is and just why they chose to settle there, when their middle son chimed in ´yeah...it´s WAY too tranquil´! with the gusto of one who can´t wait to get out.

Well, he would have just loved the places we´ve been since.

All things bright and beautiful..

All creatures that do crawl
All those flies so plentiful
I´d like to crush them all...

Never trust a creature that is in segments. Never. Anything that looks as though it has been assembled by a six year old using their Lego Technik kit, and has a number of articulating parts, should be greeted on the offensive. To all those who said there was ´nada, nada, nada´in the desert, I robustly say ´yada, yada, yada´. Those sun baked plains bedecked with ´nowt but thorn bushes are positively alive with life.

The Campaign of the Desert

Phew.  We have now had a couple of days of recovery from what was probably the toughest leg of our journey so far.  Liberal doses of ice cream, air conditioned cafes, steak and cold, cheap red wine have combined to leave us feeling considerably more human than when we arrived in General Alvear.  That afternoon, it felt as though we were cycling over the glowing coals of an asado; now we know how those steaks feel.  Any hotter and I think one of us might have actually burst into flames.  As it was, I could have sworn I saw whisps of smoke coming out of Liz's ears in the last few kilometres into town.  In places, you could push your thumb into the black asphalt that we cycled over.  So, how had it come to this?