15 days and we have made it. Following an unknown route through the Argentinian high desert until there were car tracks. Earlier we pooled our last remaining food to make a big breakfast (Soup with instant mash potatoes) and we are en route to Rodeo.

To top it off, there is a big 2000+m descent coming soon

we roll like we never have before. It is so extremely rare that you can pedal and cruise downhill. Our last 3 days were in a mostly hike-a-bike valley and before that two down a roadless valley.
We are pulled over by the rangers at a station, it turns out that we had just ridden through the San Guillermo reserve (which is next to the national park - which we avoided since several cyclists have not been able to enter it north to south). They tell us that it is an infraction to be here without a permit but there is no further action required. Next time, we should go to San Juan to get a permission. I think for a second. I dont think there would be next time.

They tell us its 4 hours by car to Rodeo, which I dont think is correct. The road is in perfect condition. Maybe 4 hours in a toyota corolla?

The hot lowlands stretch down into the haze

we go down a wash-road, quite bumpy and I am still so glad to have a fatbike. So bumpy infact that I dont bother to take out the camera, it gets hotter and hotter as we go down.

I keep an eye on my tire. The dry climate and the necessary low pressures have created deep marks on the sidewalls, where the thread is showing and I wonder - how much longer can they last.

we enter town, grab some snacks and sit in some shade outside of the school which has wifi. It’s been a while!

we grab some amazing ice creams, i take a photo and save the wrapper, gotta find them again

on the tarmac we get horrendous headwind but it is rideable. We take turns leading and for little sections around the curves we get the wind as tailwind, woah!

Sylvain falls due to a gust while we are stopped at an intersection and he is looking at the map, to the surprise of the people nearby. Yeah there are people here!!!
we try to follow his map, looking for a place to stay and the prices are mostly quite high, about $80 to $100 for a bungalow (cabin). We keep alternating between “too expensive” and “full” as we zig zag to the town center. At the end I just tell sylvain that I will just go camping since it’s 9pm anyway but we stumble on a $40 for two place very close to the center (restaurant, ice cream shop and stores!). Eventually we get around to ordering food!

we take two days off, most of which I spent struggling to make a video, eventhough I promised I would never do that again on the small tablet. The screen is in such bad condition that it often requires opening and closing to get it working. Tapping it, squeezing, turning on and off. I think I should just trow it away. This is the only photo i have of our two days off - the shy street dog that came by to say hi

we continue on tarmac at low altitude, I struggle to keep up to Sylvain - riding 4.8” tires on 100mm rims on pavement is no joke!

Chicken and coca cola. Somehow in the heat we down 2L for lunch.

We ride onto the dirt, a well maintained but not necessarily good road.

We stop at some refugio in the shade. We would be parting ways in few days anyway and to be honest for me, about two weeks is about the limit for group riding. I really miss the freedom of deciding to stop or go and to be frank with my current plan, I will need to go a little slower than Sylvain - he has to be in Santiago by the end of January, while I have an extra week to get there.

Sylvain rides off in the evening and I set up happily at altitude of 2000m, finally catching some sleep as that hot weather in town was just too hot…

I have a nice and cool climb in the morning and then a downhill through the hottest time of the day. The scenery is really nothing special but nice to be moving at a reasonable pace and covering the distance.

I go for a light dinner and $3 camping at the municipal campground.

I set off while its still cool in the morning and admire the texture of the mountains and how you can really see how big they are when you are at a different altitude

a bunch of road cyclists pass me like a road sign

I keep looking at the topographic map, i think this mountain might be Aconcagua, the tallest in south america.

I ride into the cool evening and a crazy headwind, wondering if I should start walking. There doesnt appear to be any cover nearby, i study the topo map and its not looking good.

oh… but wait… SURPRISE CAMP!

Not sure who is San Expedito but it must be the saint looking over the traveler. There are many shrines along the way and interestingly with donations of water-filled water bottles.

So far, Argentinian food has been very disappointing, running at around $10(CAD) at most places and really not that good. I brush for few hundred meters with the main highway but after the guantlet of ice cream shopt and “pet me, i am your friend” dogs, I am out again.

the colors and textures are just stunning

lots of shady retreats along the way to take a break from the hot sun

A little trick for Argentina: any place that sells ice cream will have a bunch of frozen bottles of water, at 50cents or less (even for the 1.5L ones) its a real steal and truly needed to deal with the heat.

I rode by all these cows which seemed rather suspicious!

and they were! They were escapees!!! them and some horses had escaped last night and their humans were looking for them. It was rather hilarious because I had photos of all of their cows and all of their horses.

On a side note, people here are friendly. I had a tough time with the vibe from many places in Peru and Bolivia, where you are seen as an ATM machine and perhaps one of the only questions you are asked is how much your stuff costs. These guys actually asked me “why” have I been biking. How cool to talk to people again!

a stray canyon dog crossed my path. he wasnt used to humans but he was pretty cool

but you can see under the dreads that he was not too well fed. Sadly i had no food that he could eat with me at the time.

I set up at a switchback to admire the changing colors and a surprisingly not-windy evening.

A german driving a venezuelan 4x4 stopped by, how cool!

cresting the second pass I looked back. OK. this has got to be Aconcagua

I was zooming on a rough but flowy 4x4 road. Lots of people going up, it was a saturday or a sunday i think.

and there we go, Welcome to Mendoza!

Having had a quick look at accommodations, and everything on booking.com was over $100cad on the first two pages, i did not want to get crammed in a hostel (honestly, for the safety and well being of other travelers, i have NOT DONE LAUNDRY since LA PAZ. when I can I just walk on top of my clothes if there is a hot shower and they kind of get washed that way).
So I settled for $50 air BNB, i think i have had enough time off the grid and honestly a surprisingly good december/january in terms of $. If things go that way i may need to start looking about wether I can do Antarctica after Ushuaia…

Aside from that, I saved all my receipts from grocery shopping to study them later. It is very expensive here and in-town spending is a little out of control. There were great burgers and pizzas to be had though!

just what you would expect, I wasted hours of my life deciding what to watch on Netflix and by the time I found something I liked it was time to go to sleep.

So I ride off again, en route to Santiago - but not the easy way. Here are the glorious days of riding in the shade and on bikepaths.

People in cars, here in mendoza kept stopping for me, which really threw me off. Nobody would stop for you in Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador or Colombia. I was very confused.

I rode through wineries and 5star resorts but I knew what was missing all along. I miss the Andes.

I set up camp at Manzano, a small touristic place but still reasonably priced camping. To free camp it would not have been hard but there is no need to hop fences when you can get shade, a bench and most importantly a fridge where you can keep your perishables for the night.

So, hm. not much of a post, just stuff happening. But its down for the record.