Helen
The night before we leave Mendoza the rain finally comes. After three weeks in incredible heat it’s very welcome. It starts slowly and builds quickly until we feel like we’re experiencing an Indian monsoon. I sit outside for a while, enjoying the feeling of cool water hitting my face, before retreating inside.
Our bikes finally arrive but they look like they’ve been in their own storm, my front brake handle has snapped, Chris’ derailleur is detached, one of his spokes has snapped, etc. But we’re quite laid back about it. I think we’re more relieved they’ve arrived, it could have been an early end to our journey had they disappeared. The tent, all the cooking equipment as well as Chris’ insulin would have been difficult to replace as well as two bikes!
After seven months other things are also starting to break. The tent zip on the other side is now failing fast, Chris has two holes in his sleeping mat and his pillow has completely deflated, and worst of all my left flip flop has snapped! Disaster!! But it’s all good and part of the journey.
We eventually leave the comfort and convenience of Mendoza, bikes fully laden once again. We cycle out of the city before we start to climb steadily uphill towards Paso International Los Libertadores, a route that will take us to 3800m high and three days to climb. We get views of snowy mountains under a blanket of white clouds as we start to climb, and I feel excited to be heading over the Andes again.
We climb steadily all day before going through a short tunnel, the other end lights up and reveals snowy mountains and a lake. All of a sudden it feels like a remote part of Scotland. It’s beautiful. The municipal campsite in the nearby village is closed, so we find a place by the side of the lake to camp, drinking tea and a glass of wine, watching an electric storm across the valley.
In the morning I wake at 6am and sleepily watch the sun rise through the tent door. I must doze back off because a while later I’m awoken by wind, the clear sky has been replaced by dark ominous cloud. We quickly make coffee and pack up before the rain comes, but it doesn’t come, and soon we’re sat under blue sky looking up at the mountains, valleys of green carved into the river below. The cloud clears completely to reveal what I think must be Aconcagua, South Americas highest peak. At 6961m high it’s not actually that much higher than much of the mountains of the central cordillera in Peru and Bolivia. But ever since visiting the Himalayas I’ve been fascinated with mountains and Aconcagua is one I’d maybe like to summit one day.
We head off and climb steadily uphill, the road is fairly quiet in the morning, and it’s beautiful cycling through the valley. The wind can either be your best friend or your worst enemy, depending on which direction it’s blowing. In the morning it’s our best friend, the steady tailwind often giving us a helping hand up the hills. However, we stop for lunch at the side of a tunnel, and somehow within twenty minutes the wind has completely changed direction and is now firmly in our faces! It’s so strong it’s difficult to cycle in a straight line, we look like we’ve had two bottles of wine for lunch! At the same time the traffic seems to get busier, trucks fly past us as we try to cycle in a straight line. At one point about ten trucks fly past us going the opposite way. The wind and energy that follows them almost has me taking flight across the road.
We decide to camp early, and hope that the wind direction has changed tomorrow. We find a track leading up to an old ruined building we can use for shelter from the wind. Chris has brought a bottle of wine from the supermarket earlier, along with some blue cheese and crackers, so we sit and relax in the sun. I look up and see two Condors soaring above. Even high above me I can see how huge their wing span is. Their white heads look around as they soar majestically above, it’s spectacular to watch.
It’s such a nice night we pitch just the inner tent and camp under the stars. It’s stunning looking up at the thousands of stars from the tent, but the wind picks up in the night and wakes us up blowing through the tent. The next day there is a real headwind all day making the 35 miles uphill really hard work. It’s so bad it becomes known as the ‘effing wind’. We eventually arrive at Puenta del Inca, a small ski village with some thermals and colourful rock. We find a campsite, and meet retired English couple, Pete and Sandy who now live in Spain, and are travelling around Argentina in a campervan for the month. They’re good fun, they also cycle a lot, and we swap stories. But of course we drink too much red wine! It’s cold for the first time in so long I can’t remember, and we fish out our trousers and down jackets! But once again it’s a stunning clear night sky, the white snowy peaks illuminated by the thousands of bright stars above. The tent zip has finally had it so I sleep with one eye and ear open, looking out for lurking insects!
The morning is chilly as we pack up and say goodbye to Pete and Sandy, who are off to hike up to Aconcagua’s base camp. We climb uphill for the last ten miles (into effing headwind of course) before finally reaching the tunnel which separates the two countries. It’s pretty cold as we cycle the last few miles, and we sit in our down jackets munching on the last of our nuts and fruit as we’re not allowed to take any of this into Chile. We had wanted to go off road up to the top of old pass where the Christ the Redeemer monument is, but it was closed due to too much snow. So we had to wait for a truck to take us through the tunnel as cyclists are not allowed through. We heave our bicycles onto the back of a pick up truck and an official drives us through. Half way through we pass a ‘Bienvenidos i Chile’ sign and soon we pop out of the dark tunnel and into Chile.
It’s still cold on the other side of the Andes, and we descend downhill, effing headwind has clearly followed us through the tunnel! At one point there are 17 switchbacks and we stop to take pictures of the wagons slowly weaving their way around below. As we drop down the temperature soon rises, the wind warms, and I notice this side of the Andes is much greener. There are yellow spring flowers in green fields, and lots of waterfalls coming off the mountains, something we haven’t seen for a while.
The next day was one of those days that should have been easy. A really nice gradual descent towards the sea. However that wasn’t to be! We set off and the first twenty miles we cycled along a cycle lane, we stopped at a vineyard to look around, it was a beautiful old building with a huge vineyard at the back and great big oak barrels full of wine. We had lunch outside in the shade on a bench and carried on. The cycle lane soon ran out and as we approached our next road, there was a huge sign saying no bikes! So we re-routed, turned around for half a mile and followed a track which wound its way uphill and then dropped back down to the original road. At this point we sneaked on it for a kilometre or so as the other option was a ten mile detour! Back off the auto pista we carried on through lanes until we reached Ruta 5, and guess what, another no bicycles sign! We re-routed once again and followed a track which eventually led us to a locked gate. But there was a gap in it so we sneaked through, cycled on and half a mile later there was another locked gate, this time with no gap and lots of barbed wire! We retreated, and tried another track with a no entry sign, we got so far before finding that the bridge across the river had disappeared!
We were running out of options at this point! We could either try to hitch a lift on ruta 5, go back the way we’d come for ten miles then divert over a hill for another twelve miles, or follow and old disused railway track for a few miles before hitting another road. We went for option 3! The line was lumpy and bumpy and we were on and off the track trying to find the least painful route. Eventually we found an old road beside the line. We follow this and very soon heard the sound of a train, yes it turned out to be a freight train and the line wasn’t disused at all! We waved to the train workers and looked at each other, unspoken words of ‘how on earth did we get away with that!’
We keep going west for a few days until we finally climb a small hill and drop down once again to the pacific coast. The beach is sandy and it’s fairly touristy but it’s good to be by the coast again. Chris jumps in, his dirty clothes still on. I’m slightly more reluctant because of the chilly wind and the fact it’s almost 5pm and we’ve still got a way to go to Vina del Mar. But I go in up to my knees and splash around, it’s cold but refreshing. We follow the coastal route around to Vina del Mar, a busy seaside city, and straight to Decathlon to buy a new tent while we have the chance!
We spend a few days by the coast, visiting Valparaiso, the magnificent city ten miles away. An old port city, it’s walls and houses are a mix of colourful street art. We spend all day wandering the steep cobbled street, every corner offering something new to look at. We get the bus back to Vina, and sit on the beach, enjoying sunset whilst watching seals play around in the sea. It feels very relaxed, people of all ages sat on the beach, some juggling, some playing music, a band plays in the park over the road, and children run around playing. We sit and watch the sun slowly set over Valparaiso. We’re content.
I wake with a song on my mind, I recognise it but I can’t think from where. It plays around and around in my head until it suddenly hits me, it’s the song we played as we entered the service for my mums funeral. All of a sudden memories my brain had obviously blocked out come flooding back. I can remember seeing the hearse arrive, and trying not to look. But then I’m being called over to the entrance by Mel, the celebrant. She’s telling me it’s time to go in. I’m looking at the hearse right in front of me. Nobody told me I’d have to do this, at my dads funeral the hearse was already inside. I’m not ready, I don’t want to do this, but the music starts playing, and some force deep within me makes me walk behind my mum one last time. I still think of her everyday, I know she’s with me somewhere, but I wish I could tell her about all our experiences, all we’ve seen, all we’ve learnt. This journey has really allowed me the space and time to grieve, but sometimes it’s really painful to open up locked memories.
