As some of you are aware, I am leaving shortly for my latest bicycle trip. I fly to Buenos Aires on Thursday, and should arrive in Montevideo (by ferry boat) on Friday evening, and then start riding on Saturday.
This trip will be slightly different as it is strictly one-way. I plan to ride from Montevideo through Uruguay, into Brazil, through Rio Grande do Sul, into Missiones province of Argentina, and end up at Iguazu falls. Once there, I will spend a couple days on the Argentine side of the falls, then cross into Brazil, and ride about 15 more miles to the international bridge to Paraguay, where the trip will end. From Foz do Iguacu, I will take a bus about 700 miles to Pelotas, RS, and from there ride down the west side of the Lagoa Mirim into Uruguay and to the coast, and then make my way along the Uruguayan coast through Punta del Este, Montevideo, and on to Colonia, directly across from Buenos Aires. That should be quite enough for five weeks of riding. Any free time at the end of the trip will be spent in either Punta del Este lying on the beach and drinking beer, or in Buenos Aires.
Plans are subject to radical change, of course, depending primarily on wind conditions.
On this trip I am taking quite a bit of photographic equipment, including digital cam-corders and cameras, as well as a mount for the cam-corder on my bike; I am going to try to put together enough content for a documentary type DVD and get rich. We shall see if that pans out or not.
I will start sending my regular emails on Friday or Saturday.
Two maps that may be of use are here:
Uruguay: http://www.visit-uruguay.com/images/maplarge2.JPG Rio Grande do Sul: http://www.transportes.gov.br/bit/estados/port/rs.htm
Jerry Bourbon
BUENOS AIRES MILE 2 11-16
Greetings all.
I am presently in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where I arrived 18 hours or so after leaving LAX, via Washington-Dulles. I did not plan to be here tonight, but, to my utter disgust, when I had a taxi drop me at the ferry terminal, I discovered that not only was today´s afternoon ferry to Montevideo sold out, but so was the only ferry for tomorrow, Saturday. So, I bought a ticket for Sunday morning, which will get me into Montevideo at about noon. I will start my bike trip on Monday.
Ticket in hand, I rode my very heavily loaded bike into downtown, and after going into about five hotels finally found one that was not full, and got a room for 70 Pesos (about 20 bucks) a night for tonight and tomorrow. Then, I went out and had a typical Argentine dinner, which is to say an enormous slab of dripping red beef, and spent the remainder of daylight (until 8PM or so) walking around several streets that are closed off to cars, and full of shops, until I ended up in San Martin park, a beautiful place full of trees that are loaded with purple flower blossoms which are now falling and can be walked on. In the center of the park was a statue of the liberator, San Martin, himself.
As I walked, and watched and listened to the people around me, I was shocked by the number of people I heard speaking not Spanish but Portuguese. The Brazilian Real is worth almost two Argentine Pesos right now, and the Brazilian tourists are, apparently, living large.
Tomorrow, I am going to take the bike and ride around town for a while, playing dodge-em with the trucks, and then wander around with my cameras looking for interesting things to film. Then, I hope, on Sunday it is off to Montevideo, ideally in time to watch the very important soccer game between Uruguay and Chile. (I do not know WHY it is very important, but it has sure fouled up the hotel situation in Montevideo...)
Jerry B
BUENOS AIRES MILE 15 11-17
Here I am still in Buenos Aires. I had planned to go riding this morning, but it was pouring rain when I woke up (After sleeping about 11 hours; I had spent the previous 24 hours either in airports, planes, taxis, or the ferry terminal.) so I wnnt out to a cafe and got a Coke and a newspaper. From there I migrated to another steak restuarant for another monstrous meal.
>
>
>
> By this time it was about 2PM, and had stopped raining, so I went back to the hotel and retrieved my bike from the basement, and set off for Puerto Madero, which is the old port area of Buenos Aires. Ten years ago, this place was a dump, but it has been gentrified and yuppified, and is now full of art galleries, lofts, and the rich and beautiful. However, it is a great place to ride a bike, so I spent an hour there until my ¨unpuncturable¨ green-slime filled rear tube got a puncture. Removing the now green tinted tire, I replaced it and then rode home in disgust, since I had no more spares with me.
>
>
>
> Back at the hotel, I retrieved my video camera and spent some time in a couple of parks shooting pictures. I had hoped to stop into an Irish Bar (every city has to have at least one...) that I am aware of to watch the Argentina Vs Bolivia soccer game but it was closed. So, I then wandered around the packed pedestrian streets that are the heart of downtown Buenos Aires before ducking into an internet cafe where I am spending the incredible sum of 25 Centavos (8 American Cents) per 15 minutes to use the internet.
>
>
>
> I am now in possession of a road atlas of all of Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Southern Brazil, so I am going to sit down with it a while and fine tune my route. Tomorrow very early I get on the ferry and am off to Montevideo, and hope to get moving on Monday. If it does not rain, of course. Or freeze. This part of the world has apparently not gotten the word about global warming yet; two days ago it was below freezing in Rio Grande do Sul, and this winter it snowed in Buenos Aires for the first time in memory.
>
MONTEVIDEO, URUGUAY, MILE 19 11-18
Greetings from Uruguay.
After getting up at 6AM this morning (1AM Pacific time....) I loaded up my bike, left my hotel and rode down to the Buenos Aires ferry terminal, where, after the usual argument about what to do with my bike (I chained it to a pipe in the part of the ferry where the cars go, just like in years past.), I passed through both Argentine and Uruguayan customs, then returned to my bike and rode it onto the ferry. The ferry is very security conscious, so conscious that they made me walk through a metal detector and take all the coins out of my pockets. Then then let me go back outside, where I could have had a crate of hand grenades for all they knew, and ride my bicycle in without any checks at all. I felt so much safer...
Once on board, it was a three hour trip at 40 knots (about 125 miles in total) to Montevideo, where I retrieved my bike and rode up 18th of July Ave a few miles to the hotel that had been kindly reserved for me. After stowing my bike in a nearby parking garage and checking in, I set out and walked for about an hour looking for a place to unload my Argentine Pesos and some dollars. I had forgotten that Montevideo basically shuts down on Sundays, and finally gave up (I was really thirsty and had hundreds of dollars on me and no way to pay for a Coke.) and pulled some Urugayan Pesos out of an ATM machine.
Once I started spending the Pesos, I got a shock. When I was last here, the dollar was trading at about U$24 to $1. In 2004, it was U$26 to $1. Now it is U$22 to $1. So, the Coke that cost 12 Pesos in 2005 (50 cents) now costs 17 more expensive Pesos (almost 80 cents.) I spent almost $10 on lunch. Bad as this is, I am going to get absolutely murdered with the exchange rate in Brazil in a week or so. Speaking of Brazil, Montevideo is also full of Brazilian tourists spending their overvalued Reais.
A good friend of mine and his wife had invited me to their condo to watch the Uruguay vs Chile world cup qualifier at 5PM, so I jumped in a taxi at about 4:15 and rode over to their place, where we watched soccer and they fed me pizza and plyed me with beer. A very nice time was had. I was also given the name and address of a guy who can make a new camera mount for my bike, since the original one was stolen in Ezeiza airport in Buenos Aires. I will spend tomorrow morning dealing with that.
I had known Ezeiza was bad for theft from checked bags, but had not believed anyone would want my homemade camera mount. I was informed that things are so bad there that Argentine customs recently wanted to look in employee lockers because of a smuggling investigation, and this provoked a strike at the airport, shutting it down for several days. When they finally opened the lockers, they found so much stolen stuff they could not tabulate it.
Following Uruguay´s 2-2 tie with Chile, I bid my friends farewell, and, instead of jumping into a taxi immediately, decided to walk along the Rambla (beach front road) back toward downtown. It was full of joggers, families, and the under 18 set merrily drinking beer in public, which is one freedom that no longer exists in the US.
I eventually realized that NO taxis were passing along, so I turned inland and walked to the Punta Carretas shopping mall, where there was a taxi stand, just after a nice layout of Santa and his elves in the snow (It was 80 degrees and late spring today...). Getting into the taxi, I found out that taxis are forbidden to pick people up on the Rambla, which explains why I did not see any.
Tomorrow, IF I get the mount sorted out early, I will be off on my ride. I calculate that in 16 days of riding, I will be in Ciudad del Este, Paraguay. If all goes well.
MONTEVIDEO, MILE 34 11-19
Tonight is my last night in Montevideo; I laid over today while a metal shop spent several hours replacing my bicycle camera mount that was stolen out of my luggage at the Buenos Aires airport. A former Uruguayan president recently called Argentina ¨a nation of thieves¨, and he was not far off the mark. My total expense, for a lot of work, by the way was all of $11.50. Not bad.
>
> After I talked to the metal shop boys in the morning, I road along the coast highway for an hour or so, and then dumped the bike and walked from my hotel down to the old port district where some old decrepit warehouses have been rehabilitated into something called the ¨Mercado del Puerto¨, which is a large complex of small restuarants selling meat and fish. I had an absolutely enormous piece of meat and three Cokes, and was not happy to get the bill and find that the three Cokes cost more than the meat. (The meat would have fed a tribe of Ethiopians for about a week.) It would have been far cheaper for me to just order a liter bottle of beer. As you can see, they are MAKING me drink.
>
> I then wandered around and took pictures for an hour or so, before returning to my hotel, retrieving the bike and going back to the metal shop, where I picked up the new mount.
>
> Dumping off the bike again, I bought a Coke and sat in a park with my camera and notebook, cataloguing all the photos I have taken so far. While doing so, I was treated to the charming site of a low-life female smoking an enormous marijuana joint while her three year old daughter ate an ice cream cone next to her. I guess US public school parents do not have a complete monopoly on bad parenting.
>
> Everything being ready, I am off on my trip tomorrow. My next report will not come from Montevideo...
>
>
> SAN JOSE DE MAYO, URUGUAY, MILE 95 11-20
Greetings
Finally, I got the trip underway today, coming 61 miles out of Montevideo to the town of San Jose de Mayo, which is inland, somewhat north and west of Montevideo.
Due to the fact that my body clock seems still to be on west coast time, I have been having a hard time going to bed and getting up early. So, after falling asleep last night well after midnight, I woke up this morning at the disgustingly late hour of 930AM, and by 10 was out of the hotel and loading my saddlebags onto my bike in the garage across the street where I had kept it.
Heading out, I rode toward the port area until I could see water down a side street and then turned right and descended to the Rambla Franklin D Roosevelt, which leads west out of town, and turns into Ruta Nacional 1, going to Colonia (Across from Buenos Aires.) After about five miles, I came to an interchange where Ruta Nacional 5 heads north 325 miles to Rivera and the Brazilian border. I got onto 5, and found myself repeating the tracks of my 2004 trip, the first part of which followed Rt. 5 all the way to Rivera. 5 is a four lane divided highway, of US Interstate quality. Unlike in the US, though, the shoulder was heavily used by bicycles. I rode along 5 for several hours, and within ten miles was completely out of the Montevideo urban area. In the southern hemisphere it is late spring, and the countryside was quite beautiful, with many flowers blooming, and the pleasant smell of fresh cut grass everywhere. Somewhere amongst this splendor, I left the Departamento of Montevideo and entered Canelones. (Uruguay is divided into 19 Departamentos, which are similar to US counties, or Mexican municipios. There are no states.)
Exactly 30 miles out from my hotel, I arrived at the cutoff for the city of Canelones, and here abandoned Rt. 5, and rode through town, coming out on the other side on Route 11, which goes through San Jose and then connects back to Rt. 1. Rt. 11 is MUCH less busy than Rt 5, and is only two lanes, with a poor shoulder. (As is Rt 5 after Canelones...) Still, since there was minimal traffic, this was not a problem.
Stopping here and there to consume mass quantities of gatorade and to take photos, (And at a PetroBras station to buy Coke and Lemonade when the gatorade ran out.) I proceded to the Santa Lucia River and entered the Departamento of San Jose, and continued along on a more or less straight route into the city of the same name. Entering town, the highway ran under a canopy of trees, and it felt like being in a green tunnel. Leaving the trees behind, I crossed a long bridge and had arrived.
I found a very good hotel about one block of the central square, got a room (and blanched at the price, more on that later..) took a LONG shower, and went out to walk around. There was not much to be seen, although the central square is pleasant. Every Uruguayan town has one, they all have a cathedral at one end, and they are analogous to Zocolos in Mexican towns. This square came equipped with a municipal loudspeaker, which was playing rock music, which struck me as kind of cool. I sat there for a while drinking a Coke, and got to watch the hillarous sight of a rather large policeman getting reamed out in the middle of the square by his mother. If the local criminal population saw that, they will surely make his life hell...
Having eaten nothing all day, I wandered to a bar on one side of the square, and ordered a pizza, followed by a steak and a sausage, washed down with beer. Why beer? I got a 21oz bottle of good beer for 40 Pesos, while 9.5oz Cokes were 30 Pesos each. Next time someone gives me a hard time that I drink too much, I will say it is not my fault, economic forces drove me to it. Yesterday at lunch in Montevideo, I spent more on the stinking Cokes than I did on the main meal.
Of note, when I was in my room, I turned on my little radio, and got several political talk programs. From the radio and from conversations with the local population, I think I may have underestimated the level of bad feeling in Uruguay towards Argentina, because of the dispute over the Fray Bentos paper mill. I would be not at all surprised to see Uruguay depart MERCOSUR in the near future because of this.
Having been in the country for three days, I am less than impressed with the value of the dollar. I had hoped to survive on a budget of $40US a day. That would be about 875 Pesos a day. By way of comparison, on my first trip in 2004, $40US was worth over 1000 Pesos. I have yet to spend less than 900 Pesos in a day. I am perfectly cognizant that the weak dollar is letting US exporters stick it good to the Canadians and Europeans, but it is killing me.
It has been a long day, and I am for sleep. Tomorrow I head on to Trinidad, in the Departamento of Flores, which is the only Uruguayan Departamento I have not yet visited on bicycle.
TRINIDAD, URUGUAY MILE 145 11-21
Greetings from the smallest Departamento in Uruguay, I rode 60 miles north from San Jose into an incessant headwind today, and have finally arrived in the town (It does not qualify as a city) of Trinidad, the departamental capital.
>
>
>
> Today´s ride was absolutely miserable, it was almost all into a strong headwind, and I only averaged a bit over 11MPH riding speed. When I got to my hotel, I took a shower and scrubbed the caked salt off my face, and then brushed my teeth and got all the little bugs out from between the front ones. I guess I should consider them to be a free source of protein.
>
>
>
> I left San Jose about 930, and stopped on the way out of town to stock up on liquid refreshments. While I was standing around out front drinking a Coke, an ancient Army jeep pulled up and unloaded a couple of soldiers who were very inquisitive as to what I was doing, and wanted to know if the US Army issued camelbacks like mine to everybody. (The Uruguayan Army evidentally does not.)
>
>
>
> Heading out from there, I rode about five miles until I hit KM Post 100 (From Montevideo) and stopped there to take pictures and film a bit. While I was doing that, an official looking car stopped and disgorged the tourism director for the Departamento of San Jose, who was very happy I was engaging in cyclo-tourism in his depto. After we talked for a while, he asked me what part of Mexico I was from (because of my accent), which was funny, and he was rather surprised when I told him I was not Mexican at all.
>
>
>
> Leaving him, I rolled on, and at about 30 miles came to an ANCAP station at the border of San Jose and Flores, where I stocked up on water (they had no lemonade or gatorade) and pushed on into Flores. The wind really began to hit me here; I think it was blowing at a steady 20MPH, and that really made pedalling difficult. I slowly worked my way along, and about 3 miles out of Trinidad came to a strange collection of sculptures made out of sheet iron and placed on posts about 15 feet in the air. Birds, foxes, jaguars, rats, snakes, they had it all. Most interesting.
>
>
>
> I then rode on, and immediately came to another interesting find. A horse racing track. I had no idea. Where they get the betters from escapes me; the entire departamento has a population of only about 50,000. Passing that, I rode into town, and found the one and only hotel where they hit me for almost $30 US for a (very nice, to be sure) room. These prices are killing me.
>
>
>
> I take exactly five days worth of clothes on a trip like this, plus bike shorts, and today is day five. So, I paid one of the maids 100 Pesos and she is going to take my clothes home, wash them, and return them tomorrow. I then went out to find the one internet joint in town, and here I am. Shortly I will eat, probably nothing more than a choripan (Sausage on a roll), as there do not seem to be any restuarants around.
>
PAYSANDU URUGUAY 11-22
Greetings from Paysandu, in western Uruguay, across a bridge from Colon, Argentina. Today I woke up feeling a bit sick from the three Choripanes I ate last night, and determined that it was A) raining and B) blowing heavily from the Northwest, so I took a bus from Trinidad to here.
Having done this will let me move more liesurely north, stopping at different ¨termas¨ on my way, where I can soak in hot mineral spring water.
These are web pages of some of the termas.
North of Paysandu (tomorrow)
http://www.termasguaviyu.com/
South of Salto (Saturday)
http://www.termasdayman.com/
North, halfway between Salto and Bella Union, on the Brazilian border (Sunday)
http://www.termasarapey.com/
Nothing else has happened today, other than that the sun has come out and it is getting hot.
PAYSANDU MILE 153 11-23
Greetings all, I am still stuck in Paysandú, due to extreme weather.(it rained cats and dogs all day, and I figured that a metal bicycle and lightening do not go together well.) I spent most of the morning doing tax classes on the computer in an internet place, and then bought a paper and sat under an overhang in the main plaza, reading it.
Using the internet is dirt cheap in Uruguay, as it is throughout Latin America. The place I am at now is charging me 14 Pesos an hour, which works out to a bit over 65 Cents. This is high, but I am paying extra because it is air conditioned. These cyber-cafes fill up with kids as soon as school is out, and they use linked machines to play Call of Duty or Halo. If I lived here, I would think about not even wasting the money buying a computer and paying for internet service, a cyber-cafe is cheaper.
Newspapers, on the other hand, are outrageously expensive. Today I bought El Pais, which is linked to the National Party (all papers have ties to one political party or another...) and it cost 40 Pesos, or about $1.75. For a weekday paper. Curiously, they all have very low circulations. 40 Pesos is almost what someone on minimum wage will earn all day.
About 3:00 in the afternoon, it started to clear up, so I took the bike out of my hotel and rode around town for half an hour or so. I went down to the river, and looked at Argentina on the other side, then rode basically all over downtown. Paysandú is the third largest city in Uruguay, which sounds like a big deal. It is not. Uruguay has a population of about 3.25 million. Of these, 1.3 million live in Montevideo, and another 400,000 or so live in the urban area, places like Las Piedras and Pando. In other words, over half the population of Uruguay is living in the capital. Uruguay is the only country in the world where this is the case. After Montevideo, no other ¨city¨ in the country tops 100,000 people. Salto (where I am going tomorrow) is number 2, with about 99,000 inhabitants. Then comes Paysandú, with 60,000 or so. So, riding all over town is not that hard.
Tomorrow, the plan is to head to Salto, where, IF I can get in, I will stay at the Dayman Termas. If I cannot get in, I will stay in Salto proper. The weather is supposed to be sunny, but only in the 70´s, with a wind from the south. From there, it is two more days riding to the Brazilian border.
SALTO MILE 239 11-24
Greetings from Uruguay´s second largest city, Salto. I rode 76 miles up from Paysandu today, gently pushed by a wind out of the south the whole way. I was not planning on going quite this far; my plan was to stay at Termas Dayman, but when I went to the place that has the best thermal pools, they offered me a room for $105. American. I almost giggled; I do not think I have spent that much on a hotel room in my entire life. Dayman is about 6 miles south of Salto, so I just continued along, and took the cut off into town, where I got lost and had to ask a girl where downtown was, but she was a tourist, and she had to ask someone else...
I finally got downtown, and stopped at the tourist office, where I made a reservation at the next terma north, Arapey, for tomorrow. Then I rolled another half mile or so down the street and found the Gran Hotel Concordia, supposedly Uruguay´s oldest hotel, and the first place in the Departamento of Salto to have electricity and a telephone.
The ride today was almost all flat, through some very pretty countryside, with farms and ranches on both sides of the highway. Traffic remains very light, although what there is of it moves very fast; I was passed several times by cars going easily 90mph. About 25 miles into the ride, I came to the cutoff for Route 26, which goes to Tuacarembó, 150 miles to the east. Then, at 40 miles or so, I came to Termas Guaviyú, which I already knew, from a phone call in Paysandú yesterday, was sold out. I rode along a while further and came to some road construction, so I got to bump myself along a dirt bypass for a mile or so.
Right at Dayman, Paysandú ends and the Dpto. of Salto begins, and immediately I was in Dayman. From there it was only a matter of minutes into town.
These Termas are very interesting. Apparently, this part of Uruguay sits over an aquifier of very hot water. (I am surprised, actually not really, it is a government owned company, that the electricity company has not thought about putting geothermal plants here...) This water bubbles to the surface all over the place, in is very rich in minerals that are good for you. At the thermas, they pipe the water into swimming pools, and you can then sit in them. These pools range from 100F all the way up to 113F, which seems a little bit on the warm side to me. They are full of Argentines, mostly. I look forward to going to Arapey tomorrow because my bad knee is hurting a little bit, and a soaking might be just what it needs.
The street where this internet place is located ends a few blocks below here at the river. Across the river one can see the town of Concordia, Argentina. It is probably no more than a mile away, if you are a good swimmer. However, if you do NOT swim, getting from downtown Salto to downtown Concordia involves about a 50 mile round trip. The international bridge here is not precisely a bridge. Rather, it is a road that runs atop the ¨Salto Grande¨ hydro electric dam complex. This is huge, and generates a fair portion of Uruguay´s electricity. As this dam is ten miles north of town, that is where you have to go to get to Argentina. When the dam was built in the 1970´s, it created a huge series of lakes north of it, and inundated hundreds of square miles, including several sections of Rt. 3. So, the military government of the time built a new Rt. 3 about 10 miles east of the old one, and several towns along the old highway have basically died as a result.
Tomorrow it is on to Arapey, and if all goes well, Monday should find me in either Bella Union, Uruguay or Barra do Cuareim, RS, depending on which has cheaper hotels. (I am very worried about what things are going to cost in Rio Grande do Sul; the dollar has collapsed against the Brazilian Real.)
ARAPEY HOT SPRINGS MILE 293 11-25
Greetings from the Arapey hot springs. I rode 53 miles to get here this morning form Salto. When I left town, it was chilly, but it warmed up quickly. The ride was uneventful; part of the way I had a minor headwind blowing out of the northeast, but by and large I moved along all right. The wind situation in Uruguay is no where near as bad as it was two years ago. (Wind can end a bike trip as fast as an injury, if it is blowing in the wrong direction.)
Leaving my hotel, I rode a mile or so east of downtown, until I came to a gas station. There I stocked up on liquids, to wit: 2 liters of lemonade, 2 liters of water, and a little 7 oz Coke to drink while I stowed the other stuff on my bike. I did not plan on finding anything for sale between there and my destination, and I did not. Total expenses for this were 82 Pesos, a bit less than $4.00. This is about what I find myself spending most days, unless I buy Gatorade, which is very expensive. However, Gatorade is also very hard to find. I have run out of water twice before on these trips, and it is absolutely no fun. One time I got horrible leg cramps while riding and literally thought I was going to come off the bike. So, I prefer to take too much rather than to run out. Indeed, I did have too much, there is presently a 1.5 liter bottle of water cooling in my room´s refrigerator.
Having made my purchases, I rode east about 4 miles through lousy parts of town, and finally hit Rt. 3, where I turned north. As I rode along, I crossed a number of bridges over rivers, including a half mile long one over the Rio Arapey which is now effectively a lake, courtesy of the Salto Dam; there must have been square miles of water off to the west of the highway.
About 41 miles after starting, I came to the cut off for the hot springs, and turned due east into the wind. This cut my speed considerably, and I slowly made my way a further 12 miles into Arapey. Upon arrival, I was surprised to see that the tourist office had indeed passed word of my reservation to them, and I was shown to my ¨class C motel¨ which is really a detached cabin with an AC and a refrigerator, but no TV. (TV´s cost 50 Pesos extra, and I wouldn´t watch the thing anyway...) Total cost was 450 Pesos, or a bit more than $20.00. I am very impressed with the way things work in Uruguay as far as payments go. NO ONE seems to want money up front. Thinking like an American, I always offer to pay at hotels when I arrive, and they always tell me to pay in the morning. At most hotels, there is only one door, and they would see me sneaking out with my bike if I did not want to pay, but here I am several blocks away from the administration offices. I could just ride out tomorrow. They might think to catch me with my name and passport number that I had to provide when I registered, but since the girl asked ME to fill out the form, the name and number I provided have very little in common with MY name and number; it is none of their business who I am. I have no intention of skipping out, but the general level of honesty that this implies is very nice.
Once I was in my motel, I went out to walk around, and was very happy to find the ¨museum of cavalry¨. In front was parked a tank that was probably obsolete when the Second World War started, and I took many pictures of it. By chance, I was wearing my 18th Cav Regiment T-shirt from the Guard, and I hoped to be able to talk to the soldiers about the wonders of being Cav, but the darn museum was closed, and will not reopen until Tuesday.
After walking around, and consuming two horrible hamburguers (I had to tell them to hold the fried egg on top), I went to one of the thermal pools for a swim. The water was about 100 degrees, and felt great. I took a book and planned to sit in the shade reading for a while, but some gigantic black biting flies made that impossible, so I left.
The place was full up with people this afternoon (it is 7:45 PM right now:), but most seem to be packing up and going home; tomorrow is Monday. I am thinking of staying until Tuesday, the place is nice and relaxing, but I will not make up my mind until tomorrow morning.
ARAPEY MILE 307 11-26
Greetings from the hot springs, where I spent the day. I rode around a bit, although there is really not all that far to go; there is only one road into here. I also walked all over the place, and discovered a number of pretty pools, waterfalls, and flower gardens, including one pool inside of a hot house full of plants.
I went swimming several different times, in different pools, but was always rather quickly chased out by some rather vicious black biting flies. They seem to stay where there is water and are really unpleasant. Later, I walked down to the abandoned railroad tracks (most of the Uruguayan rail network is abandoned...) and walked to the bridge over the Arapey river. I walked about halfway out on the bridge, looking between the ties at the ground maybe 75 feet below my feet, until I heard a menacing crack, and realized that the ties were probably riddled with termites and carpenter ants. I then balanced myself on a rail and carefully walked back...
The day off was good (I rode 14 miles, but at a very leisurely pace.), and I am looking forward to tomorrow´s ride north to Bella Union and the border.
BELLA UNION, URUGUAY/BARRA DO QUARAI, RS, BRAZIL, mile 369 11-27
Greetings
Today I am in Bella Union, 390 miles from Montevideo, which is just about as far as one can get from Montevideo and still be in Uruguay. I rode 62 miles up from Arapey today, the first 12 on the access road back to Rt. 3 (against a westerly wind; that was loads of fun.) and then 57 miles north on Rt. 3 to Bella Union where I rode around and around trying to find a hotel. Finally, I went to police headquarters and asked the cops, and they gave me directions to where I am staying tonight. (There was no tourist office...)
Today was the hottest day, by far, of the trip, it is now 5:30PM, and is still well over 90 degrees; I would not be surprised if it was over 100 during the ride. Despite the fact that I am using the strongest sun block I can find, I look like a refugee from Chernobyl, my entire face is bright red and peeling, and my lower lip and right ear feel like they are going to fall off. A few more days like this and I am going to get cancer. However, I feel quite all right.
The country side through which I rode today was nearly all farming, I went through some corn fields that stretched to the horizon, and then through a zone of rice paddies, of all things. Midpoint through the day, I stopped in an armpit called Colonia Palma, where I got a liter bottle of Coke (They had nothing smaller) and drank it in about 3 seconds.
Bella Union is nothing much; I would guess the population as nothing much more than 10,000. However, that is MUCH bigger than Barra do Quarai, I am told, so I chose to stay here. Once showered, I walked a mile or so down to the Quarai River, which is the border between Uruguay and RS, and looked across into Brazil from a rather nice park they have built on the river bank. There is also a ferry service crossing over, which is, I guess, a hold over from the days when there was no bridge. Then I found a bar, where, for the sum of 65 Pesos ($3), I got a large beer, hamburguer, and french fries, which is not a bad deal at all.
Tomorrow, I am going to make a superhuman effort to get up early (around 6, the sun comes up at 6:30 in these parts), and get on the road, so I can finish the ride to Uruguaiana, RS, as early as possible and get out of the sun before it really heats up; tomorrow is supposed to be hotter than today. I will also need to visit the Policia Federal in Uruguaiana before too late to get officially stamped into Brazil; there is no immigration post at the border. In fact, the Brazilian/Uruguayan border is not really controlled at all, and cities like Rivera/Livramento and the two Chuys are in reality one city that happen to be in two countries. However, it would be a huge fine if the Brazilians were to catch me illegally in the country, as well as being a problem when I go from Brazil to Argentina in a few days.
My next report will be from Brazil.
URUGUAIANA, RS MILE 418 11-28
Greetings from Brazil. I am now in Uruguaiana, and rode up here 49 miles from Bella Union today. A good link to a map (that actually works) is this
http://www.transportes.gov.br/bit/estados/port/rs.htm
I will be in RS for three days, leaving from Sao Borja to Santo Tome, Argentina on Friday night or Saturday morning. The ride up was unpleasant, to say the least, as it was extremely hot and I was riding into a headwind. Leaving my hotel in Bella Union, I rode about five miles in Uruguay to the International Bridge, where I visited Uruguayan immigration for an exit stamp in my passport. I then rode across the half mile or so long bridge, and, on the Brazilian side verified what I had already assumed; that I would have to deal with immigration in Uruguaiana. Barra do Quarai was a little bigger than advertised, but was not much. I tried to find a place to exchange dollars, but there was none, which worried me as I had a fist full of hundred dollar bills, but only 60 Uruguayan Pesos. Luckily, the (far more numerous than in Uruguay) roadside stores accepted Pesos, and I was able to re stock on Gatorade. BR 472 is not the greatest highway in the world, I rode for long stretches with no shoulder at all, which made for interesting times with the truck population. I also passed many crushed, dead armadillos, who probably did not do as well with the trucks as I did. Most of the trip was made with the wind right in my face, and that was just miserable; my average speed when on the bike was not quite 11MPH.
Brazil, to put it mildly, is not Uruguay. It is slightly bigger. By way of comparison, Uruguay is a country of a bit over 3 million citizens, squeezed between Argentina (40 million) and Brazil (almost 200 million.) Rio Grande do Sul is one of 26 Brazilian States, neither the biggest nor the smallest. However, RS alone has a land area over 50% bigger than Uruguay, and a population that, at 11 million, is almost four times that of Uruguay. Just the state capital, Porto Alegre, has a larger population than all of Uruguay. I doubt any of you had heard of Uruguaiana before, but if this place in the back of beyond were in Uruguay, it would be, by far, that countrys second largest city.
Coming into town today, I passed several huge Brazilian Army bases; they seem to be all over southern RS (I guess they have to be ready if the Uruguayans attack...) and eventually arrived at the usual down town plaza (Now called a praça, due to the different language) and then found a hotel. Showered and dressed, I set out to exchange money (The dollar seems to have gotten slightly stronger, which is good) and then went to find the Policia Federal, where, I figured we would play the game of fingerprint and photograph the American, since the US fingerprints and photographs Brazilians entering the US. To my surprise, the cop suggested that we not waste time on this, which was just fine with me. To my pleasure, he did not hassle me about my visa being in my old expired passport, and just looked at it and then stamped my new passport. Properly documented I then set out to wander around, and found this internet place.
ITAQUI, RS MILE 495 11-30
Greetings from Itaqui, RS. Today I rode 66 miles north on BR 472 from Uruguaiana. For once, I had minimal wind problems, which made things much more enjoyable. I left my hotel early, a bit after 7AM, and was able to avoid the hottest part of the day. After I rode through town for a few miles, I came to the cut off for BR 472 and headed north. Much of the ride was through rice paddies, from horizon to horizon. About 20 miles north, I came to a little roadside restuarant where I had a few Cokes. I did not really need a Coke, but they had a gigantic sign saying `Diga NAO ao Desarmamento` (Say no to gun control) in the window, so I had to give them some of my money. The sign was a relic of the 2004 referendum in Brazil that would have banned all handgun possession; despite massive free airtime on TV and government propaganda in favor of it, it failed in a big way, the vote in Rio Grande do Sul was 89% no.
I moved on from there, and came to a river that is the border between Uruguaiana and Itaqui municipalities. Over the river was a ONE LANE bridge that was almost a mile long, and controlled by a stop light. The guy controlling the stop light came out of his box and told me quote When it turns green, you go like hell. unquote. It turned green, and I was off at about 25MPH, and still had a massive truck breathing down my back by the time I got to the other side. There was no way at all he could have passed me.
I continued along, stopped again to get more water, and eventually hit the turnof for Itaqui. Itaqui is about 3 miles west of the main highway, so I rode along, and came upon at least two platoons of Brazilian Army types manning a roadblock. I do not know what they were looking for; they did not stop me; but they had several 6 wheeled armored vehicles sporting 90mm cannons. That kind of weaponry can take out a tank. Regardless of what country I am in, I do not like seeing the Army used for law enforcement, but, then, it is not my country.
Once into town, I found the one hotel (the population is only about 20,000), and got a room and a shower. Then I walked out to the beautiful old Jesuit mission church in the praça. This part of the highway is called the ´Ruta das Missoes´ (Mission highway), and there are apparantly many more of them north of here. Sao Borja, tomorrow, is supposed to have another.
So far, I have been very pleasantly surprised with prices of things in Brazil. Considering how the Real has appreciated against the dollar, I thought I was going to get killed, but I am spending considerably less than in Uruguay, and am back within my 40 dollar a day budget. I hope Argentina is as cheap.
SAO BORJA, RS, MILE 550 DEC 1
Hello, I am now in Sao Borja, RS. I rode a very unpleasant 55 miles north today from Itaqui into ferocous headwinds, and in the hottest weather (over 100) yet of this trip. My face looks like it was microwaved.
Today was my last day riding in Rio Grande do Sul (at leas for a while); tomorrow I cross into Argentina. I will not miss it. Most of the day, BR 472 had no shoulder at all, and I was run off the road once by a truck, and almost creamed several other times. When I went off the road into the rocks where the should should have been, I got a flat tire, and then, several miles later, I got another flat. It was loads of fun. Since it was the rear wheel, I had to remove the saddlebags to get the tire off, which was really entertaining in the afternoon sun. I rolled into Sao Borja swearing I was just going to take a bus to Florianopolis and sit on the beach for the next two weeks, enough of this biking.
To finish off a perfect day, my LEFT knee swelled up. This is surprising, as, due to once being 18, and stupid, and in posession of a motorcycle, my RIGHT knee sometimes gives me fits. It is holding up fine. But the left one hurts and is swollen up. I went to a pharmacie in Sao Borja and bought an aerosol spray that will, allegedly, relieve the problem. We shall see.
While I was pushing into the wind, about half way through the ride, I came upon a rider coming out of the north. We both stopped and started talking. This guy, a Brazilian, started riding in Manaus, Amazonas (A LONG way north of here) several months ago, and is heading to Uruguay, then into Argentina, and then across the Andes to Chile. I wish I had the time to do that.
SEVEN hours after I left Itaqui, I arrived at Sao Borja. Finding a hotel, I happily paid the 10 Reais extra for air conditioning. I was going to walk down to the bridge to Argentina, but it is about four miles away, so I just walked around the praça, and peeked into the Jesuit cathedral. While walking, I saw a number of people in Muslim dress, the men with the little hats and the women with their hair covered. A century or so ago, Brazil got a lot of immigrants from Syria and Lebanon, they are natural born salesmen, and are still here, where they own a lot of the stores.
As I will be leaving RS tomorrow, some comments come to mind. This place is not what most Americans would imagine if they thought about Brazil. The crime level is nil. Instead of rock music, most people, including the teenager set, listen to what is called ¨musica sertaneja¨ (country music), and rythyms of this music sound very like American country music. Like in Uruguay, many people are walking around at all hours of the day with their Yerba Mate pots, something you will see no where else in Brazil. In other words, Brazil is a very big country indeed, and different States and regions have their own little cultures.
Assuming I do not succumb to the call of the beach in Florianopolis, tomorrow I am going to cross the border and just ride to Santo Tome, Argentina, about 15 miles. Then it will be two more days to Posadas, Argentina/Encarnacion, Paraguay. Depending on highway conditions in Argentina (I am tired of no shoulders.), I will then decide whether to ride the final 200 miles to Iguazu, or put the bike on a bus.
SANTO TOME, CORRIENTES, ARGENTINA, MILE 560 DEC 2
Hello from Argentina. I am in the very small and uninteresting town of Santo Tome, across the bridge from Sao Borja. Getting here was interesting.
I rode out of my hotel in Sao Borja this morning, and, following instructions, rode about 4 miles to the Brazilian side of the bridge, passing several large signs with a picture of a bicycle on them, with a red line through it. (Whatever that could possibly mean...)
When I got to the foot of the bridge, the Brazilian army and the RS Brigada Militar were at it stopping cars both coming and going. Immigration was not in sight. So, I asked a BM trooper where immigration was. He said both Brazilian and Argentine immigration were on the Argentine side, but he was not sure if the Brazilians could process a non-MERCUSUL (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay) citizen out of the country. So, he got on his personal cell phone and called across to the Brazilians over in Argentina and discovered that yes they could process me, but no I could not cross the bridge on the bike, because "WE could care less what you do but the Argentines are crooks and will try to extort money from you." I looked kind of sad, so he said wait, and a couple of minutes a flat-bed truck with Brazilian plates came by. The BM waved him over, and walked up and asked if he would transport me across the bridge. He said he would, so I put the bike in the back of the truck and off we went. The bridge, called Ponte Internacional da Integracao or Puente Internacial de la Integracion, depending on which country´s signs you read, was about two miles long, which was just long enough for me to get an earful from the truck driver about what a gang of thieves and snobs Argentines are. When we got across, he stopped for me to get my bike, and absolutely refused my offer of some money for the favor he did me. At no time did the BM give any impression of wanting money, either. One of the nice things about being a foreigner touring a country on a bicicyle is that people tend to automatically like you, and do things for you that they do not have to. They could have sent me back into town and forced me to cross on a bus, tomorrow...
Once on the Argentine side, the fun started. I locked the bike to a post and went into the Brazilian building where the lady was expecting me, having been on the other end of the BM´s cell phone. She quickly stamped me out of Brazil. Then, I went to the Argentine building where I was interrogated for about 15 minutes about WHY I wanted to ride my bike in Argentina. Finally, they gave me a 90 day entry permit. Then, I went and got the bike, and had to deal with Argentine Customs. who made me take everything out of my saddle bags, and got very excited about my cameras, would I have to pay duty on them? This was so obviously an attempt to get a bribe out of me that I almost laughed. I immediately lied that I had already declared them at Ezeiza Airport, where I was told that I did not need to declare them. (I did no such thing, no one asked me about them at Ezeiza.) This little gem caused the three of them to go into consultation amongst themselves, and finally they decided that I could indeed enter the country. No money was paid.
I then packed up my bags again, and got out of their quickly before they noticed the no bicycle sign that I had already seen on the entrance to the main road away from the port of entry. (If they had made a stink about that, I was going to say screw your country and go back to Brazil.) I then rode a few miles into Santo Tome, where, despite the early hour (Argentina does not do daylight savings time, and so is an hour behind Brazil and Uruguay.) I found a hotel.
The problem now was how to pay for the hotel. I had no Argentine Pesos. Being Sunday, all exchange places were closed. I went to the only two banks in town and found a total of three ATM machines that did not work. I then went to the Casino, and they would not take my hundred dollar bill because it was ¨wrinkled¨ from being in my money belt. So, I went back to the hotel, got $40 unwrinkled dollars and R$100, and returned to the Casino and changed this into about 300 Pesos, getting extremely robbed on the Reais. I then wasted 25 Pesos on the slot machines...
After my customary walk all over town, I had a large, and cheap, steak, and here I am. Tomorrow it is on to the town of Apostoles, in Missiones province, about 60 miles from here.
GOBERNADOR VIRASORO, CORRIENTES, ARGENTINA MILE 601 DEC 3
Hello, today I am in the small (25,000 inhabitants) town of Gobernador Virasoro, and am still in Corrientes province. I rode 41 miles up Argentina Route 14 from Santo Tome today.
My original plan had been to ride up provincial route 94 from Santo Tome to the town of Apostoles, but, in my wanderings last night, I encountered the ACA, or Argentine Car Club, where I bought a (very expensive, but very detailed) map of Missiones province, and they STRONGLY advised me to stay of Rt 94, as it is little more than a dirt road. I took their word for it.
Route 14 is in fine shape, but it has NO shoulder at all. I spent the whole trip looking over behind me, and stopping on the dirt when necessary. I only road 41 miles because I am trying to be nice to my knee, but it still started aching about 5 miles outside of town. Tomorrow I ride on 55 or so miles to Posadas, on the border with Paraguay. Wednesday it is supposed to rain, heavily, so that will be an automatic rest day. I am then thinking of taking FOUR days, not three like planned to do the final 200 miles from Posadas to Iguazu. Then I would probably have four days or rest or so until I did the final ride from Pelotas, RS back to Montevideo...
As I rode along today, I was marvelling at how RED the soil here is. This area is called the ¨tierra colorada¨(redlands), because of this red, clay based, soil. It is very pretty.
Once I got into my hotel, I set out on another oddissy to exchange dollars. I went to the provincial bank, but they only exchange for Argentine Citizens. I went outside to the ATM, but they were broken. So, I walked along looking for lunch, and finally found another ATM that gave me 300 Pesos, about a hundred bucks. I should be able to exchange more tomorrow in a big border city like Posadas, or across the bridge in Encarnacion. This is getting rather ridiculous.
After eating lunch, I walked back by the provincial bank, and at least their thermometer worked. It read 40C, which is 102 F. At 1PM. I am glad I finished the ride early. Because of this heat, the siesta is still in vogue here, and most businesses close from around 12:30 to 3:30. So I went and took a siesta too...
POSADAS, MISSIONES PROVINCE, MILE 665 DEC 4
Here I am in the large (quarter million) city of Posadas, Argentina. It is hot hot hot...Right now the bank says it is 104 F. I rode 55 miles here today from Gobernador Virasoros, and the ride was interesting, to say the least. Leaving G.V., route 14 became VERY narrow, and had NO shoulder at all. I got pushed off the pavement twice by passing trucks, which was not fun. This was too bad, because I had to pay so much attention to where I was riding that I could not watch the absolutely stunning scenery through which I was passing. I am far enough north now that the environment is getting to be semi-tropical, and everything is green. This game of playing touch with the trucks continued through the first 25 miles or so of the day. The territory also ceased to be flat, and became more hilly, so I would roar down a hill at 30MPH, and then crawl back up the other side at 7 or 8. In fact, for the first time this trip, I used the LOW gear selection on my front derailer today.
Exactly 25 miles into the ride, everything changed. I crossed the border from Corrientes into Missiones province, and, apparently, Missiones has a bigger highway budget. Suddenly, shoulders appeared on the road. This took all the worry off my mind, and I could concentrate on the wind in my face. About ten miles later, Rt 14 met up with Rt 105, and I turned left, or north, right into the wind, and rode along Rt 105 for 21 miles. Again, rolling hills, and a lot of ups and downs. By this time, I was so hot that my T shirt was completely sopping wet, and lined with streaks of white, I was sweating out pure salt, and it was condensing on the shirt. I looked like I had leprosy. The sweat situation was interesting. Every eight miles or so, I stopped to chug down a bottle of water (or a Coke, if someone nearby was selling them), and as soon as I would drink, sweat would just explode out of every pore in my body.
Eventually, Rt 105 hit Rt 12 about 8 miles east of Posadas. Here it got very busy, with a lot of truck traffic. I rode on into town, and found a hotel for 55 Pesos. After a VERY cold and long shower, I decided it would be a good idea to go visit Concepcion, Paraguay, on the other side of the bridge. I walked to where the buses are, and discovered to my disgust that I would need a VISA. Visas cost $100. I do not want to go to Concepcion that bad. I will get into Paraguay later, illegally, as I know from experience that in Foz do Iguacu there is no control on the Bridge to Ciudad del Este.
Posadas itself is a pretty town, it is very green, and very hot. I will PROBABLY have all day tomorrow to get to know it better, as it is supposed to be thunderstorming all day, and I need to give my knee a rest anyway. The knee, by the way, is still swelling up. I do not know why.
More information shall follow tomorrow.
POSADAS, MILE 658 DEC 5
Here is a map of Argentina.
http://images.google.com.ar/imgres?imgurl=http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/americas/argentina_pol96.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.hcdsc.gov.ar/biblioteca/ISES/geografiapatagonica/geogcartografia.asp&h=1302&w=1068&sz=299&hl=es&start=3&um=1&tbnid=SR2Xyx9jxVAF5M:&tbnh=150&tbnw=123&prev=
Misiones province is in the upper right. Rt 12 links Posadas with Foz do Iguaçu.
This is a map of Misiones:
http://www.iargentina.com.ar/provincias/misiones/imagenes/mapa-misiones.jpg
Greetings still from the city of Posadas. About 6:30PM last night it began to get cloudy and within a half an hour, the skies opened. Living where I do, I do not get to enjoy genuine earth shaking thunder and lightening storms often, but last night I did. Lightening bolts were flying every which way. This kept up until just a few hours ago, which let me justify my taking a day off. (Which I was going to do anyway.)
Yesterday evening, I put on my windbreaker and went out to get dinner, and then to another internet place to check today´s weather. While sitting at the computer, all the power in the city went out; I read in this mornings paper that a tree fell on a high tension line, and the place went completely black. After a minute or so, it occurred to the mostly teenager customers that this was a fine way not to pay for their internet use, and there was a stampede for the door. I had forseen this, and not wanting to be trampled in the dark just sat at my computer and waited. Eventually they all forced their way out, and then I left, too. I then walked back to my hotel in the darkness (EVERYTHING was out, streetlights included) and got soaked in the process.
Since I did not have to go anywhere this morning, I did not set my alarm, and ended up sleeping for 11 hours. I needed it, I was getting generally tired the last few days. When I did awake, it was still pouring, so I put the jacket back on and walked downtown to get a pizza for breakfast, and read the local newspaper. The rest of the day was spent in idleness untle a few hours ago it stopped raining, and I took the bike out quickly to a bike store I had found to buy some inner tubes. So far I have popped four inner tubes, and only had three extra ones left. I bought two more, for the outrageous price of 50 Pesos ($16US). Some things are not cheap.
I will now go eat dinner, and get an early nights sleep. Tomorrow, I head north on Rt. 12, probably to San Ignacio.
PUERTO IGUAZU, MISSIONES, MILE 689 DEC 6
Greetings Iguazu Falls. I am here three days early.
I set out thi morning from Posadas, and road the seven miles back to Route 12, where I turned north. I rode along happily with the wind at my back and a wide shoulder until I came to the toll plaza about four miles outside of the town of Santa Ana. There, the shoulder went away. Completely. I rode along, with trucks barreling along beside me until a car tried to pass a truck as the truck was passing me. This cause the truck to veer right, and its rear wheel hit my left saddle bag, knocking me flying into the grass on the side of the road. Luckily, no harm was done to either me or the bike, but I decided I was going to get killed if I kept this up for another 150 miles. So, I rode, Carefully, into Santa Ana, and paid 26 Pesos to put the bike on a bus, and four hours later here I am in Puerto Iguazú.
I am rather irate about this, because I was feeling good, and riding through some beautiful scenery. But, while I will happily take risks, I am not an undue risk taker, and staying on that highway struck me as an undue risk.
Now that I am here, I got a hotel for two nights, and will spend most of tomorrow at the Falls, which are supposedly FOUR times as large as Niagra Falls. Also, since I now do not have to get up early to ride tomorrow, I will try to find a bar somewhere with Cable TV to see the Redskins game tonight at 10PM local time.
On Saturday I should head across the bridge and back into Brazil. I hope they let me ride across this one.
IGUAZU FALLS, ARGENTINA, MILE 693 DEC 7
Greetings from Puerto Iguazú. Today I went to the falls, and what an impressive sight they are.
To get there, I paid 8 Pesos Round Trip on a city bus, which dropped me at the park gates. Then I paid 40 Pesos more to get into the park. If I was an Argentine, I would have only paid 13 Pesos, they charge foreigners more. Once in, and armed with a map, I set out to explore.
The Iguazu falls are a seried of 275 seperate waterfalls along a 1.7 mile stretch of the Iguazu river, which is the border between this part of Argentina and Brazil. Ten miles past the falls, the Iguazu flows into the much larger Parana River, and creates the triple border between Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay. The most spectacular of the individual falls is called either Garganta del Diablo or Garganta do Diabo (Devil´s throat) and is 490 feet wide, 2,300 feet long, and up to 270 feet high. Water falls into this cauldron in a 260 degree arc. The Garganta del Diablo is no the only fall; there are many more. In all, 1.5 MILLION gallons of water a second flow over the falls. By Comparison, 600,000 gallons per second flow over Niagara Falls. At some points, the falling water provokes mists that float up to 500 feet in the sky, and there are places where you cannot see the bottom of the falls because of the mists.
First, I got on a little open car train and went about a mile and a half to the Garganta del Diablo. From the train stop, I walked over catwalks across islands another mile or so to the actual falls. I could hear them long before I could see them. Upon arrival the noise was deafening. The view was spectacular, the sheer power of the water is beyond belief. After hanging around there for a while, I walked back to the train, and rode halfway back, to where two trails set out for the falls. They are called the Circuito Superior (upper trail) and Circuito Inferior (lower trail), and let one look upon the falls from a high and then a low perspective. I took the superior first, and it included several catwalks DIRECTLY over different falls, with a drop beneath my feet of hundreds of feet. Returning, I walked the Inferior, and these took me right to the base of a number of falls.
All in all, it was a most impressive day. On the way back to the park entrance, I happened upon several enormous lizards, much like the one from my old classroom that my friend Lydia is keeping for me, only about 100 times larger.
Tomorrow, from the Brazilian side, I will see the Garganta del Diablo a little better, but not much else. Most of the wonderful scenery is on the Argentine side.
Returning to town, I took my bike out to find where the International Bridge is. The Tancredo Neves International Bridge turns out to be only about a mile and a half from my hotel. Tancredo Neves, by the way, was supposed to be the President who would lead Brazil out of 21 years of military dictatorship in 1985. He was elected by an electoral college, beating out the Army´s man, but then had the bad luck to get cancer and die before he was inaugarated. His vice president, Jose Sarney, was a corrupt disaster, and is (not) fondly remembered for cuadruple digit inflation.
Also on my bike, I found something interesting. Gasoline in Uruguay costs $5.25 a gallon, and is fixed by the benevolent government. Gasoline in Brazil is not fixed, but is heavily taxed and costs about $6.00 a gallon. Gasoline in Argentina can be found for as low as $2.25 a gallon, UNLESS you have foreign plates. I saw signs on the gas stations with the prices for the stinking foriegners, near $6 a gallon. How nice.
The town of Puerto Iguazu is not much, I rode over most of it on my bike today. There are some good restuarants, tho, and I will head for one shortly. Tomorrow should find me either sleeping in Brazil or Paraguay, since Ciudad del Este is directly across the river from Foz do Iguacu, which is about ten miles from here.
CIUDAD DEL ESTE, PARAGUAY/ FOZ DO IGUACU, PARANA, BRAZIL, MILE 701 DEC 8
Greetings from Foz do Iguaçu, in the Brazilian State of Parana.
I left my hotel in Puertro Iguazu about 8 this morning, and rode the 3 miles or so to the international bridge, where, on the Argentine side, I got an exit stamp in my passport, and then was able to, with no one complaining about it, actually ride my bike across the bridge over the Iguazu River. On the other side, I rode up to Brazilian customs, and was in and out of the Policia Federal in about two minutes, with no fingerprintings mentioned.
Once in Brazil, I rode another four or so miles into Foz, up some nasty steep hills, and eventually found a youth hostel where, for $R25 a night, I got my own private room. I usually try to avoid youth hostels as they tend to be full of European backpackers who seldom if ever seem to bathe, but when I can get my own room, I like them.
The people at the hostel were helpful, and got me the phone number of a bus company which sent me, via bicycle messenger, a ticket for Porto Alegre leaving Sunday night at 7PM and arriving in Porto Alegre Monday morning at 9AM. So that is one night of hotel I will not pay.
Having my ticket, I then walked downtown and exchanged a couple hundred dollars at $R1.85 to US$1, which is a little better than ten days ago in Uruguaiana. I then paid 3 Reais and boarded an international bus to Ciudad del Este.
The bus headed about three miles north of town, to the international bridge. There, it crossed into Ciudad del Este with nay a look from Paraguayan customs. As I crossed, I noticed a San Ysidro-esque line of cars and pedestrians returning to Brazil. Once in Cd del Este, I spent an hour walking around, visited the cathedral, and decided against buying any of the many switchblades, throwing stars, brass knuckles or samurai swords that were offered to me, very cheap. Pirated CDs and DVDs were also available.
Getting bored with this, I bought a Paraguayan Coke, and then wandered back to the bridge and stook looking disconsolately at the line of pedestrians backed up into Paraguay. At this moment, a guy on a 125CC moto-bike rolled up and offered to take me across for the small sum of R$4. I negotiated R$3, and put on a helmet and climbed on back. The next ten minutes were like being on a rollercoaster, a thrill a second. The traffic was absolutely chaotic, and we rolled into it at about 20MPH, between, around, in front of cars and trucks that many times seemed to come within inches of crushing us. I wish I could have mounted my video camera on the helmet, because it was truly a ride to remember. Within about ten minutes or so, we were on the other side, rolled through Brazilian immigration without stopping, which was a relief for me because I violated a number of laws, both Brazilian and Paraguayan, by visiting Paraguay without a Visa and without formally exiting Brazil.
I gave the guy the four Reais he originally wanted, for the thrill, and hopped on a bus back to downtown.
Tomorrow, since I do not leave until evening, I will take another bus to the Brazilian side of the Iguaçu falls. Then it will be on to Porto Alegre, from there on a different bus to Pelotas, and sometime soon back to Uruguay.
The weather is still extremely hot, by the way.
TWO CHUYs, MILE 729 DEC 10
Greetings, once again, from Uruguay. I have come a long way, although with very little bike riding. I arrived here in Chuy, on the border between Uruguay and Rio Grande do Sul at 8PM, after 25 hours on two buses, the first one from Foz do Iguacu to Porto Alegre, the capital of RS, and then another one from Porto Alegre to Chui (with an I), which is the Brazilian half of Chuy. There is no border fence or anything here. The bus stopped a few miles north of here at the Policia Federal headquarters and anyone who wanted to (including me) could get out and get stamped out of Brazil. There will be an Uruguayan post a few miles south of here for me to visit tomorrow. In the town of Chuy itself, the border is just another street through town, and the only thing that differentiates the two sides is the green phone booths in Brazil and the blue ones in Uruguay.
There were some European backpackers on the bus with me, and when we got in, they told me they were going to hit an ATM to get Pesos. I strongly suggested to them that they verify what country the ATM was in, or they might get a pile of Reais instead of Pesos. They were rather shocked at this.
I have been busy since last Saturday. After I wrote my last email, it occurred to me that I was rather close to the Itaipu dam complex, which is the largest hydroelectric complex in the world, and is located a few miles north of Foz do Iguacu. It supplies ALL of Paraguay´s electricity, and almost a quarter of Brazil´s. So, I rode up to the dam, to discover that I was an hour late for the last tour, and no matter how much I whined they would not let me in. O well.
When I got back to my hostel, there was a car with Wisconsin licence plates in the driveway. This was strange. I went in and found an American kid, maybe 25 years old, who had driven from San Francisco all the way down to Tierra del Fuego, and then back up, over a six month period, and was now on his way home. He did not speak a word of Portuguese, and the hostel staff was strongly trying to dissuade him from driving to Rio, on the grounds that the criminal element there would eat him alive.
Sunday morning, I took another ride to verify where the Foz bus terminal was, and then set of to visit the Brazilian side of the Falls. I took about a 30 minute public bus ride, and then paid another small fortune to get into the Brazilian park. It was worth it. The park entrance is a fair distance from the actual falls, so open topped buses are provided. The bus dropped me at the entrance to mile and a half long trail that gave excellent views of the falls from a bit of a distance (at first), which allows one to get a real perspective of just how gigantic these things are. Walking along, I came to the Garganta do Diabo, and here the walkway went over the water and almost into the bottom of the fall itself. I had to put away my camera because I was getting wet, and the noise was incredible.
All in all, the falls left me very impressed. If I ever convince a certain girl to marry me, maybe I will suggest them for a honeymoon.
Returning to the hostel, I took a shower, and lay around in a hammock until about about 6PM, when I paid up, and rode off to the bus terminal. And I spent the next day on the bus.
Tomorrow I head on to, probably, a place called Aguas Dulces on Uruguay´s Atlantic coast.
TWO CHUYs, MILE 754 DEC 11
Greetings from Chuy, where I decided to stay today. The wind was not in my favor, and I wanted to check out the town. I had been here in 2004, but only rapidly. I am glad I stayed.
Getting up, I dumped my clothes at the laundromat (another reason to stay--I was out of clean clothes) and decided to ride around on my bike. Riding in Brazilian Chui, I came to a cut of for the town of Barra do Chui, 6 miles east. I did not know there was such a town, so I rode the six miles, and found a little beach town. It was very nice, if I had not already paid another night at my hotel, I would have been tempted to stay there. There was a sign saying this was the most south-easterly place in Brazil outside of town. From Barra do Chui, there was another road heading south, and after a mile or so I came to a little bridge with an Uruguayan flag on the other side, and realized that there was another border crossing I did not know about. Neither countrys´ immigration was present, and I rode into Barra del Chuy, and found it to be another pleasant little town. From there, I encountered another road back 6 miles or so to the main highway leading to Montevideo. I turned out to now be about five miles South of Chuy, so I rode north, and came to the Uruguayan immigration post, where I stopped in to have them stamp my passport, and eventually I made my way back to town.
The two Chuys are an interesting town. There is no border control at all in the town, and, for that matter, anyone wanting to not stop at either Brazilian or Uruguayan immigration outside of town could, as well. Through the middle of town is a wide avenue called Avenida Uruguai on the north side, and Avenida Brasil on the South side. Ave. Uruguai is in Brazil and Ave Brasil is in Uruguay. On the south (Uruguayan) side of the Avenue, there are lots of restuarants, bars, a casino (actually a slot machine palace) and numerous duty free stores selling the cheap cigarettes and alcohol. All the bars and discos are in Uruguay; some time back the Brazilian Chui elected a bible thumper as mayor, and alcohol is now frowned upon. On the north (Brazilian) side, are pharmacies, hardware stores, and supermarkets. They both seem to know their market; the Brazilian stores denominate all their prices in Uruguayan Pesos, and the Duty free stores price everything in Reais or Dollars.
Going back and forth, I find that, in Brazilian Chui, almost everywhere I have stopped, be it a hotel yesterday that was full, the laundry place, and a store where I bought a Grape Fanta (They DO exist, I have been having a fight for years with my Coca-Cola wholesaler in Tijuana who swears there is no such thing...) the employees have spoke to me in Spanish. On the other hand, at dinner last night, in the internet cafes, and at my present hotel, all in Uruguay, they insist on speaking to me in Portuguese.
I will now have dinner, and will move on tomorrow. I might make a change in plans and ride northwest instead of southwest, but have not decided yet.
LA PALOMA, URUGUAY, MILE 855 DEC 12
Hello from the beach town of La Paloma. I rode down here today from Chuy. Total distance ridden was 101 miles, which makes todays ride the longest so far of the trip. I left Chuy at about 9 this morning, and immediately rode to Chui, RS, to unload some excess Reais on Cokes and Water for the first part of the ride. Then, heading west on BR 472, I bade a fond adeus to Brazil as the highway transitioned into Uruguay Ruta Nacional 9. I rode west a few miles until I hit the Uruguayan customs post, and today the tourist office actually had someone working in it. I got an excellent strip-type map of the southern Uruguay coast, with lots of distances from point to point. Thanking him, I continued west.
At about mile 17, I came to the Fortaleza de Santa Tereza (Fort Santa Tereza) and rode in to look around. The fort is occupied by a platoon of engineers who provide its upkeep, and one of them wandered over to the entrance to collect 10 Pesos from me, and promise to watch my bike. Since he did not have any change, I forked over a Real, and went inside. The fortress is impressive; in many ways its star construction resembles Ft. Washington outside of DC. It was constructed by the Portuguese in 1762 to protect the area from the Pirates who infested it. Piracy having gone out of style, in the 19th century the fort was allowed to fall into absolute ruin. In the 1930s, the government decided to spruce the place up, and they put back up all the walls and roof that had collapsed. I had a good time looking at the cannons, the powder magazine, and a collection of muskets and swords from what was called the "great war". For us Americans, the great war is World War I. Here it refers to the war of the triple alliance, in which Uruguay, Argentina and (mostly) Brazil (barely) defeated Paraguay. I took lots of pictures and video.
Moving on from here, I rode another 30 miles or so to the armpit of a town of Castillos. Here I had to make a decision. Turn left down Rt. 16 and ride 8 miles to Aguas Dulces, or keep going. I decided to keep going. I was in Aguas Dulces in 2004, on my first bike trip here, and was not impressed. So, on I went. At about mile 70 I encountered another armpit known as 18 de julio where I restocked on Gatorade. Then, 83 miles into the trip, I came to the city of Rocha, which is the capital of the Departamento of the same name. Here, I bought yet more gatorade, and an ice cream bar, and then turned left (south) on Rt 15 to La Paloma.
Until this point, the ride had been quite pleasant. The bike was functioning well, my knee was keeping its problems to itself, and the wind was more or less behind me. No more. Almost all of the last 18 miles of the ride were into a brutal headwind. I started to get leg cramps about halfway through this stretch. It was no fun at all. Eventually, with my t-shirt and face streaked with salt I rode into La Paloma. I found a very nice and cheap hotel, where, to my amusement, the owners dog went crazy licking me; since I had sweated out so much salt, I must have been a rare delicacy to him.
Yesterday, I realized that I did not finish a thought in my report. I was going to say that, the Chuys having an international border running down them, I had always thought that policing could be a problem. If I am driving down Avenida Brasil/Uruguay and toss my liquor bottle out the window and hit the patrol car beside me, I could just make a turn into the other country and sit there laughing at him. So, I got a kick out of what I saw last night. A Rocha departmental police car and a RS Brigada Militar truck were slowly driving up and down the Ave, right next to each other, each in their own country. When they got to the end, they both turned around and came back. I guess now, no matter what country you run to, the cops are gonna get you.
Not having planned on arriving in La Paloma until tomorrow, I think it probable that I will stay here until Friday. I want a day at the beach, and this is as good a place as any. Then it will be on to Punta del Este.
LA PALOMA, URUGUAY, MILE 884 DEC 13
Greetings, still, from La Paloma, Uruguay. I spent a very pleasant day here walking around town, and then riding my bike a bit.
Since the map link I originally used seems not to work anymore, I have found another one.
http://www.rau.edu.uy/universidad/iaeste/extranjeros/reception_booklet/images/uruguay_pol_95.jpg
La Paloma is at the bottom right of the map, Rocha is just above it, I rode yesterday on Rt 9 from Chuy (bottom far right) to Rocha, and then down. What the map does not show is another highway, Rt. 10 that parallels Rt 9 along the beach. I rode up Rt 10, heading east, today about ten miles into an incredible, gale force wind. If I have a wind like that pushing me along tomorrow, I will go like a rocket. If it switches around, I will be in a world of hurt.
East on Rt 10, I came to the very small town of La Pedrera which is very pretty, and has an extremely interesting beach which is full of rock formations. I then rode back into La Paloma at a very high rate of speed, and visited the port and the abandoned railroad station. Abandoned railroad stations and tracks are a sad fixture in Uruguay.
The rest of the day was spent reading a book borrowed from my hotel, which is run by an aging family of Argentine hippies.
Tomorrow, I move on to, probably, Punta del Este.
MALDONADO, URUGUAY, MILE 954 DEC 14
Greetings from the town of Maldonado, which is about 3 miles north of Punta del Este, but much cheaper. The rotten SOBs who forecast the weather got it wrong, and instead of my promised tail wind, I rode basically ALL 70 miles today into a head wind. Fortunately, it was not of the hurricane variety, but I am presently absolutely beat out.
I left La Paloma this morning, saying goodbye to the very pleasant hippy types who ran the hotel, and rode back up Rt 15 to Rocha. Two hours later (but only 17 miles), I arrived, and stopped at a gas station to stock up on Lemonaide. I then rode comfortably west for about half an hour on Rt. 9, until suddenly the wind shifted around and hit me in the face.
From there on, it was not a pleasant day. I ran out of water presently, and, luckily, came to a toll plaza where I was able to fill my water bottle from the tap. (Uruguay is the ONLY country in Latin America where the tap water is potable.) Riding on, I found a store, but they were out of Coke, Lemonaide, and water. Why even stay open? They did sell me a two liter bottle of some fizzy nastiness that kept dehydration at bay.
I continued along, and came to the cut off for Rt 104, which goes to the coast and then on into PDE. I had ridden this in 2004, so, this time, I stayed on Rt 9 for another couple of miles, and then cut into the small town of San Carlos. From San Carlos, it was about 10 miles south to Maldonado.
By the time I got to Maldonado, I was absolutely exhausted, and so I rode straight downtown and stopped at the first hotel I saw, where, fortunately, they did not rip me off. I sat there dripping sweat while the girl copied whatever it is that they copy out of my passport, and then went to my room and collapsed for half an hour.
Feeling much better now, I have been reccomended a restuarant that allegedly sells very good lasagna. So I will go there shortly. If that does not pan out, this outpost of civilization has a McDonalds, of all things, so I could just get some fries, I suppose.
Tomorrow I will ride through PDE, and then move on west, ever closer to Montevideo.
PIRIAPOLIS, URUGUAY, MILE 995 DEC 15
Greetings today from Piriapolis, a beach resort about 25 miles west of Punta del Este. Piriapolis is named after an Argentine named Piria who, in the 1930s, decided that it would be a good idea to build a huge hotel here and institute direct ferry service for tourists from Buenos Aires, 200 or so miles away from here. So he did. The ferry is long gone, but the ¨Hotel Argentino¨ is still the most impressive structure in town. And the place is still full of Argentine tourists; I wanted to buy a newspaper, and had trouble finding a Uruguayan one. Had I wanted La Nacion or Clarin (from Argentina), they were available at every corner.
Last night, I got my recommended lasagna, and it was good, as promised. The only trouble was that I forgot to ask if it included ham. For some reason, in Latin America everyone likes to put ham in lasagna. I realized it DID include ham, which I am not about to eat in a lasagna, after I had cut it into about 30 bite size pieces, so I spent a while picking out all the little ham slices before I ate it. Then, still being hungry, I went and got McDonalds french fries, and a McDonalds Coke from a fountain. NO restuarant I have been in in any of these countries on this trip has had fountain Coke. This I find strange, since the margins of profit are higher on fountain drinks compared to Coke out of a bottle.
Leaving Maldonado this morning, I rode south about 4 miles to Punta del Este, where I rode around the peninsula, navigating the roadblocks set up for the car race they are having this weekend. Then, I climbed a rather steep hill, roared down the other side, and headed west toward the PDE airport. The highway from PDE to Montevideo is of US Interstate quality, with four or six lanes, divided. I rode along this for a while, until I came to an unmarked turnoff which I remembered from 2005 that led to a beach called Punta Negra, and from there into Piriapolis.
Arriving in Piriapolis, I got a hotel, and then found someone to wash my clothes, after which I, continuing the good habit of eating pasta, went and had a bunch of spinach raviolis. Then I took the bike to a shop where, for minimal expense, they oiled the chain for me. Following that, I rode up a hill outside of town, from the top of which is a spendid vista of Piriapolis, and, to the north, a hill called Pan de Azucar that, at 1500 or so feet, is the highest ¨mountain¨ in Uruguay. For those who lack bikes, there is a ski-lift type of system of chairs on ropes that take tourists to the top, where there is a chapel and a restuarant. The views are really spectacular. I came back down at a much higher rate of speed than I had gone up.
Tomorrow I should be back in Montevideo, and over a thousand miles on the trip.
MONTEVIDEO, URUGUAY, MILE 1041 DEC 16
Greetings from Montevideo, again. I rode (most of the way) in to town today from Piriapolis, getting up very early (7AM) so as to arrive in time to go to the horse races. Leaving my hotel, I discovered my rear tire was flat. So I fixed it. While I was fixing it, a poor little rich boy was roaring up and down the street in his sports car. I fixed the tube and set off, and within about thee miles, I encountered the kid´s car, upside down, on the side of the road. I assume he had been drinking all night. I guess daddy now has to buy him a new one. The cops were there talking to him, so I guess no one was heart; the way he was driving he could have killed me easily.
I rode along the coast, and, after about ten miles, my tire went flat, again. So I fixed it. A mile later, I came to the interchange with Route 1, and headed west toward Montevideo. Immediately, my tire went flat again. So I fixed it again, carefully checking that there was no sharp objects sticking the tube. I rode another ten miles or so, and it went flat again. I now had only one tube left, so, frustrated, I changed it, and rode on. About 20 miles out of Montevideo, I felt it start to go flat, and found myself pumping it up every half mile. After a few miles of this, I found a radio-taxi stand where I arranged for them to put the bike in the back of a taxi, and we road into town to the hotel I stayed at last month. This is ridiculous. Tomorrow I will take the bike to a bike shop that a friend reccomended, and hopefully they can fix it. I still want to ride the 110 miles or so on west to Colonia del Sacramento. If they wheel is dead, I am not going to replace it here; I will just buy a Kane Creek wheel at City Bikes up in DC next week. But that will kind of end my trip early.
Once I had my hotel sorted out, I walked out and took a taxi to the Montevideo horse track, called Maroñas. Maroñas is a very nice track, the only think lacking is a turf course. The physical plant is in FAR better shape than Pimlico, in Baltimore, for example. They also have an OTB room where they were running races from Hollywood Park, Turfway, Golden Gate, and Palm Beach Greyhounds. I had a good time, won a few races, and ended up spending a net 20 dollars or so, which, considering taxi, food, admittance, and beer is not bad at all.
Montevideo on a Sunday is a ghost town, so, in a bit, I will seek out somewhere that will feed me. Tomorrow hopefully I get my bike fixed.
MONTEVIDEO, MILE 1045 DEC 17
I am still in Montevideo. Last night, after another excellent lasagna (sans ham), I went to bed early, and woke up at about midnight. Crossing my fingers, I turned on the TV set in my room, and found that ESPN was carrying the Sunday Night Football game, this week involving the Washington Redskins. Very happy, I sat around watching this until almost 3AM local time.
Waking up this morning, I installed my last good tube in my bike, held my breath, and set off for the Trek Store, following useless directions provided in my hotel. I eventually found myself in front of the Iranian Embassy, of all places, and the cop out front keeping the CIA out was kind enough to let me look at his map of the city. I made it on to the store, where they took in my bike and told me to call them in a few hours. When I did, they swore that they had minutely examined the tire, wheel, tube, everything, and there was NOTHING wrong. I pointed out that five blowouts in less than three hours is hardly ¨nothing¨. They suggested that maybe I should buy a new wheel. I agreed and said I would, just as soon as I get to Washington. I will pick the bike up tomorrow morning, but that ends the trip. I just picked up a bag that weighs about 20lbs from my friend here, and adding that weight to the already overloaded bike would undoubtably cause the wheel-with-nothing-wrong-with-it to flatten every tube I put into it. So, riding on west to Colonia del Sacramento is out. I have already ridden this stretch twice, both in 2004 and 2005, and drove it in 2003 the first time I was in Uruguay, so I am not missing something new, and there is only one route, so I could not go via a different, new, way. But I still wanted to as it is pretty, and it would have added more mileage to my trip.
Tomorrow I will go to the Buquebus office and buy a ticket to Buenos Aires on Wednesday. That will give me basically three completed days in the Argentine capital.
Having dropped of my bike this morning in the Pocitos neighborhood east of downtown, I, foolishly, misestimated the distance back to downtown and decided to walk back on the Rambla (beachfront drive). I think I ended up walking about six miles; I am sure my feet will have something to say about that tomorrow. When I got back downtown, I headed into the Mercado del Puerto and got a monstrous piece of dead cow and a sausage, and, again, cringed at the drink prices. A little Coke was 50 Pesos, or almost $2.50. Still, the meal cost about one third what it would have in the US. Walking out of there, I stumbled onto a demonstration by leftists happy that one of the ex-generals who (mis)governed Uruguay in the 70s and early 80s has been arrested for a variety of unsavory crimes. No one wants to arrest the Tupamaro terrorists the army was being unsavory to, since they are now in the government.
I then walked up 18 de julio, the main street of Montevideo, and found the Treasury Museum, which was fun. I like money, and they had lots of it. One of the wonderful side effects of the military misgovernance was inflation, and they had a series of what were called ¨new peso¨ bills, which replaced the ¨old peso¨, which replaced another ¨new peso¨, etc etc. These new pesos started being emitted in about 1988 or so, and the smallest bill was for 50 Centesimos (one half Peso). By 1992, they were emitting 500,000 Peso bills. (More zeros were removed in 1994, and the currency has been mostly stable ever since.) Inflation like this has to be lived with to believe; when I was living in Brazil in 1990, they had a similar problem; if you wanted to borrow 20 bucks from your good friend over the weekend, you had to negotiate an interest rate, and THREE different currencies (Cruzeiros, Cruzados, and Cruzados Novos) were circulating at the same time, each with a different number of zeros removed. Mexicans complain about they year they had triple digit inflation, in 1987. That was just a bad month in Brazil or Uruguay (or, even worse, Argentina or Bolivia) 20 years ago. On the other hand, EVERYONE becomes a millionaire rather quickly.
Tomorrow I will pick up my bike, buy some more inner tubes (probably at a price that will make me gag), and ride around town for a while. Hopefully the lack of saddle bags will keep me from getting more flats.
MONTEVIDEO, MILE 1063 DEC 18
Today is my last full day in Montevideo, earlier I bought a ticket on the ferry to Buenos Aires for tomorrow at noon.
Great changes happened with my bike. I went to pick it up this morning at 10AM, and they told me that, when they were closing up last night at 8:30, it was flat again. This was after they had assured themselves that nothing was wrong with the wheel. So, the inspected it again, apparenly more carefully this time, and encountered a small piece of glass in the tube liner that was causing slow leaks on the inner tubes. How it got there escapes me. This does not save me the trip to Colonia, as it is a distance of 110 miles, and if I left tomorrow, I would HAVE to do it in one day, and the winds are ¨changable¨. But, it will keep me from wasting $150 or more on a new wheel in Washington next week.
I took a taxi to the bike store, and, bike in hand, rode back. I decided to ride along the Rambla to measure exactly how far I walked yesterday, but only got about half way when I was kicked off because the police had it closed, even to pedestrians. Montevideo is the ¨capital¨ of Mercosul, the South American version of NAFTA, which encompasses Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. And, soon, Chavez´s Venezuela. Since Brazil and Argentina despise each other, the administrative capital (kind of like Brussels is the ¨capital¨ of the EU) cannot be in either Buenos Aires or Brasilia, and Paraguay is to 0far away. And, there is a Mercosul summit going on, with all the presidents, including Chavez and his paranoia, in town. So streets everywhere are closed, and traffic is utter chaos. I rode through all parts of town, and eventually made it back to my hotel. Later, I took the bike out west of town to the old fort on a hill on the other side of the port. This area is an industrial wasteland, replete with train yards, container ports, electric plants, and a refinery that emits particularly vile odors. Coming back I came upon what I think was a crime scene as there were many cops, two covered bodies in the middle of the road, but no wrecked cars, leading me to think somebody got shot.
Walking around, I found the ¨military museum¨, which was closed, but which opens early tomorrow, so, before I leave, I will try to go and visit. Hopefully they will have lots of stuff from the Paraguayan war.
BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA, MILE 1081 DEC 19
Greetings from Argentina. My trip is almost over, and here I will remain until Saturday when I fly up to Washington, DC.
This morning I had the opportunity to visit the Army Museum in Montevideo. It was quite interesting. Aside from the usual nonsense about the Uruguayan Army´s glorious and patriotic past, (They have not fought a war against an external enemy since 1869.) they had some excellent sandbox recreations of various revolutionary battles. They also had quite a bit on Uruguayan participation in peacekeeping, which (and I did not know this) goes back to 1929 when the League of Nations asked Uruguay to send military cartographers into the Northern Chaco in a (failed) attempt to stave off a bloody and utterly pointless war between Paraguay and Bolivia. Today, the Army numbers 17,600, and of these 2,500 are presently deployed, with a thousand each in Haiti (under Brazilian command) and Congo (ex-Zaire), where they operate independently. They also had a big presence in Timor Leste, but that has been drawn down. That means that one seventh of the army is deployed abroad. If I was an 18 year old Uruguayan from a poor or lower middle class background I would immediately enlist. What a way to get away from the crap at home.
Next to the museum was the National Firearms Registry, and I went and banged on the door to ask them, as a concerned NRA member, about Urugayan gun regulations but no one seemed to be home.
Leaving the museum, I returned to my hotel, from which I had already checked out, and retrieved my bike. It turns out I made a very wise decision not to ride to Colonia, good wheel or not. With the addition of the bag I left at my friends´ house, the camera mount made in Montevideo, and assorted books and gifts I had accumulated over the last month, the weight of the bike was such that it was positively unstable. Carefully I rode it the two and a half miles to the ferry port, where they made me check it as baggage, which they have never done before; I always rode it into the car part of the ferry.
The Ferry was called the Silvia Ana, and is allegedly the largest ¨fast¨ (45 knot) ferry in the world, with a capacity for 1,000 passangers and 200 cars. Three hours later, I was in Buenos Aires, where I aprehensively retrieved the bike (fortunately, they did not destroy it), and, in a rather wobbly manner, rode another couple of miles to the hotel I stayed in last month. I was met with acclamations of ¨You are thinner!¨. No kidding...
Checked in, I took the now unloaded bike out for a bit of a ride around the city, to make sure that it was really working all right, and then headed up to an Irish Pub near my hotel to take advantage of Happy Hour. Everyone else seemed to have the same idea, and there was a line. So I went walking and eventually found a place where I had dinner for about half what it would have cost in Uruguay.
I will give an idea of my expenses later, but on this trip, generally, Argentina has been the cheapest country (It is the only one of the three whose currency has not appreciated against the dollar), and Uruguay has been the most expensive.
Tomorrow will probably be spent Christmas shopping, riding the bike, and meeting a friend of one of my cousins for dinner.
BUENOS AIRES, MILE 1093 DEC 20
I am still in Buenos Aires, relaxing and doing very little. I put my camera on my bike this morning and took about an hour of footage of me playing dodge with the cars on some of the cities VERY busy and wide avenues, and then spent a good part of the day watching armies of the unemployed (called piqueteros, or picketers) protesting against capitalism cause chaos with the traffic. The mayor of the city of Buenos Aires is of a different party than the leftist wife of Nestor Kirchner who is president, and SHE, not he, controls the police in the city. Her Peronist party is also probably bankrolling them. So, the police do nothing while armed (sticks, clubs, and flash-bang type explosives) thugs march around the city, causing probably tens of millions of dollars of lost productivity.
When the Argentine government is not busy permitting this craziness, they spend most of their time blaming the rest of the world for Argentina´s economic problems.
Madam President is presently very worried about a federal case proceeding in Miami against four people accused of being unregistered agents of Venezuela who are accused of helping a fifth person, now a witness, smuggle $800,000 in cash into Argentina in August. The money, which was allegedly for Christina Fernandez´s campaign, was siezed, and the bag man, strangely, was allowed to leave the country. This has the potential to bring down the Argentine Government, and everybody´s favorite madman, Hugo Chavez, is none too happy either.
I also walked many miles around town today, and found, among other things, an interesting market in the San Telmo district where all kinds of cool things were for sale.
And that is all I have done.
BUENOS AIRES, MILE 1106 DEC 21
Today is, here, the first day of summer, and, in the southern hemisphere the longest day of the year. It feels like it too, as it is getting very hot.
Since I went out with some friends of a cousin of mine last night, I returned to the hotel late, woke up late, and went for my bike ride when it was close to 100 degrees. I think I was sweating pure alcohol. I sure did not feel good. Coming back, I saw a beautiful sight. A girl had parked a mobile orange juice stand directly in front of the hotel, and was cutting and squeezing oranges (She looked like she had a supply of about 500 oranges.) into cups for two and a half Pesos (80 cents) a pop. She even had a cooler full of ice. I had two cups of this, and felt so much better it was unreal.
Freshly showered, I bought Clarin and La Nacion, the two biggest papers in Buenos Aires, and went to one of the outdoor cafes that dot this city for lunch, and spent an hour reading about the suitcase full of $800,000, the court case in Florida, and the increasingly shrill denunciations of the US coming out of the Casa Rosada (the Argentine version of the white house). I assume this is getting press back in the US, but, in a nutshell, in August, Hugo Chavez came to Buenos Aires to sign an accord with then President Nestor Kirchner. With him, in a private jet, came about 20 ¨businessmen¨, one of whom, Wilson Antonini, who holds dual US and Venezuelan citizenship, was carrying a suitcase with $800K cash in US currency inside. Argentine customs caught him, and as it is a crime to carry more than ten grand undeclared into the country, siezed the cash. They did NOT sieze him, and two days later, it is now alleged, he was at a meeting with Kirchner, his wife, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who was then a candidate for president and is now president, and Chavez. A day later, he was able to board a comercial flight to Montevideo, from where he made his way to the US, where he is now a cooperating witness in a case against three Venezuelans and an Uruguayan who are accused of being unregistered agents of the Venezuelan government. They are accused of pressuring Antonini, on behalf of Chavez, to lie about the origins of the money.
It is suspected that this money was either Venezuelan help for Cristina Kirchner´s campaign or was a bribe from the Venezuelan government to someone in Argentina. If true, it would be a huge political coup for Bush, as he has been saying for years that Chavez is meddling in the politics of his neighbors. If the cash was for a bribe, that would surprise no one either.
The government here had denied knowing who Antonini is until yesterday the personal secretary of a fired official said she had seen him in the Casa Rosada two days after the cash was siezed. (And, if she is smart, she will now go on a long vacation to Uruguay or, better, the US. She is now a prime candidate for an ¨accident¨ here.)
This whole case, and the way Cristina Kirchner is handling it, has the very real potential to bring down the government here. Since she is a useless leftist America hater, that would be no loss. But it would cause chaos in Argentina.
Government´s collapsing in Argentina is nothing new. Yesterday was the sixth anniversary of the fall of the de la Rua goverment following the delinking of the Peso and Dollar in 2001, and subsequent collapse of the Peso. In the following week, Argentina had FIVE presidents. The anniversary was celebrated by leftists and anarchists with more massive marches that caused traffic chaos, a molotov cocktail was thrown at a bank, and a McDonalds was trashed, since everything is the fault of foreign banks and McDonalds.
Finishing lunch, I went wandering around again, and will eventually seek out a place for dinner. Tomorrow I made arrangements with my hotel to store my bike and luggage all day, and somewhere around 6PM I will head out to the airport.
Travelling around for this long in only three countries allows me to get some perspective on them and form opinions. In my opinion:
Uruguay is a minnow trapped between two whales (Argentina and Brazil, with a combined population 80 times bigger than Uruguay´s), and is feeling shafted by the treatment they are getting in Mercosur. In 2005, Uruguay elected as president Tabare Vazquez who gave the appearance of being a radical leftist. (just like Lula in Brazil, before his election) In power, he is most definitely a left winger, but not of the Chavez type. I think I am more optimistic than most Uruguayans I talked to about the country´s future. They are educated, their legal system is fair, corruption is not the problem it is in Argentina, and, perhaps most importantly, most Uruguayans do NOT spend all their time blaming others (usually the US) for their problems. Much of the population is still wedded to statist monopolies, with the result that their phone system is inefficient and expensive, and their rail system is non existant. (Which is fatal, since the Port of Montevideo could be the main container hub of southern South America, except it does not have the rail infrastructure to move the containers on to Paraguay or Brazil once they arrive.) I think, however, that the Uruguayans are more likely to change this, sooner or later.
I am going to predict Uruguay´s exit from Mercosur within two years, followed by an attempt to join NAFTA (especially if the Colorado party comes back to power). Which we would be very wise to go along with.
Brazil has seen its fortunes improving ever since former President Cardozo introduced the Real as currency in 1993, and finally stopped inflation. This has seen the re introduction of credit in the country, and is estimated to have caused no fewer than ten million Brazilians to join the money economy. Lula da Silva was seen as another wild eyed crazy when he ran for president to replace Cardozo (he was a wild eyed and uneducated union leader before he got into politics.) but has governed in such a way that inflation is today nothing more than a memory, and poverty has continued its 14 year fall. Educated he may not be (Lula, among other things, speaks no foreign languages) but he is smart enough to know that it is in Brazil´s interest to maintain good relations with the US and Europe, so you NEVER hear him denouncing imperialists or multinationals they way you hear Argentine presidents doing. (Bush made a comment that Lula was the ¨embodiment of the American dream¨, since he came from absoute poverty to become president. As a result, Lula the leftist is now Bush´s best friend in this part of the world.) He is also not happy about Venezuelan meddling in Bolivia, which Brazil considers to be in its sphere of influence. Chavez made, a year ago, some veiled threats to ¨defend the Bolivian revolution¨ against Evo Morales´ myriad opponents. He has not repeated those threats for a while; my sources inform me that Lula let it be known, privately, that Brazil would use military force to keep the Venezuelan army from supressing any anti government uprisings in Bolivia.
END OF TRIP, DECEMBER 22, MILE 1112
Well, I have come to the end of my journeys. Tonight, I hop on a plane and go from the beginning of summer to wind, rain and cold winter in Washington. Tijuana is not much better from looking at the weather forecasts.
Today, I got up early (drinking was NOT on the agenda of last night, I was still recuperating from the night before) and went out and about on the bicycle one last time. I picked up, evidently, another piece of glass, and got two more flat tires, this time on the front wheel. At least I was able to locate and remove the glass. I spent almost $100 on new kevlar embedded tires just before I left last month, and they have proven to be absolutely worthless; the rear tire is already bald, and both allow pieces of glass to pass through them with ease. The first thing I will do Sunday in Washington is replace them. Riding back, I almost got run over by a bus that ran a red light; that would have been an absolutely great way to end the trip.
As I had to be out of my room at 10AM (I actually got out a little later...), I took a quick shower, packed up all my stuff into my two saddle bags, and deposited everything in the basement of the hotel, where it will repose until this evening. I then wandered out and, having a day to kill, started walking down Ave 9 de Julio. 9 de Julio is, according to an article I read some time ago in the LA Times supposedly the widest avenue in the world. Yesterday I had crossed it on my bike, and using the trip odometer which measures in increments of one hundredth of a mile, determined that it is 750 feet wide. It is so wide that you can not walk across it before the light changes; there are islands in the middle where you walk to and then wait for the stop lights to cycle through again. I walked along here until 9 de Julio turned into a freeway, and then I turned left on another huge avenue, who´s name I do not recall, and eventually came upon the ¨National Museum of Fine Arts¨. I walked in (like in DC, all the museums here are free.) and spent an hour sagely admiring oil paintings from the likes of Goya. They also had some cool statues, including one of Hercules beating the snot out of a centaur. A little bit of culture is good for one, but I would have preferred to find the natural history museum and spent the time looking at dinosaurs.
Leaving the museum behind, I continued along through a hippy market where I probably passively smoked a fair bit of illegal substances until I came to Aeroparque, which is the in town airport for Buenos Aires. It handles short domestic flights and international ones to Montevideo (30 minutes...), Punta del Este, and Porto Alegre. Ezeiza, where I fly out of tonight is 20 miles or more out of town.
At this point I had walked so far that I decided not to walk back, so I paid about $2.50 for a taxi to take me back to the ¨Obelisko¨ (A sort of mini-Washington Monument type of tower) which is in the exact center of town. From there I walked up Ave de Mayo to the Casa Rosada and looked at all the crazy people in the Plaza de Mayo. (The Plaza de Mayo corresponds to Lafayette Park in DC, complete with crazies.) Then I walked some more and found a place to get one last meal of Argentine beef.
Strengthening my opinion on Argentina´s (lack of) prospects for the future, the papers today are full of the fact that, yesterday, the President announced that as of Dec 30, Argentina will go on Daylight Saving Time. The chaos this is going to cause with things like airline schedules is incalculable. When the US changed the DST dates this year, they did so with 18 months notice. This is being done with 8 days notice. The reason is an energy shortage. The reason for the energy shortage is a combination of subsidies (Gasoline is little more than $2 a gallon, and electricity is very cheap.) and the fact that former president Nestor Kirchner wanted to avoid blackouts in the run up to the October 28 election where his lovely life was elected, so he ran all the hydro electric reservoirs down to where serveral of them became empty. And it has been a dry spring...
Overall I rode 1,112 miles on this trip, and probably added another 800 or so on the bus. Of the 1,112 miles, 675 were in Uruguay, 200 in Brazil, and 237 in Argentina. (I keep minuscious records of this stuff...) The most I travelled in a single day was 101 miles, so the personal record of 143 miles in a day that I set in 2004 is safe. I think that this trip will be my last one in Uruguay. Simply put, there is nowhere left for me to go in the country. I have been almost everywhere. I will certainly be back to Uruguay, I really like the place, but as the base for another long bike ride, no.
My thoughts on future trips are right now, for some future November and December revolving around the State of Santa Catarina, which is directly north of Rio Grande do Sul, and involves mountains, as well as a stretch of very nice beaches in Florianopolis (the state capital) and areas south. (Florianopolis is also, in my studied opinion, home to the most beautiful girls of Brazil...) For the U S summer, I have been looking into riding around Lake Superior. We shall see when and if any of these trips happen.
I went through my expenses last night. Basically, I paid $1250 for my ticket, and spent a total of about $2,200 down here. If I factor out of that a couple of hundred that was spent on books for me and Christmas presents for everyone else, and the $350 or so that I would have spent to fly to Washington anyway for Christmas, I come up with an agregate expense of about $2900 for this trip, which lasted for 37 days. That is about what I had planned on, and considering the weakness of the Dollar, is not bad at all. Of course, if my form of propulsion had been something other than my legs (a rent a car, for example), the expenses would have skyrocketed. Ditto if I had gone drinking every night, which is impossible when I am riding every day.
