The Americas- Week 14 (part 2) - Slowing down to a stop

The rush across Argentina brought us to the small town of Cafayate. The last fifty kilometres into the town took us through a wonderful series of valleys where the Earth's tectonic activity had pushed the land into all sorts of wonderful shapes. It was fantastic riding through the huge, brightly coloured hills.

From Cafayate we headed north, up part of Ruta 40, back on gravel road again for the first time for quite awhile. The scenery in this section changed quickly as we gathered height soon becoming very dry.

Unfortunately I paid a bit too much attention to the scenery at one point: a moment's inattention as we moved off from a scenic lookout saw me drop the bike and my ankle broke its fall. Net result, one very sore ankle,  and our planned one night stop at Cachi becoming three as I recovered.

The one blessing of this is it has given me a bit of time to altitude acclimatize; Cachi is at 2300m and has 30% less oxygen than at sea-level and I really feel it, Gaby on the other hand loves it. It will be interesting to see how we cope with the 4000+ metre altitudes of Bolivia.

The Americas - Week 14 - Paraguay

The SE corner of Paraguay, the only land-locked country in South America was visited briefly this week. The original plan had been a more extensive visit, but the unavoidably of "friends of friends" we were going to visit coupled with a growing realisation time was running away from us meant we only just touched the country. It's a pity because what we saw we enjoyed and both would have liked to stay longer and get a feel of the place. As it was the three days there left only impressions thatthat  limited and somewhat superficial.

After leaving Paraguay the rest of the week was spent riding the long and relatively boring highway running from the east of Argentina to the west in an attempt to make up some time and get closer to our next country, Bolivia.

Below are just a few random photos from Paraguay to give a flavour of the place. Future blog pospo I hope I can be a bit less rushed and give an slightly better account of our weeks wanderings.

The Americas - Week 13 - Waterfalls and ruins

Firstly an apology for the brevity of these posts - I always seem to be falling behind and this is the only way to catch up. Also most of my known readers are getting regular WhatsApp message updating them on progress - if you want these let me know.

After we exited Uruguay back into Argentina the plan was to visit the NE corner of that country to see the Iguazú waterfalls. These were one of the few things on my "must do" list for this trip. They didn't disappoint: very spectacular - far better than the more famous Victoria Falls I saw when in Zimbabwe a few years ago.

During the week we also visited a second set of falls - Mocona Falls - a set of longitudinal falls in the same river system. Not as spectacular in height but impressive at nearly 3 km long.

A few photos of both are below as are also some of Jesuit Mission ruins we visited.

The Americas Week 11 and 12 - Uruguay

We crossed to Uruguay just intending a quick visit to the south west corner of 3 or 4 days. Somehow this expanded to twelve. We both instantly liked the country- a place of no great "wow"sights but instead of lovely people and a beautiful calm way of life. A country that is trying hard to balance progress in the modern world with respect for its history and traditions - and seemed to be succeeding.

Here are a few photos to whet your appetite.

The Americas Week 10 - Buenos Aires

Week 10 - Buenos Aires

After four weeks away visiting family Gaby flew back to rejoin the trip at Buenos Aires. Given she would be jet lagged we decided on spending four days in the city. From a practical point by of view this was a good choice but it was a city neither of if us really liked or took to, and we were glad to move on at the end of this. BAs problem is it is big (4 million people), noisy, dominated by cars and has no real distinguishing sights or features of its own.

Our destination after BA was Uruguay which meant one days traveling and one last night in Argentina before crossing the border. Getting out of BA is an adventure- a huge intertwining network of 6-10 lane motorways funneling you and thousands of would be Formula 1 drivers first one way and then another; without GPS it feels it would be a suicidal mission, with, its only a nightmare - like a video game with serious consequences of you make a wrong move (in case you haven't worked it out, no I did not enjoy it).

The last night in Argentina was so spent in the town of Guarlaguaychu - a small, quiet and remarkably pleasant river side town and a wonderful antidote to BA.