We are in the process of preparing for our return to France.

  • We are looking for places to sleep in between Madrid and Paris (we only need a little corner of land to pitch the tent!). If you can help us out, please follow this link.

  • We already have a couple of conferences lined up along the way. To see the schedule, follow this link. We would be happy to met with you!

We are also looking for an apartment in Paris or the surrounding area, starting in mid-May 2010. Any help or suggestions would be most welcome!

In the desert without internet

There’ve been no articles for a while. Why? Because you can’t get on the internet in Argentina in towns with less than 20,000 people. In all the countries we’ve been through since Mexico, there’s been internet access in the towns, and sometimes it was hard to get to a computer since there were so many people trying to get on the network. Here, in a little village of about 5000 people, they looked at us like we were crazy when we asked, and they told us that there was no internet access in town. Four days ago in Villa San Agustin de Valle Fertil (7000 people) we found about a dozen computers connected through dial up. It didn’t work once the whole 2 days that we were there. We wrote an article (below) that we just finished.

In Catamarca, we had a wonderful time at a an “asado” [barbecue] that Daniel and his friends invited us to. They made a special effort for us – they started the barbeque at 10 pm, much earlier than they would have normally. We started eating the delicious grilled beef sometime around midnight….

We also got to try the favourite Argentinean cocktail: Fernet Branca (like a warm martini) mixed with Coke! We preferred the red wine… without ice or water or soda water, naturally!

We had a wonderful evening, fun and social, and we thank them!

After going to bed around 3 with full stomachs, you won’t be surprised to hear that we had some trouble getting up and going the next morning. We left Daniel’s – rather sadly – around 11. The wind pushed us along, and we blasted through our previous average speed (23.3 km/h over 77 km, compared to 20.8 km/h). All thanks to the wind!

The region has a Mediterranean climate, and we crossed through huge olive plantations, hundreds of hectares each. All those fields of olive trees actually made the landscape seem monotonous: stretches of trees, bushes and spiny shrubs each bigger than the one before. To distract us on the flat stretches, sometimes lasting 10, 20 or sometimes 30 km, we saw only a few surprised animals crossing the road and then scurrying into the bush. We don’t know what they’re called in French, and we forgot the name in Spanish too, but they look like rats with a shell on their backs and can move very quickly. We forgot to tell you – for the last 3 weeks we’ve been seeing lots of parrots, in pairs and in groups of nearly 100 birds. They’re really noisy when they stop in a tree, and they are very shy and we can’t get close enough to take a picture. We’ve also seen condors and foxes.

Wednesday we left the bikes and went on a 3 hour drive through the “Valle de la luna,” the valley of the moon. You need a car and a guide to get into the provincial park, a world heritage site because of the dinosaur fossils that were discovered in this semi-arid environment. We got to see strange spherical rock formations, and coloured geological layers. To be honest, though, we were a little disappointed. 

After a day of rest, we set out for two long stretches of 110 km each in the desert, with the wind at our backs. The only distraction was the “Difunta Correa” shrine, who according to legend died of thirst in the desert and her son was found 4 days later still suckling at her full breast. Pilgrims from across the country come to leave bottles of water for her, to quench her eternal thirst. 

Then we went through several vineyards and cultivated areas in the San Juan region before re-crossing the desert, this time with a strong headwind. We had the wind at our backs again for the fourth leg and now we are in Mendoza, the fourth biggest city in Chile, with internet access! We’re going to stay a couple of days here to see the city and the region, visit a microfinance institution (if they agree to see us…), see the bodegas (caves) and to fix Sara’s back wheel.

Sébastien

[Drapeau de Argentine Heather | Le 19-10-2009 20:40 | 1 comment]

Comments

[Etats-Unis Berta Brack | Le 13-11-2009 19:05]

I think the "rats with shells" are armadillos, in Spanish and English. Common to Texas in the USA.

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