La Rioja

things have been intense since leaving cafayate. the next day i had a really tough climb with maybe 35 mph headwinds. at some point i realized i was not going to make it to a town before nightfall and started looking for a place to camp. since i was climbing up a mountain, flat ground was sparce. i ended up seeing what i thought was a house, and i knocked on the door to see if i could camp in their yard. no one answered. i figured the place was abandoned, and opened the door. inside was some kind of shrine to san antonio, and a perfect place to spend the night. i hope san antonio didn't mind!
the next day i biked into Tucuman and this guy invited me to spend the night at his and his mom's house. i think if i'd have known how poor they were, i might have said "no". it was a little crazy. also, the guy (alvaro) gave me his bed, so he, his mom, and his younger brother and sister all slept in one bed! the roads weren't paved in alvaro's neighborhood. i think he lived in the argentinian version of the ghetto part of town. lot's of people just hanging out in the street. their house was made out of cinderblocks with a corregated steel roof. the bathroom was shared with another family and was in their yard. at night they locked their gate, so alvaro's mom said if i had to pee at night i had to pee in a bucket. i made sure i didn't drink too much water that night. i showed his little brother and sister my camp stove and made them soup. they thought it was the coolest thing they had ever seen. alvaro was a janitor in the local hospital and went to work at 6:00am. they said i should definately leave in the morning with alvaro because if i walked around the neighborhood by byself someone would rob me. it doesn't get light until 7:00 so i ended up hanging out in this gas station for a while. know what's crazy? all the gas stations in argentina have expresso machines and serve really good pastries. it's pretty awesome.
about 50 miles south of tucumán, this jeep full of people stop and a guy jumps out of the car and asks me if i'd like to come to his family bbq. i say sure and end up at this families house eating insane, insane amounts of meat. it was so crazy because the whole family was
there, aunts, uncles, grandma's kids... everybody. and eveyone was talking to me at once and drinking all this wine and then some would would yell at everyone to be quiet and let me eat and then in a few seconds they'd all start up again. the grandma was the best. at one point she told everyone to be quiet, and made really intense eye contact with me and said, "tell me jessie, in 10 months of biking you haven't found anyone to share that tent of yours?" my face turned bright red and i was like, "no, no way!"

this is a photo of one of the aunts named mercedes with a bunch of the kids. i ended up spending the night at mercede´s house. it was pretty intense. we shared a bed, and she was really into astrology. apearently i am a "monkey" in chinese astrology. she had this whole book on the subject and read me all about the monkey. while this was going on, she was giving me some kind of moisterizing hand treatment that involved a special lotion and then i had to wear these plastic gloves over the lotion for like a half hour. i have very little interest in astrology in english, and then in spanish there are a lot of words i don't understand. at one point after reading about the monkey for like a half hour, mercedes went to get the dictionary. i was thinking, "good god, how much longer is this chapter about the monkey?" and so i tried to turn the pages of the book to find out, but i couldn't do anything with those plastic gloves on! i felt so trapped. i was really exhausted and was trying to figure out what to do, and i was thinking, "ok, if you were in this situation communicating in english, what would you say?" but i just started laughing because there's no way i would ever end up hanging out in my underwear, with plastic gloves on, sharing a bed with a middle aged lady who was into chinese astrology. anyways, when mercedes came back i just told her i was going to take the gloves off, wash my hands and go to sleep, and that i was sorry i was so tired.
the next day i was planning to stay in this town la merced, but they didn't have a hotel and i really needed a good night of sleep at this point. so, i headed into catamarca making it a 90 mile day. i stopped at this bike shop to see if they sold shimano 9 speed chains, and the woman working behind the counter invited me to spend the night at her house. Vilma said she had a big yard where i could put up my tent. i told her i liked her shirt, which said I (heart) AR, and was a take off on the I (heart) NY shirts. and so she gave me one. isn't that nice! Vilma and her family were so nice! i couldn't believe it. it was really great hanging out with them.
argentinians have a really different schedule then we do. they get up in the morning and go to work, but then after lunch they go home and spend the whole afternoon sleeping. then around 4 or 5 they go back to work, and then come home again at around 9:30 at night and eat dinner at like 10:00 or 11:00. by the time i got to bed at Vilma's it was midnight. i was so tired i crawled into the tent and passed out in all my clothes with out bothering to get into the sleeping bag.
last night i didn't make it to a town and ended up camping on some abandoned railroad tracks. i was feeling really tired and fell asleep in the tent even before the sun set. i still felt really exhausted this morning so i only biked like 30 miles to this town la rioja. i just need some chill time to relax i think. i really love meeting all these people, but it's also draining to hang out at the end of the day instead of sleeping. argentinians are definately the nicest friendliest people of my whole trip. it's really amazing. anyhows... i hope eveyone is good! love,
-jessie

cafayate

i haven't been taking that many photos lately, so i don't have too much to post. but man, i'm loving being in argentina. you can drink the water here, the people are so, so friendly, and the scenery is really beautiful. sometimes i worry that i'm going to spend all my money and get fat though. literally i've been eating steak and icecream every day. i just can't help myself. everywhere you look are icecream shops and steak restaurants.
bolivia was really hard for me because i mostly camped. i didn't have any denatured alcohol so i couldn't use my stove. and most nights i would make myself raw hot dog and mayonase and ketchup sandwhiches in the vestibule of my tent. now i eat steak and icecream! when i was in salta, i bought some more denatured alcohol and some pasta and sauce, so now if i do camp, at least i can cook dinner.

i've been cycling along this river gorge. this place was called "garganta del diablo", which means throat of the devil. argentina is the first country i've been in, outside of the US and canada, where people have cars for personal use. in every other country the there were mostly just busses and semi-trucks on the road. all these drivers were pulled over here and there were hippies selling jewelry and other crafts to the toursits. there were all these kids climbing around on the rocks, but my favorite part of garganta del diable was this guy who was selling slices of quiche. i ate four pieces. they were great.
the argentine country side is really quiant. along the road are signs for people selling homeade wine and olive oil, or maybe cookies or empanadas. i've just been eating so well. i can't believe it. last night i stayed in this woman's house who rents rooms. i showed up during siesta time, and everything seemed shut, but her grandson let me in, and then woke up his grandma to show me the room. the woman's name was maria copa. she was so, so nice. the water for ths shower was heated by a wood stove, and all the washing was done by hand in an outside sink. there was a beatiful garden with roses and a pomogranate tree, and it was so warm there that the edges of the roses were burnt from the heat. it's hard to believe that winter will come soon. i pretty much just hung out in the garden and read till the sun went down. i stupidly didn't take any photos though. anyways.... hope everyone is doing good. love,
-jessie
p.s. cafayete is a big wine growing region, and today i biked past a bunch of wineries. no wine tasting for me though. i thus far have resisted the urge to drink and bike. ha ha...

salta

yay, internet at a resonable speed! this is a photo of me in southern bolivia sitting on top of a plant called yareta. it looks like a giant head of brocoli, but actually belongs to the same family as carrots and parsley. everything is southern bolivia was crazy looking.
this is laguna colorado. the lake is red due to some kind of mineral deposits. all these birds in the forground are flamingoes. there were probably 60 mph winds sweeping across the lake while i was there.
on the last day of my tour, we stopped at this little pueblo for lunch. i didn't totally understand what they were talking about, but eventually i got that there was some type of special bolivian mummy that we could go see. so... these were not mummies. they were literally decomposing bodies layed out on a rock. it was so crazy! like i literally could have reached out and touched these bodies if i'd wanted to. i have no idea who the the "mummies" were or why they were on that rock.

this is the last photo i took before that hail storm got really bad.

and then this is a photo of those truck drivers who rescued me from the strom. i gave them post cards of california, and they totally loved them. it's funny, people in bolivia went crazy for those post cards. there was one day in this market, where i gave one to this kid, and then next thing i knew, i was surrounded my kids and adults with outstretched hands all wanting post cards.
this is a photo of one of the truck drivers with the quirquincho. pandemonium broke out shortly after i took this photo because the quirquincho got scared and had diarhea all over the restaurant table.

i am so, so happy to be in argentina. pretty much all i've been doing since i got here is eating steak and icecream. for the first three days, i literally went downhill all day. in the afternoon there was a pretty strong headwind, so i didn't go that fast, but three days of downhill was great! i think i dropped from maybe 12,000' to about 3,000'. as i've dropped in elevation, the scenery changes have been really dramatic.
i've been cycling along this river valley called the quebrada de humahuaca. it's a UNESCO world heritage site because people have lived in this valley for 12,000 years. lot's of archeological sites and cave-paintings and whatnot. the colored sediments in these rocks are from about 65 million years ago back when dinosaurs disapeared.

i'm totally out of the high country now, and it's been super tropical and warm. the air smells like flowers and i've seen so many butterflies. for me, it's really nice to be somewhere warm after all that cold weather and hail! yesterday i was coming to this town called calderon. i crossed a river and saw a pavillion with a large table full of people eating steak and drinking wine. i rode up and asked them if it was a restaurant, and they said it wasn't, but that i should join them for lunch.

oh my god they were so nice! i totally ate this huge lunch of steak and potatoes and salad and bread. they wouldn't let me pay for anything! they were from buenos aires and on vacation and they said they all had kids that were my age. today they are coming to salta and they said to give them a call because they want to take me fishing! after lunch they all started fighting about who's son i should meet when i get to buenos aires. i love argentina! this would never have happened in the US.
so... i've decided i'm going to keep biking south for another month, then take a bus to buenos aires when i'm finished. so should be home in the beginning of may. hope everyone is good! love,
-jessie

humahuaca

i'm in argentina. yay! should be the last country of my trip unless i get a crazy idea to bike over to chile. it is so, so nice to be back on pavement. also, there is a lot of meat in argentina. last night i ordered "milanesa" in this restaurant, and i think i might have eaten close to a pound of steak. i'm not kidding. like it was about 8 times the amount of meat that usually comes out at meal times, and it was so big, that it hung over the edge of my plate, and then they had to bring me another plate with french fries and salad because there was no room on the meat plate. it was a piece of meat that was maybe 10 inches in diameter and about a quarter of an inch thick. they also gave me three bread roles with dinner, and i made three meat sandwhiches with them,and like it didn't even put a dent in the quantity of steak left on my plate. also, they brought out extra virgen olive oil and balsamic vinegar for the salad. i don't think i've had olive oil since the united states. being in argentina feels like being back in a first world country. goods are sold in stores instead of along side the road on blue tarps, and there are things for sale that aren't basic necessities. it's pretty exciting. internet is still rediculously slow, so no photos. but one day....
-jessie

tupiza

slow, slow internet here and i can't upload photos. i'm getting so behind in photos. maybe in argentina the internet will be really fast and i can just do a total photo entry.
i've had a rough couple of days since leaving uyuni. i'm not sure why, but my map failed to show that there was a road between this town atocha and tupiza. when i got into atocha, i couldn't find the way out of town. the train went directly to tupiza, but my map didn't show the road, so i assumed i had to take a round about route through quechisla and cotogaita. i kept asking people were the road was, and they told me there wasn't a road, but i could just follow the river. i tried that. it was totally crazy. like i was just pushing my bike through mud. so i back tracked to the town, and finally figured out that there was a road to tupiza. this guy just told me to bike along the train tracks until i saw the highway. biking along the tracks was fine, except i was worried about a train coming. my plan was that i'd just toss the bike down the embankment and roll down after it if i heard a train. perhaps not the most awesome plan. below me i could see trucks and buses driving along the muddy banks of a mostly dry river. eventually there appeared a road along the tracks, and i started biking on it. after a couple hours i saw a truck coming the opposite direction. i asked them if i was on the road to tupiza. they said i wasn't. they offered to drive me back the way i'd come and take me to the junction were the tupiza road started. i wish whoever was in charge of roads in bolivia would put up some road signs.
the road to tupiza was really isolated, but super beautiful. i biked past clifs and strange rock formations that looked like mini-grand canyons except that they were white, pink, green and red. i saw a lot of llamas and some more vicuñas as well. the climbs were really, really hard. i guess i'm still not totally used to the altitue. i'd bike for a little bit. then have to stop, rest my forearms on the handlebars and lean over my bike hyperventilating until i'd catch my breath. climbing at over 12,000' is challenging! going downhill wasn't any easier because the grades were insanely steep, and then the roads were dirt so you had to keep your eyes on the road the whole time watching out for potholes, loose rocks, and creeks that crossed the road. at some point i came across and zinc mine and stopped to have a soda. as i started the next ascent, i noticed that it looked like it was going to rain. i made sure i had all my rain gear handy and kept climbing. by the time i got to the summit, it was raining, hailing and there was lightning crashing around me. there was no where to take shelter, and there were sheer drop-offs down to the the river valley below me. i figured the best thing to do would be to try and get down to a lower elevation. as i started the descent, the storm got a lot worse. pea-sized pieces of hail pelted my body, and the dirt road quickly turned to mud. i started to feel really cold. as i got nearer to the valley floor, the rain and hail got so bad, that i couldn't even see the surface of the road anymore. i was pretty much biking through a river of hailstones and water. it was a really steep grade, and i had the breaks on as hard as i could, but my bike still fishailed out behind me as i continued to descend the mountain. at one point there was this river of mud and water pouring out across the road. i debated taking my shoes off before crossing it, but decided time was of the essence and i needed to get out of the storm before i got hypothermic. i started to wade into the water, and the current knocked me off balance and started to drag the me and the bike towards the cliff edge of the road. i regained my balance, and thought, "i'm going to die out here." finally i got to the valley floor. i set up my tent ontop of about three to four inches of hailstones and water, and threw my sleeping bag and therma rest into the tent. i blew up the therma rest, threw off my wet clothes and climbed into the sleeping bag. i started to warm up, but was worried about the hailstones ripping through my rainfly. fortunately they didn't. i stayed huddled up like that until the storm stopped. then, i opned up the rainfly and watched the road to see if any cars would come by. there was pretty much no way i was doing any more cycling that day.
after about a half an hour, a jeep came by, but they had no room for me. then a while later i saw a truck coming, and they said they had room for the bike. i was sandwhiched in the cab between two guys chewing coca leaves. parts of the road had washed out, and i had to close my eyes as we drove over the hailstone covered road. the guys were carting around used metal like dead batteries and cans. we'd stop any time they saw a beer can along the side of the road. once we got out of the area where the storm had hit, there were cactus plants, and then the guys would also stop to pick cactus fruit. at one point they asked me if i knew what a "quirquincho" was. i told them i didn't. they said it was an animal that ate meat, and asked me if i wanted to see one. i said sure. they guy on the passenger side said, "now don't be afraid." and he reached underneath the seat and pulled out a burlap sack. inside was some kind of animal that looked a lot like an armadillo. they said they'd seen it by the side of the road and captured it to take back to la paz as a pet.
we got into tupiza as it was getting dark and stopped at a restaurant for dinner. i showed the guys my camera, and they said they wanted to bring the quirquincho into the restaurant to have it's picture taken. so... i now have a lot of pictures of a bunch of truckers holding a quirquincho inside a restaurant. i gave the truckers postcards of california, which they loved, and then bought their dinner. they didn't want me to buy the dinner i guess, and so they bought me a 2 liter bottle of coke as a way of saying thank you. i¡m not sure what i'm going to do with all that coke.
i'm taking a zero day here in tupize because i just feel really wiped out from yesterday. i feel a little bit bad about hitching that ride because it's the first time i've hitched the whole trip, but i was really freaking out and thought that i was going to die. i wonder if maybe i over-reacted because about 5 km down the road from where i'd pithed my tent, there was no more hail. so if i'd just kept biking i might have been ok. anyways... i'm here now and i'm ok, so that's the important thing, right?
-jessie

Uyuni

arg! the internet is sooo slow here. it's like being back in the 90s. i have had the most awesome couple of days. i think in the last 5 days i've taken 300 pictures!biking to Uyuni was pretty intense because the highway is dirt. no pavement, and it's the rainy season. i've slogged my way through so much mud, but the scenery has been breathtaking. i think probably these last couple of days have been some of the most beautiful scenery of the whole trip. i'm trying to convince my parents that they should take their next bike vacation in bolivia. if you think you might want to bike in bolivia, but want someone to schelp all your gear for you, send me an email because i found a really great mountain biking tour agency in la paz.
sometimes i had to cross these rivers with my bike. it was so crazy! like while i was doing it i kept thinking, "this is totally insane. but so awesome!" whenever i'd see a river, i'd take my shoes off and strap them to the top of one of the rear saddlebags. then i'd start wheeling the bike into the water. if i was lucky, it'd be a rock bottom, which the bike could roll over. but sometimes it would be a silty bottom, and i'd be bearfoot, sinking into mud in freezing cold water, trying to drag a 60 lb bike behind me. it was nuts! but really fun.
blogger and the slow internet are a bad combo, so i'm not going to load any more photos, but maybe i'll try again later. i just went on this three day tour of Salar de Uyuni, which is the worlds largest salt flat. right now it's covered in water and it is so amazing! we went driving through it in this old toyota 4x4 jeep. it felt like we were driving through the sky because the water makes a perfect relfection. the next two days we drove around the altiplano and visited these crazy lakes filled with different salts and minerals. one lake was brick red, another emerald green. and many of the lakes had flamingoes in them. i totally felt like i'd just landed on another planet. next time i get to a good internet cafe, i'll just post a bunch of photos. tomorrow i'll probably head out of here and start making my way towards the argentina border. hope everyone is doing good. love,
-jessie
p.s. also... i saw human skeletons. we stopped at this small town for lunch, and they had some kind of altiplano version of mummies, and we hiked up this canyon and there they were. three human bodies decomposing on top of a rock. it was so crazy. like they were partially bone, and partially flesh.

oruro

this is not snow. the ground is completely covered with pea-sized pieces of hail. at first it was just raining, but then it started to hail, and as the hail got larger, it really started to hurt when it hit. luckily there was a small town along side of the highway, and i was able to take shelter under the overhang of a building. there were three other stranded bike riders waiting out the storm, and i ended up sharing my clif bars with them and showing them postcards of california.

i had my parents send a bunch of postcards to me so that i would have something to give people i met along the way. it's been really fun showing them to people. ironically enough, the most popular postcard is one of a green hill with a heard of black and white cows grazing on it. bolivians are really interested in the cows because they look different from bolivian cows. one farmer asked me if they were my cows. ha ha... i told him that i lived in a city and so i didn't know too much about cows.

so i totally got whatever sickness alice and claudia had. it was raining and hailing again the other day, and i just didn't feel very good, so i stopped riding at noon and got a really crappy hotel room for about $1.25. i ended up getting really sick and laying in bed for a day and a half with a bad fever. fortunately, there was this little kitty that hung out with me all the time, and that made me feel a lot better. i think the kitty had some kind of eye infection though. anyways, feeling mostly better today. being sick is a bummer. hope everyone is good! stay healthy. love,
-jessie