Henri talked about the ride to the border with such passion that we invited him to join us and perhaps to go into Mendoza where he had a friend he could visit. Unfortunately, after trying to arrange to do this, he was unable to get the necessary documentation in place. This was a tragedy as the ride was astonishing through wonderful mountains, hairpin bends and spectacular scenery.
Brian really got in 'the zone' and we were through the hairpins in quick time with a smooth, continuous flow of leaning from side to side. He really is brilliant at this type of stuff.The border crossing felt very strange. There were such long distance between each process. No-mans land went on for ages but what a helpful and friendly lot they were. Everything was under cover and the staff came to us, not the other way round. Very impressive. For a short period we and the shed felt like celebrities again when a Colombian family asked to have their photos taken with us.
This wasn't the last we saw of them either.The first sight of Argentina was quite breath taking. The road was banked by beautiful mountains and the road, though patchy was a joy to ride.
On to Mendoza, a beautiful, clean, unhurried and open city. It took us a while to decide on a hotel, largely due to the amount of help and advice we kept being given, but we eventually settled on the first hotel we had tried which was across from the main Plaza. We had arrived in time for a bank holiday weekend so there was some bustling going on in the Plaza and around some of the street. We tried some delicious Argentinian steak in one of the street cafes and took several strolls around the town. On one of these we met up with the Colombian family we had met at the border and surprisingly he recognised us without our gear on. On Sunday we enjoyed a morning going round a couple of wineries and an olive grove and processing business where, much to my surprise, I found I quite like bread soaked in vigin olive oil of different varieties. Both wineries were traditional, family concerns and we were shown how to go through the different stages of wine tasting. I now know about it's legs, what I'm supposed to be smelling and what the colour indicates. However, this wine tasting will never remain as clear and fresh in my mind as the afternoon wine tasting in Moxee , Washington with our friends Roy and Shelley.
On the Monday were ready to move on south in Argentina heading for Malargue. To our surprise we woke up to dark skies and rain, something we hadn't had for a while. Brian checked the forecast and it seemed it would start to clear as we headed down the country so we took our time getting the shed packed and once the rain head eased of a bit we set off. It took us a while to get out of the city but we were soon making good progress and the rain remained light and intermittent. Until, that is, we had reached the open wilderness, where there was nowhere to shelter, nowhere to stay and no real option but to keep going forward.
Water stayed on the road surface making it inevitable that when the occasional, and I mean occasional, car or truck came towards us we were drenched in road surface water. The bike was at risk of water planing and Brian was having a lot of difficulty with visibility. Sat as a pillion you become very aware of every shake of the head, checks of the dials and tension in the shoulders of the rider. This, combined with the silence between rider and pillion speaks volumes. It's easy to sense when things are not going well but there really is nothing you can say. Brian and I are now very good at digging deep and getting through these things. There was absolutely no sign of this rainstorm passing and eventually the water started to find it's way inside my jacket, running down my neck and down the front and back of my body. With this turn of events I started to get cold and was really beginning to think that we were never going to reach the next town, San Rafael, but come across it we did and just in time. We stopped at the first hotel we came to not caring what it cost or what facilities it had as long as it had hot water. Brian was absolutely shaking from head to toe, even more so than on Friday the 13th. The guy at the hotel hurried us to our room and turned the heating on full whack and I made Brian get in the shower whilst I got some dry clean clothes from the panniers. Once we were warm and dry the staff made us a delicious sandwich, which along with a Cerveza made everything in the world seem much better. We then found ourselves with the problem of trying to get everything dry. Initially I put stuff on and around the heater but this was clearly going to take a long time. About 4 hours later the sun burst through and it was hot enough to hang things on the trees and hedges to try and get them dry.
Thank goodness! A little earlier I had been into the bathroom where Brian had put the sheepskin to dry. It stank to high heaven and I had to put it outside because it was making us feel sick. Thank goodness the sun is nice and hot in Argentina. Pretty soon much of the gear was dry or so we thought.The following morning we got ready to go on to Malargue our original destination. We were a bit late checking out but the receptionist was fine about this. Brian put his boots on and they were still wet inside. His gloves, though dry, absolutely reeked but for all that we were still glad to be on our way and traveling in beautiful sunshine.
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