It was flat and sunny and hot but there was a headwind and I struggled. Urs, Gustuavo, and I stopped for pastries and fruit and ate inside a partially constructed home for the shade. We continued and Gustavo rode far ahead, a strong rider. A police checkpoint inspected licenses as we cycled by. It was a holiday and very few businesses were open along the road to Mendoza. 18km from Mendoza we stopped at a tienda for cold beer, sliced mortadella. The proprietor was Mexican and he and Gustavo spoke of Mexico and the proprietor prepared the tomatoes and onions we had purchased earlier on the table in short order. Familiar Mexican music played and Gustavo sang, feeling at home. The man had left Mexico 10 years earlier due to the violence in his town. The beer was cold and refreshing but my legs still ached heavily.

We rode into Mendoza and for a large city it is subdued and beautiful and tranquil. We found an inexpensive hostel and cooked a risotto which we shared with two other travelers. We drank wine late into the night.

In the previous night we rode from Albardon where we had camped for 2 nights in a Finca. The finca hosted about 7 “WOOFers,” individuals who engage in voluntary slavery to escape from office work. In return for food and shelter, they work the farm. Then they return back to western cities. The finca was very modern with comfortable quarters for the woofers, a swimming pool, a greenhouse, animal barns, gardens, and vinyards. On the second night at the finca, 150 guests arrived and camped at the finca, part of an organization to protest the contamination from the mining of Barrick Gold.

We rode 120 km that day in the sun and desert on flat roads and could not find shade trees for our campsite. We decided to push on to the next town and possibly locate a town square. Gustavo and Urs rode ahead and as I passed a small oasis tienda at a small desert finca I saw the two of them sitting and drinking beer with a family. We drank three liters of beer with the family and they gave us bread with fried pork cracklings—pan con chicharon. A man of about 30 gave us a tour of the finca—across the street he was building a home made with local brick and a concrete foundation. The finca itself had pigs, ducks, and chickens. A huge mountain of old bread from a nearby panadaria fed the animals. We were invited to camp in the family’s yard for the night and sat and drank mate with the family of 8. Mate is drunk in a small cup with much sugar. A person drinks the entire cup of mate and then returns the cup to the mate preparer, who then passes the mate to the next imbiber. The younger men then invited us to drink tea with sugar in the second building behind the tienda and we watched Mad Max and The Simpsons. At around 10 I got in my tent and could not move and skipped dinner. In the morning I awoke at 6 with the chickens and photographed a beautiful sunrise and the Argentinean flag in front of the finca.

After I spent two nights with Herbert and his family I rode towards Chilecito. I spent a night in Chilecito in a hostel filled with road workers. The city was pleasant and in the morning I waited in line with many others to withdraw currency from a bank machine. I ate breakfast with the owner of the hostel and she spoke about her life in Cordoba earlier and the more tranquil life she now had in Chilecito. I was sad to leave her hospitality, but I had to ride Cuesta de Miranda, a hot, gravel climb of red, green, and tan rocks. The ascent required 5 hours of effort and the descent one hour. The road workers from the hostel cheered me at the summit. I landed in Villa Union and waited 30 minutes for the market to open and bought provisions. I needed to spend some time on the computer, so I rented a room for the night. On my way to the room, I encountered Urs and Gustavo, cyclists from Switzerland and Mexico, Urs riding from Alaska and Gustavo from Peru. I wished them well and ate dinner with a man from Cordoba who cooked me a chicken milanesa with salad and local wine. In the morning I rode towards Guandacol and at a gasoline station I encountered Urs and Gustavo once again as I ate a milanesa. We rode together to a fine spot in the desert and camped for the night. The next day we rode together until outside a town near San Juan and spent two days camping and cooking asado and pizza and realaxing. We rode a long day in the morning, 60km outside Mendoza, and spent the night with a family who had a tienda and finca in an oasis in the desert. We then rode to Medoza where we encountered a cheap and friendly hostel, where we cooked risotto on Monday night with other travelers and asado the next night with French cyclists.