Day 58

Today was a nice relatively easy day. I only had 45 km and 500 vertical meters to go to Humahuaca. I made it there in about 3 hours. There was little wind today, which made things much easier than yesterday. I started to feel the altitude today for the first time. I am at about 10,000 ft. now and still have another 2,500 ft. To climb. I found Humahuaca to be a little touristy with lots of little stands selling trinkets and stuff. However, the prices are still reasonable. I found a hostel a few blocks from the central square for $8 a night. I then settled in and explored the city a little. Later in the evening I found a coffee shop with wi-fi and hung out there for the rest of the evening surfing the net and listening to pan flute covers of US pop songs. It would have been a nice evening if it had ended there, but unfortunately it did not. I got food poisoning from some empanadas I had for dinner, and I was sick as a dog all night. I barely slept. Good thing I was planning to take the next day off anyway to watch the Argentina soccer match.

Day 57

Today was a crazy day. I climbed 4000 ft. with a strong headwind. At times I was only going 4 mph. This lasted for about 3.5 hours. Then I reached a more gradual climb and maintained that to Tilcara. To top things off, my chain broke on the climb. I tried to repair it but it kept on breaking. I eventually replaced the chain with a spare and the problem was solved. The scenery was great the whole day, lots of colorful rock formations and a stream that went along the valley the whole way. When I arrived in Tilcara and found a nice hostel with Internet and cable tv. I just hung out on a couch the rest of the evening, occationally going out to play with the hostel owner's dog.

Day 56

Today was beautiful, light breeze, no clouds, in the 70's. I made my way further up the valley for about 75 km. It was a really gradual climb, hardly noticable. The one bad thing today was that the road turned into a highway where bikes were not permitted. I went on the highway anyway and just biked in the gravel on the side of the road. This lasted about 25 km. When I arrived in Jujuy I was feeling very good and decided to push on to a small town called Yala about 20 km more. This was a great call. I found a cool hostel filled with young people from Argentina, Colombia, France, Italy, and Belgium. It was comfortable and only about $6 a night. They were painting the building when I arrived, and a girl with red paint put a dot in my forehead like an Indian. There was another biker staying there. He was traveling from Colombia to Ushuaia. We chatted about our trips. The whole hostel ate together family style.

Day 55

I had nice 120 km ride today to J.V. Gonzalez. Since it is Sunday there was very little traffic. This turned out to be very useful as the condition of the road was pretty bad. I biked down the left side of the road most of the time so I could weave through all the pot holes and cracks. I had a great tail wind for the last hour and a half and arrived after a little less than 5 hours of biking. I found a little hotel at the edge of town and headed out to a bar to watch the Argentina world cup game. I have barely drank any alcohol this entire trip, so even a small beer makes me feel like a light weight. I can see the Andes Mountains on the horizon now. Tomorrow I will begin to cross them. After 7 weeks of biking I am ready.

Day 54

My knee still hurt a little this morning when I woke up so I decided to do a half day ride. I made it to Taco Pozo by around 11. The next town with a hotel was another 120 km and I knew I would be in some serious pain if I went for it. Taco Pozo is a nice little town with a few paved roads. It seems to be bicycle central. The people around here are too poor to afford a car so they bike instead. I saw 3 bike shops within a few blocks of my $12 a night hotel. I also found out that they do not have electricity here from 8 am until 2 pm due to fuel shortages. The US was eliminated from the world cup today and people were in the street immediately afterwards cheering for Ghana. I suddenly feel like I am in a hostile place.

Day 53

Today was a long day to Monte Quemado. I went 193 km in a little over 8 hours. It rained today, but not too bad. It started and stopped a few times. There was little traffic on the road and a several times there were no cars in either direction as far as I could see. The road is incredibly straight around here, not even the slightest change for 50 km at a time. I saw a few people on the side of the road today and on a few occations they yelled out "yeeewww!". This is like whistling loudly or yelling "yeehaa!" in the US and is really common around here. For long stretches of road it was like biking down a tunnel. There were 10 ft. high shrubs like a wall in either side of the road. It came right up to the side of the road, no band of grass or anything.

Today was really interesting in the wildlife department. I saw a dead ant eater in the side of the road. Later on I saw a dead cow covered by about 50 vultures. I saw some ferral sheep today as well. They looked so funny, covered from head to toe a thick blanket of burrs tangled in their fur. However the most interesting animals saw today were a couple of wild boars. I had stopped for some water and I looked up the road and saw a large black animal. I biked towards it and eventually realized what it was. It was maybe 400 lbs. and had little tusks. I stopped to take a picture while I was a few hundred feet away. Boars can be dangerous so I tried to be careful. After a picture I biked towards the boar while yelling loudly to try and scare it off, but it didn't work. I quickly bike by it passing within about 20 ft. of it.

After arriving at my destination I got settled in my hotel and then were out for some dinner. I ended up picking up a pizza, and while I waited for it to cook I started to chat it up with some two cute gypses. They lived in a tent at the edge of town they told me. When I asked them what they did for a living, they said that the job of all gypse women was to bring luck. I love that answer! When my food was ready they wished me good luck on my trip.

My right knee is acting up a bit. I took some ibuprofen and that helped. This has happened a few times after my longer days.

Day 52

I slept very poorly last night and only got about 3 hours of sleep. I went to bed at 9 but woke up at midnight and just rolled around in bed for the next 7 hours. After that I didn't feel up for a day of biking, so I decided to stay one for day and try to actually get some rest. I eventually got to sleep and was in bed until 1 in the afternoon. I went for a little walk around the city but there was not too much to see or do here. I will try to make it to monte quemado again tomorrow.