Being proper tourists

Hola chicos,

This is my second attempt after I started typing to you 2 days ago during some kind of dry gale (what do you call it when there's loads of wind but no rain?) but then the TV aerial got fixed so I got distracted...

Chilecito has a cactus botanical garden 

We've just arrived in Chilecito for the second time after a bout of being Normal Tourists.  Pob had a sore knee after our last 200km through the wilderness from Belen, so we decided to make the most of a pause by checking into the best hotel and testing out the local heladerias and the local wine cooperativo. Apparently 25% of Argentinian wine exported to the UK comes from this province (La Rioja), and the best comes from this local coop, but the bottles often get labelled in the UK.

After visiting the local sites (this seemed more topical 2 days ago), we decided against a looong cycling detour to visit the more distant sites on the basis of time and Pob's knee. So we joined an  Argentinian couple from Rosario travelling in comfort to visit some mighty impressive rocks that were around before the dinosaurs were.

The trip from Belen to here wasn't quite so cushy, despite entirely paved roads.  We had a short ride to Londres (to be honest it's got more in common with Colaton Raleigh than London - well kept gardens, chatty locals, a stream...)

A cycle blog from 2004 told us about a hostel in a place on our route called Salicas that provided one of the worst breakfasts of their trip. We went there on Saturday night cos it's useful to know of the existence of hostels when travelling slowly through expanses of desert.  We got there to find extensive preparations for a Halloween-themed birthday party (on 9th Oct).  The owner told us only one room wasn't being used by the party-makers and it just happened to be the one right next to the party room.  We the party started at midnight and Pob tells me it went on until 7.30am, so we had a late start the next day. The hostel manager felt so guilty for all the noise he wouldn't let us pay anything for our stay.  

The next night we stayed in Pituil, again using the 2004 blog that informed us of a hostel run by an 84yr-old.  We weren't quite sure if the 90yr old would still be in business in 2010... But we got there and were relieved to find a hostel sign on the door, but after waiting outside her house for some time we discovered she was out of town!  We set about trying to find a place to stay and ended up in someone's front yard (too dusty to call it a garden) who again out right refused any money.

Tomorrow we're heading up towards the beautiful Miranda pass, and I know it's great cos we drove over it on our tour yesterday, but happily neither of us minds seeing it again at a slower pace.  After that we're torn between visiting the beautiful but barren Calingasta valley (check out the population density) or taking some paved, inhabited, but comparitively boring roads down to San Juan.  If you want to know what we chose before the next blog post, keep an eye on the map which Pob updates whenever he can.