My favorite moments from a bicycle trip through Argentina - the Mendoza to Villa Gral. Roca

I do have plenty of interesting mini-stories from that trip as it took us four months and we have made in that time over 1200 km. When I say "we", I have in my mind me, my husband Krzysztof, and our boyfriend @willeusz. Amazing time, sometimes stressful but mostly simply beautiful and inspiring. I will describe it in a few publications, trying to remind myself of the funniest, weirdest, or most exciting moments from visiting each region. Let's start with Mendoza and part of the San Juan district.

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Hospitality of the Argentines

The first days of travel are always the hardest. In our case, this effort was intensified by the fact that we did not really train at all before we started the trip, and when we had to cycle through semi-desert landscapes in heat and with backpacks weighing 25 kg, we got sweaty and all in tears more than once. Our buttocks ached from cycling 8 hours a day and our bodies were overheating. In addition, the described district was filled with small thorny plants that were hard to see with the naked eye, and which constantly pierced our tires on bicycles.

_{Most of our wild camps looked like that. Not many trees to hide, but also not too many people that we would have to hide from}

However, when we needed help, the Argentines were always ready to give it to us - once someone fixed our wheels for free and provided us with canned food for the road, another time we were given a yard to set up a tent and we were offered wine, and once when we had to sleep in a park in the city center, exchanging the guards, in the morning two girls brought us sandwiches and hot yerba mate. Each time we tried to repay as much as we could. No one ever wanted to accept the money, but travel stories and traditional Polish belts hand-made by us were welcomed with a smile on a face.

_{Spending so much time away from any people forced us to learn quickly how to change the wheels on our own. Without that knowledge, we could wait days for some help}

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The Polish language is so difficult

One of the most uninhabited places we were in was the town of Villa Gral. Roca in the San Luis region. We rode our bikes there for two days without encountering a single car during that time. The sleeping town seemed deserted, and yet - apparently our rest in the main square was closely watched by locals who were not used to tourists to such an extent that they decided to call the police. The policemen who arrived at the place were very friendly - they asked us about the destination, gave some advice on the further route we should choose, and then wrote down the data from our passports just in case to have our details in case of any problems (the next day they drove the route about which we mentioned, making sure we didn't get a flat tire somewhere in the middle of the desert and that we didn't need any help).

However, writing down our names from passports turned out to be a problem. My husband, Krzysztof, who has a surname composed almost entirely of vowels, was so difficult to decrypt that ... the policemen gave up on any attempt and wrote down Krzysztof "Surname" in the documents. Just like that.

_{The main square in Villa General Roca, where we met mentioned policemen}

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The first chapels on the way

Argentineans build chapels for their saints along the roads (mainly San Expedito, responsible for travel safety) and offer water bottles, letters with prayers, money, and small items as sacrifices. This religious folklore is completely unknown in Europe and interested us very much from an ethnographic point of view. When we came across the first chapels on the way, we were always eagerly stopping, exploring what was in them, reading prayers to the saints, and ... taking a lot of photos. The shrines were beautiful for the most part, but sometimes the accumulation of old plastic bottles with water made the oldest ones look more like a wild landfill than a place of worship.

BTW, San Expedito is a very interesting character, to whom I will certainly devote a whole post in the future, telling you his story and writing about dozens of chapels that we saw along the way.

_{Chapels found on the way}

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Lots of free campings and ... toads in the shower

Two things in Argentina are great from a backpacker's perspective: first of all, in every town, even the smallest ones, there is free wifi on the main square. It is not very fast, but it allows you to check e-mail and social media. Secondly - most villages, even those in the most unattractive places, have public campsites that are available for free or at a very low cost. These campgrounds are always clean, well prepared for tourists (or locals who come there on weekends to prepare the "Asado", Argentinian BBQ), they even have showers, although 99% without hot water and half of them without electricity. In such clean, but dark, basement-like showers, I have discovered several times that I am bathing ... with toads!