The Pentadecathlon

Lake Tahoe – the lake immersion competition

Mini golf competition, pre-injury

Occasionally, my group of friends from college gets together.  Usually it’s a ski weekend or a bachelor party.  But this year, we got together somewhat on a whim, and rented a house on Lake Tahoe.

The idea was to stage a weekend of Olympic-like competition.  After significant email banter, we agreed to try and complete 15 individual events.  The technical name for a 15-event competition is a pentadecathlon, hence the name of the weekend, the inaugural PentaDeca.

The winner of each event would be awarded points (3 for first, 2 for second, etc.), and the overall winner would get bragging rights and possibly a trophy.

EVENTS COMPLETED

- Long toss (football, baseball, frisbee, basketball)

- 50m sprint

- Lake immersion (who can stay fully immersed in Lake Tahoe the longest)

- Mini golf

- 2-person kayak race in Lake Tahoe

- Gambling (everyone starts in a casino with $50 and has one hour to make as much money as possible)

- Beer pong

- Single beer chug for speed (single elimination tournament)

EVENTS ABANDONED

- 3 on 3 basketball

- Ultimate frisbee

- 4x50m team sprint relay

- Beer boot chug

- Rock paper scissors

- Asshole (card game)

- Who can get the most random high-fives from strangers in a day

- Arcade basketball (pop-a-shot)

All in all, the competition went very well.  We completed way more events than anyone initially expected.  And besides a few pulled muscles, the only real injury of the trip occurred when Ben shanked a hole in mini-golf, threw his putter in disgust, jumped in the air, landed funny, and sprained his ankle.  An old lady then proceeded to make fun of him for injuring himself at mini golf.

Oh, and against all odds Johnny won.  He gloated a lot less than usual though.  Maybe he’s becoming an adult.

How to make Argentine asado

Again, there is not a lot of information on the internet regarding how to make an authentic Argentine asado.  So I’ve decided to document what I’ve learned.

The asado is actually fairly simple.  It is a barbecue using hardwood coals (typically mesquite), using a grilling surface that you can adjust up-and-down, to dial in the cooking height over the coals (and therefore the heat).

The hardwood imparts an incredible smoky flavor to the meat.  Coals are sold pre-made in bags (called carbon), but it is generally thought that the commercial coals do not provide the best flavor.  Instead, most Argentines prefer to generate their own coals by building a hardwood fire and waiting until the wood begins to chunk apart and burns itself into a smoldering pile of coals.

Step 1: make the fire.  This is boy scout campfire stuff, nothing special.  I like to get the whole infrastructure of the fire built before lighting it.  I typically start with some cardboard kindling, then some smallish sticks arranged in a teepee around it to get the fire going, and then arrange a log cabin structure out of mesquite logs (or leña) around that.  The logs are typically about a foot long, and I have found that splitting them first makes the whole process go a lot faster.  In the picture below, I have built two separate fires in order to generate a ton of coals, since I am cooking lots of meat.

Lots of argentines seem to like to keep a secondary fire going in the corner of the grill, usually a teepee.  They will keep adding new logs to it in order to generate new coals.  That’s a fine idea if you’re cooking for a long time, but honestly I find it unnecessary, as it adds a lot of work.  Additionally, our grill does not have space to create a secondary fire (many do, usually off to the left of the cooking area).

Step 2: prepare the meat.  After the fire has been lit, there is not much to do but wait for it to burn down for about 30-60 minutes.  So I typically spend that time getting the meat ready for the grill (or preparing a salad, or drinking mate, or whatever).

Argentine cuts of beef are different from those in the US.  They come as huge slabs, not steaks.  I usually buy a kilo or two of a few different types.  My favorites are called falda (flank steak on the bone, cut fairly thin), and vacío (an adjacent cut of flank steak, often very long and tapered).  I find these to be the most flavorful cuts, that also hold up well on the grill.  Two other famous cuts are Costilla (a very long strip of short ribs) which I don’t like because there just isn’t a lot of meat on the thing, and matambre (shallow subcutaneous flank layer), which is super thin and easy to over-cook.  Matambre de cerdo (pork) can be quite tasty, though.  I’ve also come to appreciate that tenderloin (filet mignon), while prized in the US, sucks.  It has no flavor and too little fat.

Side note: my argentine friends tell me that they will typically combine only the long cooking cuts (vacío, matambre) or the short-cooking cuts (falda, costilla) at one asado, so they will be done at the same time.  Mixing say vacío and falda at the same asado (which I do frequently because they’re my favorite) is more difficult.

In addition to meat, I usually cook a whole chicken (sliced down the middle and butterflied), and some sausages (typically the Argentine version of chorizo).  Argentines will also usually add in some morcilla (blood sausage) and possibly some tripe (tripa gorda), sweetbreads (mollejas), or intestines (chinchulines).  Though if you speak English and are reading this, those probably don’t apply to you.  We cooked tripe and intenstines the other day and Kristen almost threw up.

In order to prepare the meat, trim it of egregious excess fat (a fair amount on there is OK, but the big chunks should go), and add the spices.  Spicing the meat is extremely important in Argentine barbecue.  Here are the list of the spices you will need:

- Coarse salt

That’s it.  There are no marinades and nothing exotic. Just smoke and salt.  Go ahead and salt the absolute hell out of the meat.

It doesn’t matter if you put too much on.  The meat will take up what it needs, and the rest will fall off.

Thicker cuts should also have some slices made into them, to speed cooking.  Just make some lateral slices about half or 2/3 the way through the thickest parts of the thickest cuts.  This allows the whole piece to cook at a more constant speed (which is a serious issue for tapered cuts).

Step 3: prepare the coals.  After a while, the fire will burn down to coals.  You may need to help the process along, making sure all the logs are exposed to the fire, and breaking up the bigger coals.  Two tools are typically used to move the coals around – a shovel and a poker.

Once the coals are ready to go (glowing red, with white ash, not too big), spread them in a layer on the bottom of the asador.  You don’t need any thickness – a thin layer will do.

The coals shown above are in the final stages of preparation, but have not quite been spread thin enough yet.  I also threw on a couple of new logs (smaller ones) to make some extra coals.

It’s important to remember that once the coals are ready, you need to start cooking ASAP.  The coals are going to turn into ash pretty quickly, so your time is limited.  And unless you want to build a secondary fire, you need to get it done with the coals you now have.

Step 4: load up the grill.  Drop the grill grate to within ~5 inches of the coals and let it heat up.  People say the grill is at the proper height if you can hold your hand at about grill level for 5 seconds before having to move it.  Arrange the meat over the coals.  You can pack it in as tightly as you want.  I typically arrange the longer cooking time stuff (like chicken) over the biggest coals, and spread the coals quite thin below thinner cuts.

Step 5: cook until it’s done.  Turn the meat as needed.  You’ll probably need some intermittent re-arrangements of the coals as they burn down and hot spots become cool spots, etc. as well.  Argentines seem to like their meat scorched to beyond well done.  I’ve had it chewy before (which was bad).  But I find that somewhere around medium-well works very well for these cuts.  The combination of good fat marbling plus the salt on the outside keeps the meat very moist all the way to well done.  You can’t do that with a tenderloin.

The meat above is shown just after being turned once.

The sausages are typically done first, and are offered to guests as an appetizer of sorts, to be made into sandwiches called choripan (literally chorizo + pan).

Some additional notes:

- Some people like to squeeze a lemon over some of the pieces of meat while it’s cooking.  The acid supposedly makes the meat more tender, though I find it to be a very mild effect.

- You can also throw a couple of onions onto the coals, theoretically to impart some oniony flavor into the meat.  Again I find it to be very mild if detectable at all.

That’s it!

Quebrada de Humahuaca

Hill of 7 colors – Purmamarca

Serranía del Hornocal (taken from 14,300 ft)

Kristen with the ‘sand art’ mountain at the Abra de Condores pass on the road to Iruya (taken from 13,100 ft)

Late afternoon at the Espinazo del Diablo, on the border of the Puna

After the bike race in San Lorenzo, we drove up to the Quebrada de Humahuaca, the most famous attraction in Jujuy province.  The Quebrada is a long valley, named as UNESCO world heritage site as it has been populated for over 10,000 years and has substantial Inca heritage.  It is also very close to the Bolivian border and the well-known altiplano (called the Puna in Argentina), and as such, everything there is to do in the Quebrada is at a pretty high altitude.

Our base of operations was in Tilcara, right in the center of the valley.  We stayed at Cerro Chico hotel, which is a very nice collection of individual cabañas just outside of town.  Our guidebook was pretty low on Quebrada detail (besides simple descriptions of the towns in the valley), so we were very grateful when the eccentric Frenchman named Nour who runs the hotel gave us the run-down on the best stuff to see.

We had a total of 2.5 days in the Quebrada:

Day 1 – we woke up the first day and got to breakfast right when it opened, at 8am (it was fantastic, by the way, with croissants imported from Buenos Aires – I guess that’s what you get when an eccentric Frenchman owns the place).  First stop was Purmamarca, home to the ‘Cerro de Siete Colores’, which seems to be on every postcard of the area.  The town itself was sort of underwhelming, though the artisan market in the square was the largest and cheapest we’ve ever come across.  We did a quick 3-4k hike around the hill, which was really stunning, and had lunch in town.  Afterwards, we began to drive up to the Salinas Grandes (salt flats).  But during the ascent up to the 13,700ft pass that leads to the Salinas, we both started to feel some altitude sickness, probably around 12,000ft.  While it was probably 80% psychological and 20% physical, we decided to turn around and head back to the valley.  (The guidebook said the Salinas weren’t that great, anyway).  We stopped in the town of Maimará to see the famed cemetery, and returned to the hotel.  Nour told us to rest for the remainder of the day, as we were likely still acclimating.

Day 2 – we woke up with a renewed drive to go see some awesome stuff.  After some more amazing croissants, we made our way up to the town of Humahuaca.  Nour had recommended we stop at every settlement along the way, but we don’t really care much for towns, so we only stopped in one, Uquia.  Uquia is known for really only one thing – it’s church, with paintings of various biblical figures holding muzzle-loaded rifles.  No pictures were allowed, which is a shame, since the pictures were hilarious.

From there we drove straight to the town of Humahuaca.  On the agenda was the Serranía del Hornocal, which Nour described as the best thing to see in the whole Quebrada.  It was not in any guidebook, nor in any review of the region we had ever seen, likely because the viewpoint was at 14,300 ft at the end of a long, bumpy road.  As such, it was just what we were after – incredible sights in remote places.  We saw only one other car on the road.

Today we were prepared for the altitude.  No way were were turning back today.  Kristen had taken some Diamox, we had a thermos full of coca tea, and we had begun chewing coca leaves on the way in (an ancient remedy for altitude sickness).  I started getting woozy at around 13,500 ft, but we soldiered on to the view point.  It was all it was promised to be – expansive views of an entire mountain range with crazy colored bands of rock running through it (red and purple for iron and arsenic, green for copper, etc.).  After we gaped at the incredible landscape for as long as we could stand, Kristen decided to see how many push-ups she could do at that altitude (50 it turns out).

When we got down, it was lunch time, but we weren’t hungry.  I guess altitude saps your appetite.  At that point we were debating what to do with the remainder of the day.  We had been discussing staying an extra day to make the trip to Iruya, a very remote village at the end of a gorgeous dirt road.  But as we were way ahead of schedule for the day, we decided to just go ahead and head toward Iruya that afternoon.  We decided on the way that if this was our last day, we also wanted to see the Puna.  So instead of driving all the way to Iruya (which we were told was ‘a one-picture town at most’), we drove up to the 13,100ft pass on road leading up to it (which we were told was not to be missed).  It was incredible – there was a bald-topped mountain that looked like sand art, with pinks and reds strewn about, and a gorgeous view into the valley where Iruya was located.  Afterwards, we high-tailed it up to the town of Tres Cruces, on the edge of the Puna, and within 20 or 30 miles of the Bolivian border.  We took in the desolate sights of the Puna, as well as a crazy rock formation called the Espinazo del Diablo (huge spine of the devil), and headed back to Tilcara, thoroughly exhausted.

Day 3 – on the way out of the Quebrada, we stopped again at Purmamarca, at Kristen’s request.  She spent 2 hours at the artisan market, while I read a book (the areas in the Quebrada are known for car break-ins, so I stayed with the car.  Which was fine with me.)

This was our last real adventure in South America, and we’re very glad we went.  The Serranía del Hornocal was definitely on our list of top 5 most spectacular things we’ve seen in the past year.

How to prepare mate

There is a lot of very poor information on the internet on how to properly prepare mate.  Maybe it’s because mate preparation is so ingrained in Argentine culture, it simply needs no explanation.  Who here over the age of 4 doesn’t know how to prepare mate?

We screwed it up a bunch of times, until we finally were taught the right way by our Spanish teacher Edgardo.  When done poorly, mate tastes like bitter dead grass, but is pleasant when done correctly.  So in the spirit of sharing the wealth, below I’d like to lay out a beginner’s (or gringo’s) guide to preparing mate:

Step 1: get your supplies.  The word mate refers to two things – the herb itself, used to make the tea, and the receptacle (gourd/cup) in which the tea is made.  Mate preparation involves three pieces of equipment – the mate (drinking gourd/bowl, traditionally made of a hollowed-out calabash gourd, but can also be made of wood or plastic, as ornate or simple as you like), the bombilla (a stainless steel straw with a filter at the bottom), and a hot water source, like a thermos or water boiler (I’m using an electric hot water boiler here, though Argentines will use a thermos both indoors and out).  Brand new mate gourds need to be cured, a process which involves filling the thing up with hot water and some mate herbs, letting it steep for a while, then letting it dry out in the sun for a day or so.  You may need to repeat a few times.  It should be green on the inside and well coated with mate residue when dry.

Step 2: fill the mate up with the tea herbs, about 2/3 of the way or so.  Here I’m using a commercial mate that’s infused with peppermint-like herbs (more typical of say the Córdoba region).  Our favorite types are CBSé for infused mate, and Rosa Monte Seleccion Especial for straight mate.

Step 3: clear the herbs of powder.  The herbs always have some powder in them, which will go through the filter and taste gritty in your mouth.  In order to clear as much out as possible, wet your hand with water (you can lick it if you’re not near a sink), put it over the top of the mate gourd, and shake vigorously up and down.  Wash off the powder that sticks to your hand and repeat a few times until there does not appear to be too much powder left.

Step 4: turn the gourd on its side and shake the herbs to the bottom side of the gourd.  Insert the bombilla on the top side of the herbs, with the filter touching the lowest point of the gourd, then turn the whole assembly back to right-side-up.  The key here is to have the herb pile at a nice angle, with the high side of the pile near the drinker, and the low side away from the drinker.  If you do not insert the bombilla, the herbs will all slide back down to the bottom and the pile of herbs will be flat – the bombilla keeps the herb pile at an angle.  You will pour the water into the low side of the pile, where the bombilla filter is located.  This is so only the bottom part of the heap of herbs gets wet, while the high side stays dry.  Then, as you drink, you can constantly wet new, fresh herbs near the top of the heap.

It should also be noted that after this step, the bombilla never moves.  You don’t swish it around in the gourd, you don’t raise or lower it, you don’t twist it.  The bombilla and mate gourd are now one unit until the drinking is done.

Step 5: add water and drink.  Water temperature is very important – 140-160 degrees fahrenheit or so is optimal.  If the water is too hot, the herbs will taste extremely bitter and unpleasant.  Pour the water slowly into the back, low part of the herb heap, where the bottom of the bombilla is sitting.  You don’t want to fill it up all that much – the top 1/3 of the herb heap should be dry.  You should get maybe 2-3 sips of tea before more water needs to be added.  Once the flavor starts to wane, you can shake down some of the dry herbs at the top, or just wet the upper part of the heap.

A last note on the mate ritual – if there are multiple people sharing mate (which is common, though the last two times we did this at least one person got sick due to sharing of germs), the ritual goes as follows:

- One person is the primary mate preparer, usually the owner of the gourd.  He is responsible for preparing the tea, and refilling it with water when it goes dry.

- The primary person prepares a gourd, then passes it to around to each person in a circle, one at a time.  Each person individually drinks until the mate is out of water, at which time they pass the gourd back to the primary server.

- After he has refilled the gourd with more hot water, the primary server will hand it to the next person with the bombilla facing them.  This can continue for hours.

- Don’t say ‘thank you’ (‘gracias’) unless you’re done.  When the server passes you the gourd, you don’t say anything, just drink.

Kittens

Calico kitten peeks out from the logs

Black kitten eating some delicious food

A few weeks ago, we were driving home in the evening, and a black cat raced across the road.  Kristen spent 15 minutes trying to trap it so she could feed it and take care of it.  The next day, she bought a couple pounds of cat food to try and lure it to our house.  That’s how much she misses our cats at home.

So a few days ago, she was excited when we noticed an adult calico cat walking around on our back patio, peeking in on our asado.  We threw it some extra bits of meat and bone, and it seemed pretty happy.

Then, a couple days later, Kristen was absolutely floored when two baby kittens (maybe 3 months old) showed up on our back porch and appeared to be living in the logs under our asador (BBQ).  There were incredibly cute!  One was calico, the other black.

They were extremely afraid of people, yet over a number of evening and morning feeding sessions (Kristen made a mix of milk and cat food), they seemed to be getting pretty comfortable with Kristen, and would let her come close.  She couldn’t have been happier.  She fed them and kept them safe by chasing away dangerous foxes.  We started making plans to catch them, take them to the vet, and raise them until it was time to leave in May.

But after the 3rd night in the wood pile, the mom came back.  It was the same cat we had seen at the asado.  We haven’t seen the kittens since.  We think the mother cat located the kittens in our wood pile after she received some asado meat, thinking it was a good, safe feeding spot for them.  But maybe she noticed them getting a little too comfortable around us?  Or maybe we scared her and she protectively took the kittens away?  Regardless, it was a bit of a tragedy after how much fun we had with them over those 3 days.

Kristen still leaves food out on the sill and checks the wood pile periodically, hoping they’ll come back.

Bike race–San Lorenzo

At the start line

On the ‘Elite’ podium – Jeff took 4th!

We met Jorge Delgado at our first bike race in Cafayate.  After the race, he told us he was organizing another in San Lorenzo (the wealthy suburb outside of Salta).  So of course we had to go.

It turned out to be another ‘rural bike’ format – almost all on dirt roads, and a little pavement.  And it had a lot of climbing (1500 feet worth over 28k), which is great for me (at least when I’m in shape).

I again had to race in the ‘elite’ category, so I was up against the fast guys.  The race had a mass start, so all categories started together.  I was near the front at the start, but the yellow line rule did not appear in effect, and I was a little sketched out when tons of people swarmed around me and were passing in the oncoming traffic lane.  After a few kilometers, I found myself near the back of the pack when the elite guys at the front attacked.  I had to time trial around the slower groups to catch the break, burning matches along the way.  But there I was!  I was excited that finally my fitness was to the point where I could stay in the mix.

The race was more or less and out-and-back, 28k in total.  The first 14k were all uphill, and I was able to assert myself to stay with the chase group (two or three guys broke off the front and I couldn’t match the surge).  And even better, two of my Cafayate companions were up there with me.  After the turnaround at the halfway point, the race was mostly down and flat.  I tried to organize our chase group into a rotation to catch the break.  But about half the group had no idea what was going on.  I realized it’s hard enough to organize an assortment of road racers into a paceline, so what hope was there for a crew of MTB’ers?  A couple of the guys were sketchy, some surged, etc.  But yet it actually went OK, and we were able to put some time into the few guys up the road leading into the final climb.

I didn’t have a very good concept of where I stood by the time the final climb came around.  I guess I’m not used to being near the front at the end of a race.  The finish was also deceptive, with a large climb followed by a flat section, and a short push to the line.  I burned myself on the large climb, thinking the finish was at the top, and was out of gas.  So I churned my way in, feeling pretty good about staying with the group.  A few minutes later, I heard my name over the loudspeaker.  Huh?  It sounded like they were announcing the Elite podium.  Turns out I got 4th in the category, and about 8th overall!  Ezekiel (a Cafayate friend got 3rd), and another Cafayate racer had placed 3rd in Masters 40+.

I even got a trophy!

Afterwards, the Cafayate crew organized a small asado in the park nearby the finish, so we got to toast our results with some delicious BBQ.  What a great day.

Santa Maria bike race- Campeonato Local (Circuito de San Jose)

Start/Finish arch at the Circuito de San José

Jeff doing warm-up laps behind #1, the eventual destroyer of the field

The Cafayate crew (plus some guy and his dogs) back in town after the race

After the bike race in Cafayate, I got invited to participate in another in Santa Maria.  I didn’t know what I was in for.

I had offered to drive some racers from Cafayate up to the race.  We rigged up a trailer to carry our bikes and were off.  I generally hate driving with a trailer, but it was by far the best way to go with 6 people in our 5 person car.

When we arrived, it was clear this race was of a different class.  There were true cyclists here.  By that I mean people whose bikes were multiples more expensive than their cars.  We saw beat up 1980s trucks with $10k imported Cannondales on them.  Probably 25% of the riders were warming up on trainers.  Several teams were represented.  Lots of guys were wearing skinsuits.  I was soon told that Santa Maria is known to have the best cyclists in the country, and that several riders that had represented Argentina in the recent Panamerican Championship would be competing.  Yikes.  This race was legit.

The course was cross-country style, which around here means narrow trails and a lot of sand.  I’m not a bad technical mountain biker, but I’m a bit timid.  My first pre-ride of the 3km course revealed a super sketchy descent on the back side.  It was about a foot wide, carved into the side of a steep hill, which meant that if you hit your inside pedal, you were going down the hillside.

I was again racing in the ‘Elite’ category, and we were scheduled to ride 6 laps of the course.  From the gun, the Panamerican representatives attacked.  The group shattered almost immediately, and I was over threshold within 2 minutes of the start.  Our first time down the sketchy descent, two guys in front of me and one in back crashed down the hillside.  That was it for my race.  I was totally freaked out for the next couple of laps.  I stopped often to let faster, fearless racers pass, and was able to calm myself down and ride mostly alone, trying to simply enjoy my ride (since I was no longer really racing).  The fastest racers lapped me at the end of lap 2 of 6.  They were FLYING.  It was incredible to see.  By my fourth lap, I was settled in and riding the descent with confidence.  It was just in time to see the winner finish.  I had lost right around 2 laps in an hour of racing.  The winner (a Panamerican representative), appropriately assigned the #1 bib, absolutely destroyed the field, winning by several minutes.

Yeah, I got dusted, but I had a great time in the process.  Lots of guys pulled themselves from the race after they got lapped, which for most of us was within the first 20 minutes of racing.  I thought, “no way I drove an hour and a half to ride 20 minutes”.  Afterward, we packed the bikes back on the trailer, and I got to give an interview to a local TV network!  Being the only foreigner that ever shows up to these races has apparently given me mild fame in the local cycling community.

It was again great fun, and I’m glad I got to experience a top-level cross country mountain bike race!

Kelsey and Matt Visit

Kelsey and Matt inside the cave at the start of the waterfall hike

Climbing up to an off-trail viewpoint at the start of the Quebrada de las Conchas

Quilmes as seen from near the top of the mountain

Matt, Kelsey, Jeff, and Edgardo preparing for the asado

When we were in Patagonia, we met a lot of other travelers.  Many were young backpackers and wanderers who had never really had jobs yet.  Most of the Americans were post-college grads, sleeping all day and drinking all night.  Others were relatively old people (in their 40’s to 60’s).  So we were surprised when we met another couple in their late 20s/early 30s who had put their careers on hold to travel.  We got to talking with them in Bariloche, at the top of the Cerro Catedral hike.  Matt is a civil engineer and Kelsey is an occupational therapist.  They’re from Seattle, they were in their first month of a year-long world trip mostly hiking and climbing, they were engaged, and planning to get married during their year off.  Just like us, but 8 months earlier!  We gave them our contact info and told them to give us a call if they happened to come through Salta on the way to Bolivia.  And they did.

In all, they stayed with us for 4 days:

Day 1 – after Kelsey and Matt arrived in the early afternoon, we took them on the hike to the cross above town.  We also took Puebla, a german shepard owned by our friends John and Lindsay, with us on the hike.  The ride to the trailhead is a little bumpy, and Puebla threw up her lunch in the back of the car.  Yuck.  We spent the next few days dealing with that one.  Despite that, we had a very nice hike.  Even Puebla seemed to be enjoying herself.  She’s a great trail dog.

Day 2 – The next day, the 4 of us did the waterfall hike.  Lindsay had shown us the way a week before (the trail is not obvious, and first-timers typically need to hire a guide).  It’s a really great hike – fantastic canyon scenery, and totally different than anything else locally.  That night, Kelsey and Matt cooked for us.  They made great pizzas from scratch using their own beer dough recipe, which was a treat after avoiding the awful local ‘pizza Salteño’ for the past few months. 

Day 3 – The third day, our friend Gabi came along.  We drove out into the Quebrada to see all the local sites.  We did some extended versions of the usual hikes, including one improvised walk that ended up on a high overlook over the quebrada.  On the way back, we stopped at a roadside stand selling ‘pan casero’ (homemade flatbread similar to naan), and ‘vino patero’ (homemade wine).  We had always wanted to stop at that place, but usually when we’re in the Quebrada, we’re in a rush, or just want to get home.  As it turns out, the bread was delicious, and Kelsey and Matt bought a couple of bottles of the homemade wine, which was also very good.  We’ll be going back to that stand for sure.

Day 4 – When Kelsey and Matt arrived, they told us they had never had authentic Argentine asado.  So obviously we had to have one.  On their last day in town, we decided to go to Quilmes in the morning, and set up the asado in the afternoon.  I had never been to the Quilmes ruins, which are quite famous across Argentina (and is the namesake of the most popular beer in the country).  We hiked to the top (actually I turned around most of the way up after I started thinking about the exposure of the rock scramble we were doing) and got great views of the valley.

That afternoon, we set up the asado.  Our Spanish teacher Edgardo and his fianceé Daniela came as well, and Edgardo showed me the authentic Argentine method for making the asado, which involved using a hair dryer to fan the flames of the fire (I was laughing really hard at this).  Nevertheless, the meat came out perfectly, and Kelsey and Matt couldn’t believe how delicious the meat was using just salt and a hardwood fire.

Kelsey and Matt left the next morning for Bolivia, and we were sad to see them go.  We have a lot in common, and hope the rest of their trip is as great as ours has been.

Cafayate bike race–Carrera de los Pioneros

The start/finish arch

Kristen on the podium

Our first bike race in Argentina was such an experience that I wrote an article about it, potentially to be distributed (or published) in the NYC cycling community:

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I moved to New York in 2005 alongside several friends from college. By 2009, most of them were gone, and I was living alone. A co-worker was a road racer, and he suggested I buy a bike. A few months later, I was on NYVelocity and had a whole new group of friends. Not that this is a secret, but cycling (in particular the insanity that is known as bike racing) is a fantastic way to meet people. Wherever you go, there are surely cyclists, wishing they had someone to train with.

History repeats itself. Which is how I ended up on a street corner at 8:30am, on a Sunday, in rural Northwestern Argentina, trying to find the 1^st Annual Desafio de los Pioneros 60km mountain bike race.

Let me back up. I’m currently taking a year off from work, traveling around the world with my wife Kristen. For the past few months, we’ve been living in rural Cafayate, Argentina, trying to learn Spanish. Aside from our Spanish teacher, we didn’t have too many ‘local’ friends in town. But we had mountain bikes. Pretty decent ones, actually. We’d tool around trying to find whatever local trails and rides we could, with mixed success. Then one day our Spanish teacher told us he’d met a guy at the gym who was organizing a mountain bike race in town 3 weeks from now. There would be a preview ride of the course this Sunday – would we like to join?

I thought I was done bike racing in 2011. I love riding, but I also run and swim and hike now, too. But the draw was too much – when else would I have the chance to compete in a rural Argentine bike race?

So I went to the preview ride. It turned to be just me and one other guy. And the course was . . . unexpected. For a town that’s in the front ranges of the Andes, the course was dead flat, a circuit on the valley bottom. And it was half on asphalt roads, half on rough dirt farming roads (way rougher and sandier than Battenkill) – sort of like a road race that required a mountain bike. And so I learned that there are two types of mountain bike races in Argentina – Rural Bike (XR), and Cross Country (XC). This course was thoroughly Rural Bike. In any event, the other guy (Nicolas) and I chatted in Spanish for the full couple hours it took to ride the course. Now, my Spanish is pretty good. But it’s often hard to have substantive conversations with locals since I talk somewhat slowly and use odd words. But Nicolas had nowhere to go. He was stuck talking to me for 2 hours. Luckily, he was a tolerant guy, and we had a great time chatting.

And so it began – Nicolas and his buddies would be our first real local friends. He invited me to join him and a couple other guys for some weekday trail rides. And maybe some long weekend rides into the mountains. He assured me: “no somos locos. Pero nos gusta mountain bike.”

3 weeks of training does not prepare you to race bikes. I did my best to simulate an abbreviated cycle - training 6 days a week, stepping up from endurance to tempo to sub-threshold training, long rides with Nicolas on the weekends. I lost 5 pounds and my legs got significantly bigger (it’s funny how fast your body remembers), but I wasn’t really there. And what’s more, I had no idea how good everyone else was going to be.

The day of the race came. Nicolas had told me to be at registration at 8:30am, since the race was set to start at 9:30am. When Kristen and I showed up, there was nobody there. And I realized I had mis-translated. Nicolas had meant Argentine 8:30, which is sometime between 9:15 and 9:30.

As other racers began streaming in, I got to size up the field. I had been curious about this – in the middle of nowhere, were the guys on $10k bikes going to come out of the woodwork? It turned out that nope, they weren’t. A few guys from nearby Salta were riding imported Cannondales and Giants, but for the most part the racers had a mosaic of locally made frames of all ages and states of repair (I was riding a locally-bought Zenith Astra). This would be truly interesting – in the States, I had always assumed that the strongest guys could have won on just about any bike, but now I was going to see firsthand if that was true.

Kristen and I seemed to be local curiosities – two Americans wearing slick-looking custom kits, come here to race in the middle of nowhere. One guy asked me if I was a pro. I had to explain that no, the sponsor listed on my shirt was in fact a food truck that serves Belgian waffles. Which was difficult, because they have neither food trucks nor waffles in Argentina. He asked me if it was like McDonald’s but on the street. I said no, it was more like the guy on Rivadavia street in town who makes chicken in his old oil drum grill on Saturdays, except if he served pancakes with peanut butter on them. I think I made myself understood.

They had insisted I race in the ‘elite’ category, which was a bit scary. There is no Cat 1/2/3/4 in Argentina. There are only Elite, Masters 30+, and Masters 40+ (plus a handful of other categories like Veteranos, women, first-timers, children, etc.). Apparently if you’re under 30, you’re assumed to be mighty, which sadly I am not.

The start area was surprisingly typical. There was an announcer on the mic (doing his best Latin football voice, rolling his rr’s as hard as possible), and terrible dance music playing (in Spanish, though with several well-placed English vulgarities). The pre-race announcement included such instructions as “beware of donkeys and horses in the road”, and “the pace vehicles will do their best to clear stray dogs out of the way, but be careful anyhow”. I don’t recall having to sign a pre-race waiver of liability.

Kristen had ridden to the start with me to watch the race. She hasn’t been riding much as she’s had some back issues that sometimes flare up on the mountain bike. She noticed there were no other women in the race and started to get antsy. I told her it was a bad idea, but she registered. We’re married now, I guess this is how it goes. The crowd loved her – she got the biggest cheer out of anyone at the start when the names of the participants were announced. Apparently women’s cycling isn’t terribly popular out here in the docks.

The race format was mass-start. All entrants from all categories rolled out at the same time. We were neutral for the first 1k or so, until we were out of town. At that point, all hell broke loose. The guys in the back started to swarm, and the guys at the front attacked. We were still on a paved road. Imagine the frenzied start of a road race where someone attacks from the gun, except the 5s are mixed in with the 2s, everyone is on mountain bikes, and there is no yellow line rule.

I stayed near the front as best I could. My front wheel was bumped several times, as the attacks and surges at the front began to wear out the weaker rides, who began to swerve. Several times a small group broke off the front. Each time, I joined up and tried to convince my fellow break-mates to rotate, or at least organize, but they didn’t seem to understand. The 3 or 4 guys who had attacked were sitting up. I figured they were mountain bikers and simply didn’t know how to race on the road. But after about 20k, it became clear that what was going on. The 3 or 4 strong guys who had initiated all the breaks started to survey our latest small group. We had a significant gap on the main group behind. Apparently the strong guys liked what they saw (which was the rest of us panting), and they took off. They had been attacking to tire us out! I didn’t see them until after the finish.

By the time we had reached 25k (on bumpy dirt ‘ripio’ roads now), I was beginning to get dropped from the chase group. The surges had burned up many of my matches, and the pace of the group was too much given my little training. I was in no-man’s land for a long while. I got passed by the Masters 30+ group, and was finally able to hold pace with one of their stragglers.

He dragged me for the next 15 or 20k, and dropped me on the final sandy section (which was actually a riverbed). I had decided to keep my tires pumped way up (40psi), since the race was 50% on asphalt, and as such had zero traction in the sand. I had to run through it, and then did an awkwardly out of practice cross re-mount, which turned out to be crotch destroying as well.

Once we hit the asphalt, I was in my element. I got into a tuck and time trialed (well, limped actually) in to the finish, passing several guys along the way. Who even knows how far back I finished, and who even cares.

My friend Nicolas ended up 2^nd in Masters 40+, and Kristen of course won the women’s category as she was the only entrant. For that, she was given a humongous trophy, which was cool because she made me carry it back home and everyone in town thought I had won it.

As a final point, I’d like to note the infrastructure of the race. Each field had a pace moto (I know because I got passed by 2), and there were at least a couple other motos with passengers videotaping the action (they seemed to be particularly interested when Kristen bonked yet refused a ride to the finish). There were several neutral feed stations handing out water and oranges (which were a nice thought but impossible to eat while riding at full blast on a dirt road). It was honestly as well organized as any race I’ve been to, which I suppose should come as no surprise given that the rural culture is such that friends will drop by and work a few hours in a buddy’s shop or store, no questions asked. Some guy at the side of the road offered Kristen a croissant at one point because she looked tired. It seemed like the whole town was pitching in.

And the finish was no exception. The wife of a racer had cooked up two giant vats of delicious corn stew (called “locro”), which was served to all race participants (and seemingly to anyone who happened to be standing around near there). It was a real rural Argentine ending to my first rural Argentine bike race (of which there should be more, as I was ambushed at the finish by other race organizers asking me to come ride in their races.

Goings on about town

Kristen, Jeff, Lindsay, and Puebla at the final waterfall

While the LEC events were fun, they left us exhausted an hoping for a return to normal ‘life’ – where once again the gym is empty, and the property is quiet most of the time.

The following few weeks were perfect.  Our M/W/F Spanish lessons were really starting to pay off, as we were seeing major improvement in speaking and comprehension.  Edgardo was working us pretty hard, and we left several of the lessons nearly brain-dead from the effort.  He also told us about a local bike race, set to take place on March 21 in town.  A friend of his from the gym, Ezekiel, told him about it, and he passed the info along to us.  I hadn’t raced in a couple of years, but was excited at the prospect nonetheless.  Apparently there was a preview ride of the course that Sunday as well.  I attended the preview ride, which turned out to be just me and one other local guy named Nicolas.  The course 60km, pretty flat, and on a mixture of asphalt and dirt roads – what they call a ‘rural bike’ course here.  Not exactly my forte, but I decided to go full on into training.  For the next few weeks, I attempted to train based on an abbreviated cycle – starting with endurance, and building over a couple weeks into tempo and threshold work.  Obviously it wouldn’t be enough, but at least it was something, and it was sure fun to be back training.

Nicolas and I also ended up becoming friends.  We rode a couple times a week up the local trails, and went on several long weekend rides.  It was great for me, because Nicolas doesn’t speak English, so I was forced to talk to him in Spanish the entire time.  It ended up being a great supplement to the lessons.

We also went on a hike up to the local waterfall with Gabi, Lindsay, and Lindsay and John’s dog Puebla.  Lindsay led the hike, since she knew the route (typically first-timers need a guide).  It’s really a fantastic hike – the valley in that part of town is Zion Canyon-esque, with high, sheer walls of red sandstone.  We took a couple detours trying to find a separate trail that would turn the hike into a loop (which we failed to find), but despite that, the hike was great – we wanted to repeat it ASAP.

La Estancia Owners Events

Steve hitting out of a vineyard

Us in front of Bodega Piatelli

Bill & Robin in front of Bodega Piatelli

Steve & Barbara in front of Bodega Piatelli

We planned the end of our Patagonia sort-of-honeymoon to coincide with Steve and Barbara’s arrival in Cafayate for the March LEC owners events.  LEC holds a series of events for owners and prospective buyers ever November and March, about 4-5 days each.  Steve and Barbara were in Miami already for a conference, and so flying down wasn’t too much of a struggle.  Plus, Bill and Robin came in for the events as well!

Now, we’re not really big drinkers.  Wine tasting?  Sure.  Cocktails at lunch?  No way.  But the entire event weekend was wine-themed.  Wine lunches, walking wine tours in town, dinners at wineries, cocktail hours, etc.  Steve and Barbara graciously offered to sign us up for the events (we wouldn’t have seen them too much otherwise), so we got to tag along to everything.

Highlights of the weekend were:

- 9 hole golf scramble.  Kristen (who had never golfed before) signed up, and I played as her partner.  Steve (who rarely golfs) also played in our foursome.  It was really fun – we were shanking shots all over the place, but Kristen started to get them off the ground after a few holes of ‘warm up’, and sank some great putts.  All in all, a fun 3 hours walking around with Steve and Kristen.

- Piatelli dinner.  Wine maker Piatelli built a massive, opulent bodega outside of town (seemingly a vanity project, but gorgeous).  They weren’t scheduled to open until April, but LEC hooked us up with a preview of the property for a cocktail hour and dinner one night.  And what a place!  It’s a sprawling complex that would look more at home on the strip in Las Vegas.  They had a cool jazz band play during the cocktail hour, the winemaker (a friend of Bill’s) took us for a tour of the facility (and humored me by answering my questions about the mechanical equipment), and we had a wonderful dinner.  Fun night in a great setting.

- Cross hike.  One of the events offered the choice between a donkey-supported hike through some flat part of the Quebrada (not for us), or a guided hike up to the cross, led by a local fireman (definitely for us).  The fireman was super nice, and we got to practice our Spanish with him, but the hike was fairly slow going due to some less-experienced (and less in-shape) participants.  Just below the first mirador, it was getting late, and most of the group turned around so they could make the next scheduled activity.  Kristen and Barbara continued on to the cross with the fireman, but I went down to drive Bill and Gabi back to town, leaving three other participants behind (they had their own car) to find their way down.  When I went back to the trailhead an hour or so later, their car was still there.  Uh oh.  One of the participants we had left behind was older, and seemed to be struggling mightily with the tough hike.  I threw my backpack on, made sure I had my first aid kit and plenty of food and water, and ran back up the trail to try and find them.  I could see Kristen and Barbara descending far above, but there was no sign of the other 3.  I looked all over, up and down, and finally went back to the car to re-group.  And the other car was gone!  Apparently they had found their way?  I heard that night that they had gotten lost at the very end of the trail, and were wandering around the riverbed when I went to find them.  Luckily, everyone was OK.

- Blind wine tasting at Bodega Nanni.  Bill led a 3-bodega tasting tour (Domingo Hermanos/Molina, El Porvenir, and Nanni), ending up with a reception/dinner at Nanni and a blind wine tasting of a torrontés and malbec from each bodega.  It was a blast to go wine tasting with an actual winemaker, instead of just listening to the marketing stuff the tasting room salespeople tell you.

The rest was pretty much a blur of wine lunches, sobering up for long gym workouts, and fun dinners with lots of people.

Bill and Robin stayed for an extra week afterward as well.  The following weekend held the prospective buyers event, and LEC had invited Bill to give some talks about the property and their winemaking.  Bill insisted we join him, so we ended up attending even more wine lunches and dinners!  It turned out to be nearly a week and a half of fun.  For me, it was great to get to know Bill and Robin, and of course fantastic to see Steve and Barbara, too.

Home at last!

Cafayate isn’t technically our home, but it sure feels like it after 5 weeks of constant travel.  We couldn’t be happier to be back here.

Mendoza

Vineyards in the foothills of the Andes

The tasting lineup at Ruca Malen

When I was initially planning the trip, I thought we’d spend a lot of time in Mendoza.  It’s Mendoza!  The Napa Valley of Argentina!  Right near the highest mountain in the Americas!  But as I did more research, it looked more and more like Mendoza wasn’t really the kind of place we wanted to visit on this trip:

- The city itself is known for petty crime, particularly aggressive pickpocketing and hold-ups.  We were told this over and over by our Lonely Planet, the internet, the owners of our hostel, and most forcefully by the hairdresser we visited our first day in town.

- Everything fun to do costs a lot of money.  Even the hiking in the nearby Andes is relatively inaccessible from the city, so you have to either rent a car or take a tour.

- Vineyards/bodegas are relatively difficult to visit – they aren’t concentrated up and down one road like in Napa/Sonoma, and the tastings are mostly be appointment only.  It’s hard to do more than 1 or 2 in a day.  (The most popular way to cheaply taste wine is to rent a bike and ride around the Maipú area, but we found out that involves riding on a highway, and almost exclusively bottom-barrel wineries).

So, maybe in the future (say once we have jobs again), we could do a really great trip to Mendoza.  But on a budget, not so much.

In any event, we had a nice 2 days there.  Our bus from Santiago (which was advertised to take 6 hours but took 9) traversed the Andes via an insane pass at 11,500ft with 28 switchbacks leading up to it.  We arrived in Mendoza at 2:30am and took a taxi the 3 blocks to our Hostel (the area around the bus station is the most dangerous in town).  After sleeping in, we got our bearings by walking around the town, which was gearing up for the 2013 harvest festival, called Vindimia.  The festival doesn’t seem to have much at all to do with the grape harvest other than its timing – it seems to function primarily as a beauty pageant between the young women selected from each the various municipalities in the greater Mendoza area.  In any event, the fountains in town were dyed red to look like wine, and there were two parades.  We had some lunch, and then were pretty much out of things to do during siesta, so we got our hair cut.  The lady was very nice and did a good job, but she forcefully told us over and over that if we went to the Vindimia parade, we should not bring our wallets or any valuables.  That evening, we did a Malbec-tasting flight with appetizers at the Vines of Mendoza restaurant, and then headed directly back to the hotel before the parade.  Not for us.

The next day we woke up early and took the bus to the Luján de Cuyo area South of town to visit the Ruca Malen winery.  I had emailed 6 wineries in the Luján area in the hopes of setting up two tastings for the day, but only this one responded.  Ugh, but at least Ruca Malen is one of the top-rated in town.  We took a quick tour of the facilities (most wineries look the same), and then did a tasting of 3 of their lines, all of which were fantastic.  Afterwards, we told our guide that we were lost as to where to go next, so she phoned her friend at another winery and got us in for a tasting in the nick of time!  We took a cab over to the Lagarde winery just in time for the tasting (we had thankfully missed the tour), and tried some more wines.  Lagarde seemed to have a wide variance in quality – their cheap wines were meh, while their ultra-expensive wines were great.  So we bought a bottle of their olive oil.

After a detox lunch of pizza, we took the bus back to Mendoza and I passed out on the hostel couch until it was time to leave for our bus home.

Santiago

Church on the central Plaza de Armas

 

Mapuche statue

Santiago was more or less a stopover point for us.  Kristen thought it was ‘eh’ on her last trip to Chile, and I wasn’t particularly excited to see it, either.  And it was exactly as expected – a South American city.  It’s got the central plaza, 200+ year-old colonial buildings, jam-packed pedestrian mall, brown stinky river that you can smell when the wind is just right, and a couple of very nice neighborhoods.  Certainly it was a pleasant example of a South American city.  It appeared to be safe, the colonial buildings were well-kept, and the bohemian neighborhoods were very nice.  It reminded us a lot of Buenos Aires.

We stayed at a great B&B in the center of town called Casa Bonita, and the owner gave us two major tips: lunch at the Central Market, and for a free guided walking tour of the city.  The Central Market was pretty cool, since it serves as the starting point for much of Santiago’s seafood.  Giant fish were stacked high, their names in Spanish.  We stopped at a restaurant in the center for a delicious lunch of fried conger eel and a seafood empanada.  We joked that this was not the place to order a salad.

The next morning, we headed to the central Plaza de Armas to take the walking tour.  Our guide appeared to be a student, and we were able to practice our (now much improved) Spanish with him.  The tour leaned heavily toward the history of Chile, including some very interesting points regarding the Mapuche tribe.  The Mapuche are an Incan tribe that resisted colonialism and fought hard against the Spaniards.  Chile is currently undergoing a sort of transformation in awareness of historical Mapuche oppression.  They are building statues dedicated to Mapuche heritage, and all over Santiago there are T-shirts and graffiti saying things like “Todos Somos Mapuche” (we are all Mapuche).  The guide curiously did not talk much about recent history, including Allende and Pinochét.

After the tour, we ate some typical Chilean food (cazuela de pollo and an empanada de pina) and headed for our bus to Mendoza.

Stachagonia

After 4.5 weeks of not shaving

After a trim and a cleanup – what an actual beard would look like

The ‘Pulp Fiction’

The goatee

The ‘Mask of Zorro’

The “19th Century Gangster”

The “Williamsburg Frontman”

The “Dictator”

The “Free at Last!”

I’ve tried to grow a beard a number of times, but never properly committed.  It gets itchy after a week or two and starts to look all scraggly and stupid, so I shave it.  But this time I swore I’d do it right.  This was my last chance to see what I look like as a mountain man.  So I emailed a bunch of my friends and told them I was going to grow a beard for as long as I was in Patagonia.  That way, there was accountability.  If I bailed out early, I’d face some humiliation.  I called the project “Stachagonia”.

The day we got to Santiago, our first stop out of Patagonia, I shaved that stupid thing into a variety of shapes.  Kristen couldn’t be happier to be rid of it, and neither could I.

Puerto Varas

   

Volcán Osorno and Lago Llanqihue as seen from a cow pasture on the lower slopes of Volcán Calbuco

Fuschia Magellanica.  We were happy to find that Kristen’s favorite flower from Butchart Gardens is apparently indigenous here.

Osorno floating in a marine layer that formed over Lago Llanqihue

We planned only 1 night in the Lakes District of Chilean Patagonia, which probably wasn’t enough.  The Lakes District looks like the Pacific Northwest of the US, with a series of densely packed volcanoes, lakes, and dense forest.  We stayed at an amazing place – Casa Ko, a small B&B about 40km outside of Puerto Varas – and by the time I realized we wanted more days in the Puerto Varas area, they were full.  Too bad.  I’d like to think we made the most of the time we had there, though.

Casa Ko is in the tiny village of Ensenada, on the lower slopes of Volcán Calbuco, with gorgeous panoramic views of the 3 local volcanoes and Lago Llanqihue.  It’s run by a young French couple (Raf and Pauline) who cook delicious meals every night, and who have built a hiking trail from the B&B to the summit of Volcán Calbuco.  They (and their guests) appear to be the only people who know about the trail.  You can’t really reach the summit without Raf guiding you, but he made a hand-drawn map for guests to find their way to the secluded Tepu waterfall and viewpoint about 3,000ft up.  So of course we had to do the hike.

The map was fantastic.  It was like being a pirate searching for buried treasure.  It had landmarks and instructions like “turn left at the big tree with roots”.  I loved it.  The first half of the hike worked its way through cow pastures (which was an experience for Kristen, since she’s a little bit afraid of cows).  They were mooing their asses off all day, because it happened to be the time of year when the calves are taken from their mothers.  The second half of the trail wound its way through a dense native forest, which looked not unlike the Hoh Rainforest in Oregon (though maybe a little less damp, and with the smell of rosemary added to the sweet smell of decay).  Eventually we emerged above the tree line, and scrambled up to an exposed viewpoint at the edge of a cliff.  Below us was a canyon with a small river and nice little waterfall, and all around us was an amazing view of the surrounding landscape.  A marine layer had developed over the lake, which gave the impression that Volcán Osorno was floating on the clouds.  Amazing.  We ate our lunch up there while the clouds shifted quickly.  On the way back down, the clouds parted and we had views of the lake from our cow pastures.  And we didn’t see a single person (save for one gaucho herding horses near the B&B) all day.  What a great hike, and a great day.