… I mean the Vuelta Ciclista Mendoza.

So just a follow up from my last post… I was in transit to Mendoza, Argentina while i was sitting at the airport in Santiago, Chile. I was pretty brief with my typing in that post because i had about ten minutes of battery life left to type some words for the photos i had added to my post! On top of that, i haven’t been at the internet for too long at a time either.

Argentina is a very interesting place. The racing, and lifestyle is something i have never seen before. On top of that, it is the first time i have been to a place where English is not spoken at all!

The scenery is stunning here, with the Andes mountain range towering over Mendoza, making for a stunning backdrop to the city. Driving home from one of the ten stages, i took this bad ass photo from the car, with the sun going down behind the mountains. Wicked huh?!

The Andes are absolutely amazing. Driving alongside them, you can just see how relentless they are.

The racing itself has been quite an experience. It is the roughest racing i have ever done! There were about 190 starters in the race, and every single one of them has the need to do whatever is neccessary, to be in the first ten riders on the road! On the first day, leading into the finish, with one kilometer to go, a guy tried to punch me in the head with a backhander, in order to get the wheel he wanted! Insane!

Its pretty good really, because the fighting for wheels will no doubt keep us in good stead for the US racing. The other great thing, is that we have been racing so fast. Our aerage speed each day has been 41-45km/h every stage, so it has been good for the leg speed too.

The best way i can try and describe this racing is, it is basically a 150 kilometer motor paced kieren, with 190 riders, on roads as rough as Paris-Roubaix, with every rider needing to be at the front. I have not ridden Paris-Roubaix, but the roads are just that bad here that i can only imagine they are similar!

Here is our team that has made the trip down to Mendoza for the Tour of Argentina’s Roughest Roads! Don’t we look great in our red and white! We definitely have the coolest looking outfit in the peleton.

When we first arrived, we headed out for a ride up into the foothills, just above Mendoza. There were great views down to the city, and up into the hills, and there were some pretty cool houses up there too. It sort of reminded me of Romancing the Stone or Crocodile Dundee, with the South American mansions there. You may be able to see the house just in front of us in the photo, and the cool shadows make this picture look pretty pro!

That is another wierd thing down here. Each day we race at around 3 pm. Sometimes as late as 5.30. It is strange, but even though we are three hours ahead of US East Coast time, we do everything at about the same time (literally). We have lunch around 3pm, and dinner is around 10 pm!

We have been treated to some mean feasts here at the Hotel Eben Ezer. They put breakfast, lunch, and dinner on for us each day, and it is amazing! They really know how to put on a feed. There is probably a bit too much food though, and we are all going to return to the US overweight! haha! Also, we have had chiken parma, just like in Australia!

Paco, always the showman, has been great this race, giving us good massages and making sure we get all our feeds in the race. He is quite entertaining, and when i work out how to start up a youtube account, i will post a video of him lighting up the dance floor, while we were eating dinner! He sure keeps the team laughing with his antics, and that is with very little, to no English!

Downtown Mendoza has a great pedestrian mall, right in the heart of the city, and has a bunch of great coffee shops too. We have been spending some quality chamois time chilling here and drinking coffee.

Argentina has great pastries, as well as coffee, and today we sat and ate about 13 pastries and drank six coffees between three of us! That also means six soda waters too, because with every coffee comes a free glass of soda water.

Here is the craziest thing of all here in Argentina; the bathroom situation! Hopefully the photo comes up clear enough to make out the floor-plan. On the right is the basin, then the arse washer, then the the dunny, with the shower right above the dunny. You can probably make out the shower taps on the left, and the squeegy too. There are no curtains on the shower, and everything gets really wet while showering, so the squeegy is there to clean up after!

So there is an update on my Argentina visit. There will be more to follow shortly. I will put up a bunch of photos from the trip, so that will be good to look at, i hope!

I hope everyone is well.

Laters…

There are a million ants for every person on Earth.