Teresita travels

Nuestro viaje por Argentina y Chile culminó con un emocionante viaje en camión por los Andes, una visita a un museo precolombino en Santiago con sus hermosos quipus y un paseo por Santiago. Esta historia comparte más sobre la parada en la aduana y la historia de los quipus.

Visita nuestra página BuyMeACoffee para descargar el texto en inglés y español uno al lado del otro.

Para ir de Argentina a Chile, hay tres cruces fronterizos principales que los turistas toman. Uno está en el norte, otro cerca de Mendoza y otro en Bariloche. Como estábamos en Mendoza, tomamos el camión a Santiago. Es una ruta impresionante con vistas espectaculares de los Andes. Tomamos la Ruta 7 en Argentina hasta la Ruta 60 en Chile. Paramos en la aduana chilena y en inmigración y tuvimos una vista perfecta del Aconcagua. Los agentes de aduanas nos dijeron que bajáramos del camión y nos lleváramos todas nuestras cosas. Chris decidió dejar su mochila en el camión. Hicimos fila en la aduana, nos revisaron los pasaportes y esperamos unas dos horas sin que ocurriera casi nada. Hablamos con otras personas que hacían el mismo viaje mientras los camiones estaban parados y expulsaban humo. Si bien teníamos una hermosa vista del Aconcagua, los camiones estaban parados y la zona estaba llena de basura. El aire olía a humo y a basura. 

La patrulla fronteriza finalmente llevó a sus perros al camión para inspeccionarlo. ¿Qué encontraron? ¡Alguien había dejado su mochila en el camión! Llamaron a Chris a un lado y le hablaron sobre su mochila. Habían encontrado nueces en su mochila y él no había declarado que tenía nueces. Recordando el evento, Chris dijo que eran funcionarios de aduanas muy serios y que fue salvado porque había declarado que tenía nueces y dijo que los llevaba por mí. Nuestro viaje continuó y bajamos por la montaña, tomando numerosas curvas y vueltas muy cerradas. Al principio fue divertido, ¡pero pronto la gente comenzó a sentirse enferma!

Culminamos nuestra gira con tres días en Santiago. Uno de los lugares a los que fuimos fue el museo precolombino con increíbles artefactos de la vida antes de que Pizarro invadiera. Lo que más me gustó, y lo que queda conmigo todos estos años, es el Quipu (también deletreado Khipus). Son cordones anudados que los incas y otros imperios de Andian usaron para el mantenimiento de registros. Sin un sistema de escritura, los quipus servían para llevar un registro de cuentas, registros, fechas, actas de nacimiento, linaje familiar, datos censales e ideas abstractas. Tienen diferentes tipos de cuerdas, diferentes tipos de nudos y diferentes longitudes.

Las personas que conservaban los quipus se conocen como quipucamayos. Con los diferentes tipos de nudos, los quipucamayos podían transmitir diferentes números e ideas. Estas personas usaban los quipus como ayuda para la memoria y memorizaban relatos orales sobre ellos. Transmitían la historia de generación en generación.

Muchos quipus fueron destruidos cuando los españoles invadieron el Imperio Inca. Sin embargo, algunos aún se conservan en diferentes museos de todo el mundo. Dado que estos dispositivos son tan antiguos y están hechos de fibras naturales, deben almacenarse en lugares con humedad, luz, y temperatura controladas. Los quipus pueden estar hechos de lana o pelo de animal, así como de algodón, y son resistentes al moho, las plagas de insectos, y la exposición a la luz. Los quipus que vimos en el museo de Santiago se conservaban en habitaciones oscuras con una luz muy tenue. Se colocaban cuidadosamente sobre tablas con cada cuerda separada.

Luego del museo visitamos el parque de Santa Lucía con sus hermosas estatuas y arte. Chris disfruto ese parque por sus escaleras, fuentes y edificios construidos en la colina. Al final del largo viaje, caminar por Santiago nos ayudó a relajarnos y prepararnos para volver a nuestras vidas diarias. Recuerdo que después de dos semanas y media de aprender el acento argentino, no podía entender el acento chileno. ¡Chris tuvo que ser quien hablaba por nosotros! Yo todavía pude ordenar una cerveza, guacamole y papas.

Muchas cosas en el viaje a Argentina me hicieron reírme de mí misma y me enseñaron a no tomarme tan en serio. ¡Las experiencias me mostraron que las expectativas y la realidad no siempre se alinean!

Fuentes: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu

https://www.worldhistory.org/Quipu/

Our Argentina and Chile trip wrapped up with a tense bus journey over the Andes, a visit to a pre-Columbian museum in Santiago with its beautiful quipus, and walking around Santiago. This story shares more about our customs stop at the border and the history of quipus.

Visit our BuyMeACoffee page to download the English and Spanish side-by-side text.

To get from Argentina to Chile, there are three main border crossings that tourists take. One is in the north, one is near Mendoza, and one is in Bariloche. Because we were in Mendoza, we took the bus to Santiago. It is a stunning route with amazing views of the Andes. We took Route 7 in Argentina to Route 60 in Chile, stopped at Chilean customs and immigration with a perfect view of Aconcagua. 

The customs agents told us all to get off the bus and take all our stuff with us. Chris decided to leave his backpack on the bus and I thought that wouldn’t end well. We lined up in the customs building, all had our passports checked, and then waited for about two hours while almost nothing happened. We talked with other people, looked at the highest peak in the Americas, while the buses idled and garbage covered the landscape. The air smelled of exhaust and rotten garbage. It was like the rest of the trip: good and bad to each experience.

The border patrol eventually took their dogs onto the bus to inspect it. What did they find? Someone had left their backpack on the bus! They called Chris aside and spoke to him about his backpack. They had found nuts in his backpack and he hadn’t declared he had nuts. Recalling the event, Chris said that they were very serious customs officials, they weren’t kidding around. He said he was “saved” because I had declared I had nuts and he said he was carrying them for me. Our journey continued and we went down the mountain, taking numerous switchbacks and hairpin turns. 

We wrapped up our tour with three days in Santiago. One of the places we went to was the pre-Columbian museum with amazing artifacts of life before the Pizzarro invaded. What I liked best, and what stays with me all these years, is the quipu (also spelled khipu). They are knotted cords that the Incas and other Andian empires used for record keeping. Without a writing system, the quipus were a way to keep track of accounts, records, dates, birth records, family lineage, census data, and abstract ideas. They have different types of string, different types of knots, and in all different lengths. 

The people who kept the quipus are known as quipucamayos. With the different types of knots, the quipucamayos could convey different numbers and ideas. These individuals used quipus as a memory aid and memorized oral accounts of the quipu. They passed the story down through the generations.

Many quipus were destroyed when the Spanish invaded the Incan Empire. However, some still remain and are preserved in different museums around the world. Given that the devices are so old and made of natural fibres, they need to be stored in areas with controlled humidity, light, and temperature. Quipus can be made from wool or animal hair as well as cotton and suffer from mold, insect infestations, or light exposure. The quipus we saw in the museum in Santiago were kept in dark rooms with very dim light. They were carefully placed on boards with each string separated and held in place with pins.

We also visited Santa Lucia park with its beautiful statues and art. Chris enjoyed that park for its stairs, fountains, and buildings built into the hill. At the end of the long trip, walking around Santiago helped us wind down and prepare to get back to our everyday lives. I remember that after two and a half weeks of learning the Argentine accent, I could not understand the Chilean accent. Chris had to do all the talking for us! I still managed to order beer, guacamole, and chips. 

A lot of things on the Argentina trip made me laugh at myself and taught me not to take myself so seriously. The experiences showed me that expectations and reality don’t always align and that it’s better to go with the flow than to force things into my own expectations. 

Sources: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu

https://www.worldhistory.org/Quipu/

La segunda mitad de nuestro viaje en Argentina empieza cuando nos vamos de Junín de los Andes a Payunia y Mendoza. Nos quedamos en un rancho aislado con un paisaje marciano. Hicimos un tour al parque nacional, hicimos rafting y un paseo en bicicleta con cata de vinos. ¿Qué podría salir mal? Seguí estando molesta porque la gente no llegaba a tiempo, pero también me pude relajar un poco más y disfrutar de los maravillosos paisajes. Si quieres escuchar la primera parte de nuestra aventura en Argentina, puedes buscar Argentina - El Districto Lago.

The second half of our Argentina trip picks up with us leaving Junin de los Andes going to Payunia and Mendoza. We stayed at an isolated ranch in a Mars-like landscape. We took a tour of a national park, did some white water rafting, and a bike ride paired with wine tasting. What could go wrong? I continued to be irritated by people not being on time, but I was also able to relax a bit more and enjoy the wonderful scenery. If you want to hear the first part of our Argentina adventure, you can look for Argentina’s Lake District.

Visit the main story page to see both the English and Spanish and to download the side-by-side text.

Story text

After our (mis)adventures in Junin, we went north to an eco-tourism ranch in Payunia outside of Malargüe then moved on to Mendoza, a famous wine region. We continued to encounter unexpected adventures. Some aspects were enjoyable and some were mentally challenging. 

Argentina is a big country, but the vastness only became tangible when we were trying  to get to various places within the country. As we made plans to leave Junin de los Andes to get to Malargüe, the journey turned out to be quite long and complicated. We needed to take 3 different buses over the course of 24 hours, including taking an overnight bus. 

I’d never taken an overnight bus before and was excited for this new adventure. The double decker bus had a driver and a server, was more comfortable than an airplane, and the assigned seats fully reclined. We sat in the upper level of the bus and we had meal service, plus snacks and drinks.

The most intriguing part of the bus journey were the stops in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere. At various times during the night, I could feel the bus slow down and pull over to pick up someone standing on the side of the road. A lone soul stood in the dark, on the side of the road, in the dirt, without a “bus stop” sign in sight. 

It was amazing that the driver could see the person on the side of the rural road, while traveling at high speeds and car headlights shining in his eyes. What’s more amazing is that someone knew to stand in just that spot, at just that time, and that the bus would see them and pick them up. If the bus didn’t stop for them, they would spend a rough night sitting on the side of that road. 

We made it to Malargüe, spent one night, then went to stay at a puesto called Kiñe. It was an eco-tourism ranch inside the Payunia reserve. La Reserva Provincial La Payunia was established in 1988. Payunia has the highest concentration of volcanoes in the world. If you were strong enough, you could probably throw a stone from one volcano to another! The earth and rocks were black from the lava and red from the iron oxides in the rocks. It felt a bit like being on Mars, given the red rocks and iron oxide. There’s no soil - it’s all rocks and minerals. It’s also considered a desert. This leaves the landscape rather stark, with only the hardiest plants and animals surviving. The most common plant is a low-growing grass. The largest animal in the area is the guanaco.

Our guidebook called Footprints had briefly mentioned Kiñe and we reached out via email to contact them. We thought the puesto would be some sort of small town. From the description in the guidebook, we knew that there would be food, beds, hiking, and horseback riding. We didn’t know how many other guests would be staying there. 

The place also had a website, but in those days, websites were very simple. It may have had the location, email address, and a few lines in Spanish. When we emailed back and forth with Kiñe, we wrote in Spanish. There was no Google Translate available, so I had to take my best guess at what the website and emails said. 

To get to Kiñe, we took a 4×4 from the hotel. Salvador picked us up and took us on a dirt road. It was pretty satisfying to be doing such unique travel, in the middle of nowhere. We felt pretty special! The road Salvador took went through a dry river bed that gets out every time it rains. In the summer, when we were there, it rains every day, so the road gets washed out every day. 

There had been a huge thunderstorm the night before, turning the road into deep mud that even a 4x4 couldn’t get through. A Toyota 4×4 had gotten stuck in the mud and a tractor was trying to dig it out of the mud. We waited for 1.5 hours for the tracker to do its work and shared tea with Salvador. It was fun to stand in the middle of nowhere, drinking tea, practising Spanish, and watching a tractor work. 

Salvador’s English was pretty good and my Spanish was acceptable, but I still didn’t understand the exact details of our travel plans. Eventually we made it to a house, but it was not Kiñe. It was Aldo’s son’s home where he, his wife, and his small daughter fed us lunch and then the son took us for a hike. The hike was more like a walk in someone’s giant backyard and wasn’t an official trail. We hiked in the hot climate, passing cactus, and went up a large hill made from rocks. Although it was off in the distance, we got a great view of Laguna de Llancanelo and could see scores of flamingos in the lake.

After the hike, we got back in the 4x4 and travelled the rest of the way to Kiñe. The puesto was a single family home, a ranch in the barren landscape where the family raised cattle. There were tall evergreen trees around the home to mark it on the landscape. I would estimate that the closest neighbour was where we had come from, probably 10km away.

In the home, there were no other guests. It was just me and Chris staying with this family, in a separate, private area with a sitting area, a bedroom with bunk beds, and a bathroom. It was very simple but quite comfortable. 

The 4pm late afternoon arrival held somewhat awkward introductions. We got out of the car, got our suitcases, and tried to speak in Spanish with the family. I’m not sure they understood anything we said. The father, mother, and daughter didn’t tell us their names, but they did offer us coffee and bread with jam. We figured out two of their names during our stay: the father was Aldo and his 16 year-old daughter was named Roxana. She had long black hair and a shy smile. This 3-night stay would be a test for my Spanish. The father and mother didn’t speak English. Their 16 year old daughter, Roxana, was learning English in school but refused to practice with us.

In traditional Argentine style, dinner was at 9pm. We had about 4 hours between our snack and dinner. We settled in, then Roxana entertained us. I thought we might be too old for her, but she spent a lot of time with us in the days we were there. Maybe she wanted some company! Fresh blood. Our first night, we played cards with her and asked her questions about the puesto.

While playing cards, Roxana told us a few things about the ranch. What she said and what we understood were probably not the same… We understood that the water was not potable and whenever we wanted more water, we needed to ask the family for bottled water. 

She also said not to use the electricity unless it was absolutely necessary or until the sun went down. The family generated all the electricity themselves. At the time, I didn’t understand how they did it. We played our card game in the near dark, holding them up to the moonlight coming in through the window. When we ate dinner, we were allowed to turn on the lights.

Before leaving the nearest down, we didn’t really think about food and snacks. During our evening with Roxana, we realized we had no access to food other than what the family served at mealtime, and we didn’t bring many snacks! Luckily their meals were delicious and large, so food wasn’t a problem. 

During the first night of being at Kiñe, we quickly understood that living on a ranch in the middle of nowhere necessitated self-sufficiency. As well as making a tough living on their ranch, this family invited tourists into their home to share their way of life. Staying with this family is still a real travel highlight for me. 

In terms of hiking and horseback riding, these would prove to be very simple and somewhat extraordinary adventures, too. The hiking could more be described as walking around their extensive ranch. There were no trails and we could wander wherever we wanted. The scenery was red dirt, short grasses, small volcanoes, lizards and chinchillas everywhere, and a few wild flowers. We hiked up a naturally occurring spring which ran into a small waterfall. Roxana explained that this was the family’s water for the ranch, for all their needs. It was clean enough to take from the source without treatment. (We still weren’t sure if this made the water potable.) That night, we passed the time by playing cards, talking, and reading in the near-dark. No TV, no radio. 

For our next adventure, we went on a horseback ride through their ranch. Roxana put us on two testy horses. We are not strong horseback riders, but I’m a better rider than Chris. This is only because when I was a kid, I had a friend who had horses and she invited me over quite frequently one summer. I also went to Girl Scout camp and Yosemite National Park a few times and learned how to ride horses there. We’ve done other traveling adventures that were on horseback and the temperament and size of the horse really depends on the country. Some horses are big, powerful, and calm. Other horses are smaller, wiley, and impatient with novice riders.

The two horses we rode on were the persnickety and impatient kind. They only wanted to walk next to each other. Chris wasn’t knowledgeable enough to steer his horse away from mine. I tried to avoid his horse, but every so often the two horses managed to walk side by side, which meant our legs would be crushed between their bodies. 

We still didn’t totally understand what the cabalgata would include, but we understood there would be a bbq (or asado) at some point. During the journey, we saw a lot of wild guanacos plus their piles of poop, which Roxana repeatedly pointed to and said “el baño.” She explained that pumas hunted the guanaco, and any other prey they could get. We saw cattle, sheep, horses all running, grazing, and living at large.

After 2.5 hours of riding, we arrived at the asado pit and stiffly got off the horses. Aldo, the father, was already there cooking a freshly killed baby sheep. It was cut open and strung up on a cast iron rotisserie, cooking over hot coals. Soon that little baby lamb was ready to eat. It was fresh, salty, juicy, meaty, and fatty. In the best Spanish I could, I told Aldo that this was simply the best meat I’ve ever eaten.

During lunch, a storm moved in, as usually happens in the afternoons in Payunia. In the distance, we saw clouds that turned into a funnel cloud. Roxana said it was the first time she had seen a funnel cloud in that area, which was alarming! We packed up everything, got back on the horses, and started riding back home. Aldo followed in his truck, at the same pace as us, on the nearby road in case the looming storm turned nasty. A heavy rain started and Roxana led us back to the truck and she cobbled the horses so they wouldn’t run too far away. 

With seconds to spare, the four of us crammed onto the bench seat of the cab and it hailed for about 10 minutes. The horses stood in the field getting struck by the small balls of ice. Given the landscape, there was no protection for the horses. Lightning and thunder struck and clambored around us. There was a lightning strike about 250m in front of the truck, and the storm was right overhead. After an intense 10 minutes, the worst of the storm passed, leaving just rain. We got out of the truck, got back on the horses, and made our way back to the ranch. 

On the way back from the BBQ, Chris’s horse decided it had had enough of him for the day. Suddenly it laid down on the ground, sending Chris tumbling the ground, with his foot stuck in the stirrup. I was worried for Chris and his foot, but burst out laughing at the surprised look on his face and his horse’s very cavalier attitude! Roxana looked shocked. She’d probably never seen a horse behave this way! Somehow, without my help, Chris’s foot was set free and he was fine, although a bit dirty.

We returned at about 5pm, read our books, took a shower, and had dinner at 9pm. The mother made flan for dessert, which is one of my favourite desserts. Hers was the best flan I’d ever had. It was light and fluffy, with just enough caramel and an excellent depth of flavour. When I told the mom it was the best flan I’d ever had, she gave me another serving! What a great day for food. 

The next day we did some walking around by ourselves, and played cards with Roxana. She showed us the gifts she had gotten the year before for her quinceanera. One of them was a set of embroidered white towels that she kept in the gift box. She explained that these towels were meant for her children. 

It struck me that in my culture, at 15 years old, most of my friends would never receive towels to save for their children to use. I also appreciated that Roxana and her family celebrated puberty as the fundamental life change that it is. She seemed very proud. 

At the end of our time at Kiñe, Aldo took us in his truck to meet a tour bus so we could continue on with our journey. We would meet with the tour bus and go sightseeing to Cerro Payun and its surrounding landscape. 

Once again, we drove through the middle of nowhere, to a house seemingly in the middle of nowhere, to wait for hours in the middle of nowhere, for a tour bus that was hours late. While we travelled with Aldo, he explained that the water that came from spring and fed the house was potable and that they also used it for generating electricity.

Aldo didn’t seem too concerned about the bus picking us up and went to have yerba mate with the home owners. Chris didn’t want to sit around and wait for the bus, so he went for a walk. I was not at all confident that when the bus came, it would stop and ask for us. I sat outside waiting for the tour bus, on a beautiful sunny morning, laying on a rock wall, trying to relax but alert for any sound. The bus showed up about 2 hours late, the driver opened the door and the tour guide came running out, yelling at me to get on the bus because they were running late.

I explained that my husband was also coming and we had suitcases, too! The guide seemed quite angry about the suitcases and the bus didn’t have any interior space for our suitcases. The driver flung our suitcases on the roof then had to go up to tie down the suitcases, then he loaded us onto the small but full tour bus with 15 other people, and we roared off to the next adventure. It was a dramatic change from our previous days of tranquility, isolation, and expanse. We immediately changed to frenetic energy in a cramped bus with a tour guide narrating the scenery.

We took a tour of the Payuna reserve and its black barren landscapes with short, yellow-green grasses around the volcanoes. We had a lot of time and as a group we hiked up two of the volcanos. I couldn’t tell you which volcanoes we hiked up. We have many pictures, but in those days we took pictures with digital cameras. The cameras had GPS, but it quickly drained the battery and, as I’ve said, we were in the middle of nowhere. In any case, the geography in the area is fascinating.

One of the largest volcanoes in the area is Payún Matrú. It is a shield volcano, formed about 168,000 years ago, and its activity stopped just over 500 years ago. Its name means “bearded goat” in the local dialect. This shield volcano is just over 2 km high and covers about 5200 sq km of land with lava. The caldera itself is a massive 7 to 8 km across and 480m deep. 

A shield volcano is a volcano that has a low profile and looks like a shield laying on the ground. These types of volcanoes form because their lava is highly viscous, or very liquidy, so the lava flows further. The largest active shield volcano on Earth is Mauna Loa. The largest one in the solar system is Olympus Mons on Mars. As a fun fact, Olympus Mons is 2.5 times the elevation of Mount Everest from sea level. Olympus Mons is tied with an impact crater on the Vesta asteroid as the highest mountain in the solar system. Payún Matrú has one of the longest lava flows on Earth in our modern geologic era at about 100 km and its lava flow is comparable to the longest flows on Mars. 

It was really special to be in this area. At one volcano, we walked up to the opening of the caldera, sat on its edge and looked into the chasm. It was really windy and the guide told us not to go too close to the edge! At the other volcano, we hiked up part of it and looked back at the tiny bus and tiny people below. It was a rather active tour with multiple stops, getting off and onto the bus. 

The bus itself was a weird little experience. Everyone wore their coats in the bus because the air conditioning was so powerfully cold. We asked the guide to turn it down, but it always managed to come back on full force. At the end of the tour as we were on our way back to Malargüe, it started raining. Our suitcases were on the roof of the bus, getting wet. We reminded the guide that our suitcases were outside. Being the cheery soul he was, he begrudgingly stopped the bus, got our suitcases down, and put them in the centre row of the bus. The bus really didn’t have any extra space!

Eventually we made it back to Malargüe, stayed one night, then took the bus to Mendoza, where we investigated the activities and signed up for a half day white water rafting trip for one day and a “bikes and wine” trip for another day.

In true Argentine style, and much to my consternation, the half day trip took a full day. We were picked up relatively on time, met other tourists on the bus, and drove to the mountains. The rafting guide was a young man from Vancouver who was living in Argentina to learn Spanish. 

We had the full experience of putting on the gear complete with helmet and PFD, learning how to paddle in the raft, how to stay in the raft during the bumpy ride, and what to do if we fell out. I’m sure the guides did most of the work steering the raft, but they made it fun, yelling over the rush of the rapids on when to paddle and brace ourselves. 

We finished the rafting at 12:30pm. Lunch was part of the tour package and we were offered a burger and bun with some salsa golf and nothing else. It wasn’t very appetizing, and we couldn’t buy more food! Everyone was done with rafting and lunch by about 1:30 and then we waited until 4pm. Why? The van didn’t leave until 4pm because the drivers wouldn’t drive back during siesta time. 

We waited around for 2.5 hours, chatting with each other, feeling hungry, and watched the four drivers play pool and ping pong. The siesta tradition seemed so inefficient! The drivers could have taken us back at 1:30 then had the rest of the day off, but instead they played ping pong while we glared at them from the sidelines.

Our guide books recommended Bikes And Wines, a company that offered wine country tours with a bike rental. Their advertising and website looked good enough and they listed a lot of things included with the price: gatorade or water, panniers, a guided tour in Spanish or English, lunch, a cruiser or mountain bike rental, a helmet, reservations at wineries that had “exclusive bike parking.” We purchased a tour and paid extra for the hotel transfer to and from the bike rental. 

We were ready at 9:30 for our ride. At 10:15, the ride still hadn’t arrived. We asked our hotel reception to call the tour company and our ride came 20 minutes later. We were pretty sure they forgot about us! We arrived at the bike rental place and found rusted and old bikes, with terrible seats and broken pedals. As for the rest of the “features” of the tour…

When a gatorade or water was not offered, we asked for it. It was a relatively hot day and we needed it! When a pannier was not offered, we asked for it. We needed it to carry around any wine we purchased! When a guide was not offered, we asked for it! They handed us a small piece of paper with a map. Not only did they not have a person as a guide, they didn’t want to give us the map, which we needed! 

When we asked about lunch, they pointed to the map to show us which winery to eat at. They told us it cost 35 pesos. We asked why we had to pay for lunch when we’d already paid 110 pesos and lunch was included. They told us we didn’t pay for lunch, and we said yes, we did. They said ok, and gave us a lunch voucher to use at said winery. At this point, we doubted that we had a reservation for lunch and we decided not to ask about the helmet.

We set off to the first winery and our bike problems set in within 250m of the shop. We couldn’t get the seat on one of the bikes to stay in place. We managed to tighten the bolt to keep it in place. Then I noticed that my pedal was broken. It was still usable and we didn’t go back to return the bike, but we should have. The pedal got progressively worse throughout the ride! My seat painfully pressed into my crotch but I figured I could make it through the ride. Chris had the pannier on his bike and had to ride with his heels on his pedals instead of the balls of his feet on the pedals, otherwise his feet would hit the panniers. 

At one winery, we had a nice tour walking through the casks and tasting wine. Our lunch was a quarter head of lettuce and a piece of steak. It took about 45 minutes for the meal to arrive and the meat was overcooked and tough. At the third winery, they asked us to pay 15 pesos per person for the tastings, which we declined.

The fourth and final winery, Vino de la Cera, redeemed the whole trip. It was small, friendly, the host spoke Spanish to us even though he was fluent in English. We chatted with him while we tasted wine, got a little bit tipsy, and left with two bottles in our pannier. Our final stop was a chocolate shop where we bought some chocolate (of course). We cycled back to the start, dropped off the bikes, and sat on bean bags nursing our sore bodies while waiting for our hotel transfer. Except for the terrible bikes, the lack of a guide, and the disappointing lunch, we had a great time.

This was the end of our adventure in Mendoza and Argentina. The next day we took a bus to Santiago, Chile. All together, this part of the trip was more engaging than the first part in Buenos Aires, Bariloche, and Junin de los Andes. Perhaps we had gotten more comfortable with things never being on time. The Argentine approach to life wore us down, or maybe it rubbed off on us. I recently learned that Greece did away with its siesta culture and saw a rise in heart disease as people stopped taking that mid-day break. I’m sure the siesta is helpful to many cultures, especially in hot climates and for outdoor workers. If I could do it all over again, I’d probably relax a little bit more, enjoy the siesta time, and come prepared with more snacks and some medicinal chocolate. 

Para mi, Argentina se clasifica como una de las vacaciones  más insatisfactorias, difíciles, y visualmente hermosas que alguna vez he tenido. Fue  una serie de errores, retrasos, y malentendidos. . También fue  increíblemente hermosa con contrastes marcados, enormes lagos,humedad opresiva, altas cadenas montañosas cubiertas de nieve,  una población muy joven, alto desempleo, y mucha basura en las calles. En retrospectiva, suelto una risita  de todos los problemas que encontramos.

Visita la página principal de la historia para verla en inglés y en español y para descargar el texto en paralelo.

Texto de la Historia

Cuando Chris y yo llegamos a Argentina, estaba emocionada de usar mi español. No estaba preparada para el acento argentino. Me tomó algunos días acostumbrar a mis oídos pero finalmente agarré el modo para comunicarme con mi nivel intermedio de español. 

Nuestro itinerario empezó en Buenos Aires, luego volamos al Distrito de Lagos y nos quedamos en San Carlos de Bariloche y Junín de los Andes. También nos quedamos en un rancho rural en Payunia y luego fuimos a Mendoza. Terminamos el viaje cruzando los Andes hasta Santiago, Chile. Nos pareció desafiante y divertido averiguar cómo movernos. No nos dimos cuenta de que las distancias en Argentina eran tan grandes. Es de hecho, el octavo país más grande del mundo.

Esta historia cuenta nuestras aventuras en Bariloche y Junín de los Andes. 

Bariloche es un resort para esquiar en el invierno y un resort junto al lago en el verano. Como estuvimos allí en enero, era verano. Una de sus historias  de infamia es que fue un refugio para criminales de guerra Nazi de alto rango. Los Nazis y otros fascistas huyeron de Europa desde 1945 y usaron “ratlines” o rutas de escape, para refugiarse en las Américas, particularmente Bariloche en Argentina. Juan Perón invitó activamente a los Nazis a Argentina. 

Cuando llegamos a Bariloche, ¡lo primero que hicimos fue ir a comer! En el restaurante, ordenamos pizza con corazones de palma, jamón, capicola, pimientos morrones asados, aceitunas, y salsa golf. Nunca había oído hablar de “corazones de palma” y cuando busqué la traducción, seguía sin saber lo que era. De hecho, es el centro del corazón de una palmera. El centro y la base son comestibles. En la pizza, se ve como queso en tiras derretido. 

La salsa golf también sirve como una buena cobertura de pizza. Está hecha con mayonesa, ketchup, especias como el pimiento, orégano, y comino. Se llama salsa golf porque fue inventada en un campo de golf en Argentina. 

En Bariloche, habíamos reservado un viaje de tres días en kayak. Queríamos acampar por dos noches y hacer kayak por tres días. No éramos kayakistas super experimentados, pero Chrisl tenía experiencia en kayak de aguas bravas y yo pensé que podría manejarlo. En nuestro segundo día en Bariloche, después de horas esperando por la compañía de turismo para que nos recogiera, preguntamos al hotel si sabían de nuestro tour. 

El hotel nos dijo que no sabían nada sobre nuestro tour y no tenían una reservación para un cuarto por esa noche para nosotros, lo cual nos pareció extraño. Cuando contactamos a la compañía de turismo local, nos dijeron que no nos tenían en su lista de tours. Para arreglar lo del tour, Chris habló con tres personas diferentes y recibió tres historias diferentes sobre porque no estábamos en la lista de tours y no teníamos un cuarto de hotel.. ¡La compañía canadiense que usamos no envió nuestra reservación al negocio local en Bariloche! Finalmente, Chris averiguó que haríamos un medio día de kayak en Lago Gutierrez y tendríamos dos días y una noche de viaje de kayak en Lago Mascardi empezando el próximo día.

El viaje de una noche lo hicimos Chris, nuestro guía Joe, y yo. Joe era un guía turístico de Carolina del Norte que casualmente estaba visitando a su amigo, el cual era el dueño de la empresa de viajes local. Fue un viaje con todos los servicios incluidos. Joe preparó todas nuestras comidas, armó nuestra tienda y nos sirvió bebidas. Fue un poco incómodo porque éramos solo nosotros tres y era mucho trabajo para él. Chris y yo nos ofrecimos a ayudarle, pero él no quiso.

El kayak fue hermoso y muy agotador. Fuimos de una playa aislada a otra  a través del gran lago. En algunas direcciones tuvimos vientos en contra lo que hacía que fuera muy difícil remar. Puesto que casi no tenía experiencia en kayak, ¡fue realmente duro! Tenía buena condición física en general, pero este kayak requería mucha resistencia en la parte superior del cuerpo. Al final, ¡me alegré de que tuviéramos un viaje en kayak de 2 días y no de 3!

La siguiente parada fue Junín de los Andes, en la provincia de Neuquén, en el extremo norte de la Región de los Lagos. Para llegar allí tomamos un camión por la famosa Ruta de los Siete Lagos, estos lagos son alimentados por glaciares en los Andes. La gente puede hacer el recorrido en carro, deteniéndose en los distintos lagos y miradores. Nosotros hicimos el viaje en camión, tuvimos vistas de los lagos y tardamos alrededor de medio día en llegar desde Bariloche a Junín de los Andes.

Junín era un pueblo mucho más tranquilo que Bariloche, con menos turistas, y a los dos nos gustó mucho. Nuestro principal objetivo al ir allí era explorar el Parque Nacional Lanín, así que decidimos hacer una caminata de un día hasta la base del Volcán Lanín. El Volcán Lanín es un estratovolcán, o un volcán en forma de cono, que se encuentra en la frontera entre Argentina y Chile.

¡Qué día!

Nuestro primer reto fue conseguir comida para la excursión que duraría todo el día. El día anterior, intentamos comprar sándwiches, empanadas o algo similar para llevar a la caminata. La mayoría de las tiendas estaban cerradas y no pudimos encontrar ningún lugar que vendiera sándwiches, ¡a pesar de que uno de los platos típicos para el almuerzo era jamón y queso entre dos rebanadas de pan!

Entramos en un restaurante y con mi español malo, le pregunté al mesero si podíamos llevar los sándwiches de jamón y queso tostados, pero sin tostar. El plato del menú decía “sándwiches de jamón y queso tostados”. Yo estaba tratando de decirle que queríamos llevar los sándwiches a una caminata al día siguiente y que no queríamos que estuvieran tostados. El mesero no tenía ni idea de lo que yo le estaba pidiendo. Después de unos 5 minutos tratando de comunicarnos, se alejó, hizo el pedido y unos 20 minutos después él nos trajo una pila de 6 pulgadas de sándwiches de jamón y queso,  tostados.

Los conservamos porque no teníamos otra opción y por la mañana eran un montón de papilla incomible. Casualmente, había una tienda de conveniencia abierta a las 6:30 am. Corrí por la calle, compré dos sándwiches y llegué a tiempo al camión para nuestra salida a las 7 am. ¡Gracias a Dios! ¡Qué alivio! ¡La mañana fue muy ajetreada pero salimos a tiempo!

Y luego nos quedamos sentados en el camión, sin ir a ninguna parte, durante al menos otra hora. La gente se subía al camión poco a poco y nadie tenía prisa. La hora de salida era solo una sugerencia.

Finalmente emprendimos el viaje hacia el Parque Nacional Lanín por una Ruta 61 llena de baches, tan accidentada que el camión solo podía ir a unos 30-40 km/h. Lo íbamos a tomar hasta el otro lado del Lago Huechulafquen, donde caminaríamos desde el lado sur del volcán hasta su base. 

El lago Huechulafquen es un lago de origen glaciar ubicado a unos 25 km de Junín de los Andes, en el Parque Nacional. Es uno de los lagos andinos más grandes de Argentina. Su nombre proviene del idioma mapuche y significa “lago largo”. Tiene 30 km de largo y 5 km de ancho.

El pueblo mapuche es un grupo indígena que habita en las zonas centro-sur de Chile y Argentina, incluida la Patagonia. Este grupo indígena incluye a pueblos de la zona relacionados por el idioma y las estructuras sociales y económicas. Si bien tuvieron contacto con el Imperio inca, la mayoría de ellos nunca estuvieron bajo su dominio. Se estima que a mediados del siglo XVI su población era de entre 700.000 y 900.000 habitantes. Para tener una perspectiva, en su apogeo, el imperio inca tenía alrededor de 14 millones de personas.

El contacto de los mapuches con los invasores españoles comenzó en 1550. En 1598, la población mapuche había disminuido debido a las guerras, epidemias y muertes en las minas de oro de propiedad española. Conocidos por sus feroces luchas, en 1598 expulsaron a la mayoría de los españoles de sus territorios tradicionales. En 1641, los mapuches y el Imperio español firmaron un tratado que reconocía el territorio de la nación mapuche. Sin embargo, en la década de 1880, Argentina y Chile expandieron sus territorios y atacaron nuevamente las tierras mapuches. Muchos mapuches fueron desplazados y estos gobiernos siguen sin reconocer sus tierras oficiales.

Volviendo a nuestro viaje en camión…

Con un camino tan accidentado, el camión decidió que necesitaba una llanta ponchada. Todos los pasajeros se bajaron y esperaron en el camino de tierra, charlando con los demás, usando el baño (es decir, entre los arbustos) y disfrutando de la mañana mientras el conductor cambiaba la llanta ponchada. Llegamos al parque y comenzamos nuestra caminata. Fue una caminata fantástica a través de los árboles de araucarias y luego subimos por el paisaje austero hasta la línea de nieve. La vista desde la base del volcán fue una de las mejores que hemos tenido en una caminata.

Nos preocupaba no poder volver a la hora de salida del camión a las 4 pm. Pensamos que las 4 pm era una sugerencia, pero ser puntual es un hábito difícil de abandonar. Nuestras reservas de comida se estaban agotando y teníamos hambre. Logramos volver al lago y fuimos a la única cafetería abierta. Preguntamos qué comida y bebida tenían ¡y solo vendían Pepsi! Ni comida ni otras bebidas.

Desesperados, compartimos una Pepsi y esperamos el camión. Otros turistas comenzaron a reunirse alrededor, así que pensamos que estábamos en el lugar correcto. A las 4 de la tarde llegaron y pasaron sin camión. Las 5, las 6... No había camión. Otros camiones turísticos se detuvieron y preguntaron si alguno de nosotros quería viajar. Los otros turistas aprovecharon la oportunidad. ¡Rechacé todos los viajes porque no quería pagar otra vez por un boleto! Pero esto sólo exacerbó mi ansiedad.

A eso de las 6:30, Chris y yo éramos las únicas personas que quedábamos esperando el camión. Estaba tan tensa y preocupada por la posibilidad de que me abandonaran en el parque que me dolía muchísimo la cabeza. Estaba hecha un monstruo y me negaba a decirle nada a Chris. Me repetía una y otra vez que, si nos abandonaban, seguramente la gente del parque nos ayudaría. Esos pensamientos reconfortantes no me hacían sentir mejor.

A eso de las 7 pm llegó el camión, pero iba en la dirección equivocada. El conductor dijo que llegaba tarde porque el otro camión se había estropeado y que lo habían enviado como camión de reemplazo. Todavía tenía que ir más lejos, hasta el final del lago, hasta la última parada de la ruta, para llevar a la gente allí y luego volver. A eso de las 8 pm, con 4 horas de retraso, el camión finalmente nos recogió, ¡casi muertos de hambre y prácticamente abandonados!

Cuando subí al camión, el dolor de cabeza desapareció y me animé. Me quedé dormida un rato, pero luego mi tendencia a preocuparme pasó a pensar en la cena y en si llegaríamos a tiempo para cenar. No sé por qué estaba preocupada, porque la cena en Argentina empezaba a las 9 pm y estaba en pleno apogeo a las 11 pm

Regresamos a Junín de los Andes a las 10 pm, fuimos a un restaurante popular lleno de gente y a las 11 pm teníamos comida en la mesa. ¡Fue la única comida en Argentina en la que comimos al mismo tiempo que los lugareños!

El día siguiente lo pasamos dando vueltas por la ciudad. A media tarde, compramos dos helados de dos bolas muy grandes, nos sentamos en una banca del parque y nos los comimos. Caminamos hasta un bonito mirador llamado Parque Vía Christi. En la cima había una gran cruz, algunos mosaicos y un baño. En ese momento, Chris dijo que iba a tener diarrea. No es lo ideal tener diarrea cuando estás de paseo, ¡pero había un baño público limpio a su disposición!

Se negó a usarlo, dijo que no quería usar un baño público y que quería volver caminando al hotel y usar el baño que había allí. Me quedé atónita. ¡Había que caminar una hora hasta nuestro hotel! ¿Cómo podía alguien aguantar la diarrea durante tanto tiempo?

Durante el camino de regreso al hotel, estuvo muy callado y concentrado. Me aseguré de no mencionar su inminente diarrea. Pero cuando llegamos al hotel, no pudimos entrar. El hotel nos hizo dejarles la llave cuando nos fuimos para que no la perdiéramos al salir. Durante unos 5 minutos, tocamos la puerta principal para entrar y nadie respondió. Estaban en la parte de atrás, limpiando. Una vez que se abrió la puerta, Chris se dirigió directamente al baño.

Disfrutamos de una belleza espectacular, buena comida, actividades físicas desafiantes y gente amable. Tampoco pudimos dejar de lado nuestra preferencia y expectativas de puntualidad. Además, perdimos nuestras reservas, nuestro autobús se averió y no pudimos comprar comida para nuestra caminata. No estoy segura de volver a visitar Argentina, pero si lo hiciera, tendría que hacer un curso sobre cómo leer la hora como un argentino.

Argentina ranks as one of the most dissatisfying, difficult, and visually beautiful vacations I’ve ever had. It was a series of mistakes, delays, and misunderstandings. It was also stunningly beautiful with stark contrasts: high, snow capped mountain ranges, massive lakes, oppressive humidity, a very young population, high unemployment, and a lot of trash on the street. Looking back, I chuckle at all the problems we encountered.

Visit the main story page to see both the English and Spanish and to download the side-by-side text.

Story Text

When Chris and I landed in Argentina, I was excited to use my Spanish. I was not, however, prepared for the Argentine accent! It took my ears a few days to adjust, and eventually I got the hang of communicating with my intermediate level Spanish.

Our itinerary started in Buenos Aires, then we flew to the Lake District and stayed in San Carlos de Bariloche and Junín de los Andes. We also stayed at a rural ranch in Payunia, then went to Mendoza. We ended the trip by going over the Andes to Santiago, Chile. We found it challenging and fun to figure out how to get around. We didn’t realize the distances in Argentina were so big. It’s actually the 8th largest country in the world. 

This story recounts our adventures in Bariloche and Junín de los Andes.

Bariloche is a ski resort in the winter and a lakeside resort in the summer. Since we were there in January, it was summer time. One of its claims to infamy is as a refuge for high ranking Nazi war criminals. Nazis and other fascists fled Europe from 1945 onward and used “ratlines,” or escape routes, to safe havens in the Americas, particularly Argentina. Juan Perón actively invited Nazis to Argentina. 

When we arrived in Bariloche, our first action item was food! At a restaurant, we ordered a pizza with hearts of palm, ham, capicola, roasted bell peppers, olives, and salsa golf. I had never heard of “corazones de palma” and when I looked up the translation as “hearts of palm,” I still didn’t know what it was. It is actually the centre core of a cultivated palm tree. The centre core and base are edible. On a pizza, it looks like semi-melted, whole string cheese.

Salsa golf also makes for a good pizza topping. It’s made with mayonnaise, ketchup and spices like pimento, oregano, and cumin. It’s called salsa golf because it was invented at a golf course in Argentina.

For Bariloche, we had booked a three day kayaking trip. We wanted to camp for two nights and kayak for three days. We weren’t super experienced lake kayakers, but Chris had white water kayaking experience and I figured I could handle it. On our second day in Bariloche, after waiting hours for the tour company to pick us up, we asked the hotel if they knew about our tour.

The hotel told us that they didn’t know anything about our tour and didn't have a room booked for us for that night, which we found odd. When we contacted the local tour company, they said we weren’t on their list of tours. To sort out the tour, Chris talked to three different people and got three different stories about why we weren’t on their tour list and didn’t have a hotel room. The Canadian company we used didn’t put our booking through to the local business in Bariloche! Eventually Chris worked out that we would do a half day of kayaking on Lago Gutierrez and have a two day, one night kayaking trip on Lago Mascardi starting the next day.

The overnight trip was me, Chris, and our guide Joe. Joe was an outdoor tour guide from North Carolina who happened to be visiting his friend, the owner of the local tour company. It was a full service tour. Joe made all our meals, set up our tent, and served us drinks. It was a bit awkward because it was just the three of us and it was a lot of work for him. Chris and I offered to help but he didn’t want any.  

The kayaking was beautiful and very exhausting. We went from secluded beach to secluded beach across the large lake. In some directions we had headwinds making it really hard to paddle. Given that I had almost no experience with kayaking, it was really tough! I had good general fitness, but this kayaking required a lot of upper body endurance. In the end, I was glad that we had a 2 day kayaking trip and not a 3 day trip!

The next stop was Junin de los Andes in Neuquén Province, at the north end of the Lake District. We took a bus along the famed Ruta de los Siete Lagos to get there. These are glacier-fed lakes in the Andes. People can do the journey in a car, stopping at the different lakes and viewpoints. We did the journey on a coach bus, had viewpoints of the lakes, and it took us about half a day to get from Bariloche to Junin de los Andes.

Junin was a much quieter town than Bariloche, with fewer tourists, and we both really liked it. Our main purpose in going there was to explore the Lanín National Park, so we decided to do a day hike to the base of Volcán Lanín. Volcán Lanín is a stratovolcano, or a cone-shaped volcano, that lies on the border between Argentina and Chile. 

What a day it would be. 

Our first challenge came with getting food for the all-day excursion. The day before, we tried to buy sandwiches, empanadas, or something similar to take on a hike. Most of the shops were closed and we couldn’t find anywhere with sandwiches, even though one of the typical lunch items was ham and cheese between two pieces of bread!

We went into one restaurant and in bad Spanish, I asked the waiter if we could have the toasted ham and cheese sandwiches, to-go, but not toasted. The menu item said “toasted ham and cheese sandwiches” I was trying to tell him we wanted to take the sandwiches on a hike the next day and didn’t want them to be toasted. He had absolutely no idea what I was asking. After about 5 minutes of trying to communicate, he walked away, placed the order, and about 20 minutes later we got a 6” pile of toasted ham and cheese sandwiches! 

We kept them, because we had no other food, and in the morning they were one big pile of inedible mush. As it happened, there was one convenience store open at 6:30am. I ran down the street, grabbed two sandwiches, and made it to the bus on time for our 7am departure. Thank goodness! What a relief! The morning was such a rush but we would depart on time!

And then we sat on the bus, going nowhere, for at least another hour. People trickled onto the bus and no one was in a rush. The departure time was just a suggestion. 

Eventually we started on the journey to Parque Nacional Lanín along a pothole-filled Route 61, so rough that the bus could only go about 30-40 kph. We were taking it to the far side of Lago Huechulafquen where we would hike from the south side of the volcano to its base.

Lago Huechulafquen is a glacial lake about 25 km from Junin de los Andes in the National Park. It is one of Argentina’s largest Andean lakes. The name comes from the Mapuche language and means “long lake.” It is 30km long and 5km wide. 

The Mapuche people are a group of indigenous around the south-central parts of Chile and Argentina, including Patagonia. This indigenous group includes peoples in the area related by language and social and economic structures. While they had contact with the Incan Empire, most of them were never under Incan rule. In the mid-16th century, it is estimated their population was 700,000 to 900,000. For perspective, at its height, the Incan empire had about 14 million people.

The Mapuche contact with Spanish invaders started in 1550. By 1598, the Mapuche population decreased due to wars, epidemics, and deaths in Spanish-owned gold mines. Known for their fierce fighting, in 1598, they drove out most of the Spanish from their traditional territories. In 1641 the Mapuche and the Spanish Empire signed a treaty recognizing the territory of the Mapuche nation. However, in the 1880s, Argentia and Chile expanded their territories and once again attacked Mapuche lands. Many Mapuches were displaced and these governments continue not to recognize their official lands.

Getting back to our bus ride… 

With such a rough road, the bus decided it needed a flat tire. All passengers got off and waited on the dirt road, chatting with others, using the bathroom (aka the bushes), and enjoying the morning while the driver changed the flat. We made it to the park and started our hike. It was a fantastic hike through the monkey puzzle trees then up the stark landscape to the snowline. The view from the base of the volcano was one of the best we’ve ever had on a hike. 

We were concerned about getting back for our 4pm bus departure. We figured 4pm was a suggestion, but being on time is a hard habit to break. Our food supplies were dwindling and we were getting hungry. We made it back down to the lake and went to the only open cafe. We asked what food and drinks they had and they only sold Pepsi! No food, no other drinks. 

Desperate, we shared a Pepsi and waited for the bus. Other tourists started to gather around, so we figured we were in the right spot. 4pm came and went with no bus. 5pm, 6pm… No bus. Other tour buses stopped and asked if any of us wanted rides. The other tourists jumped at the chance. I refused all the rides because I didn’t want to pay again for a ticket! But this only exacerbated my anxiety. 

By about 6:30, Chris and I were the only people left waiting for the bus. I was so tense and worried about being abandoned in the park that I had a splitting headache. I was a beast to be around and refused to say anything to Chris. I kept telling myself that if we were abandoned, surely people in the park would help us. These comforting thoughts did not make me feel better.

Around 7pm the bus showed up but it was going in the wrong direction! The driver said he was late because the other bus broke down and he was sent out as a replacement bus. He still had to go out even further, to the very end of the lake, to the very last stop on the route, to get people there, and then come back. At around 8pm, 4 hours late, the bus finally picked us up, near starvation and practically abandoned! 

When I got on the bus, my headache went away and I cheered up! I fell asleep for a little bit, but then my tendency to worry went to thinking about dinner and would we get back in time for dinner? I don’t know why I was worried, because dinner in Argentina started at 9pm and was in full swing at 11pm. 

We made it back to Junin de los Andes at 10pm, went to a popular restaurant crowded with people, and had food on the table by 11pm. It was the only meal in Argentina where we actually ate at the same time as locals! 

The next day we spent around the town. Mid-afternoon, we bought two really big double-scoop ice cream cones, sat on a park bench, and ate them. We hiked up to a nice viewpoint called Parque Via Christi. At the top there was a large cross, some mosaics, and a bathroom. At this point, Chris said he was going to have diarrhea. Not ideal to have diarrhea when you’re out on a walk, but there was a clean public bathroom at his disposal! 

He refused to use it, saying he didn’t want to use a public bathroom, and wanted to walk back to the hotel and use the bathroom there. I was astonished. It was a 1-hour walk back to our hotel! How in the world could anybody hold diarrhea for that long?

During the walk back to the hotel, he was very silent and focused. I made sure not to mention his impending diarrhea. But when we made it back to the hotel, we couldn’t get in. The hotel had us leave our key with them when we left so we didn’t lose it when we went out. For about 5 minutes, we knocked on the front door to get in and no one answered. They were in the back, cleaning. Once the door opened, Chris made a beeline for the bathroom. 

We experienced some spectacular beauty, good food, challenging physical activities, and friendly people. We also couldn’t let go of our preference for, and expectations of, punctuality. Plus our reservations were lost, our bus broke down, and we couldn’t buy food for our hike. I’m not sure I would ever visit Argentina again, but if I did, I’d have to take a course on how to tell time like an Argentine.

En 2010, mi esposo y yo tomamos nuestras bicicletas para Cuba para hacer turismo en bicicleta. Realmente disfrutamos mucho el viaje, ¡pero el penúltimo día fue muy desafiante! Es un día que nunca olvidaré. Fue estresante, difícil y divertido (después del hecho).

Puedes leer y escuchar esta historia en inglés o descargar el lector lado a lado.

Texto de la Historia

Cuando llegamos por primera vez a Cuba con nuestras bicicletas a cuestas, nos quedamos en un hotel junto a la playa en Varadero por una noche. Accedieron a dejarnos guardar nuestras cajas para bicicletas y herramientas en uno de sus cobertizos. Nos quedaríamos en el mismo hotel cuando regresáramos a Varadero por una noche antes de nuestro vuelo de regreso a casa.

Antes de entrar en la historia en sí, necesitamos un poco de detalle sobre la moneda y la obtención de efectivo en Cuba.

Durante toda nuestra estadía fue difícil sacar dinero de un banco o de una casa de cambio. No se aceptaban las tarjetas de débito en los cajeros, así que necesitábamos retirar dinero con nuestra tarjeta de crédito. Esto generaba una comisión por cada retiro en efectivo, además nuestra tarjeta de crédito nos empezó a cobrar intereses inmediatamente después de estos retiros. Necesitábamos tener un equilibro entre retirar dinero y tener suficiente efectivo, y que la tarjeta de crédito no nos cobrará intereses. A este estrés se sumó el hecho de que no había pesos cubanos disponibles en Canadá, así que no podíamos llegar con nada de CUCs.

Cuando fuimos, Cuba tenía dos tipos de moneda, una para los locales, que se llama peso cubano (CUP) y una para turistas que se llama peso cubano convertible (CUP o “cuuk”). El gobierno había fijado la tasa de cambio en 25 CUP por 1 CUC por 1 USD. El CUC era mucho más deseable que el CUP por su mayor poder adquisitivo. A quienes trabajaban en turismo se les pagaba en CUCs y ganaban mucho más dinero que aquellos a quienes no se les pagaba con esa moneda. En 2013 el gobierno cubano anunció que pasaría por una “unificación monetaria” y para enero de 2021 el país tenía una moneda, el CUP.

Ya que éramos canadienses retirando dinero de un banco canadiense, pudimos tener acceso a nuestro dinero. Cuando llegamos al país, intentamos usar el cajero automático, Por alguna misteriosa razón, no podíamos usar nuestras tarjetas de débito. Si mal no recuerdo, la tarjeta de crédito de él tampoco funcionaba, así que sólo teníamos mi tarjeta de crédito para usar.

Durante el viaje, yo guardé los pasaportes de los dos, mi tarjeta de crédito y la mitad de nuestro efectivo en la cartera de viaje alrededor de mi cuello. Cuando llegamos de vuelta a Varadero después de dos semanas de turismo en bicicleta, pedaleamos desde la estación de autobuses hasta el hotel. Nos quedaba un día, nos faltaba efectivo y esperábamos que el hotel nos dejará pagar con mi tarjeta de crédito. Sólo aceptaban efectivo. ¡Era un domingo, necesitábamos hallar un banco o casa de cambio que nos dejará hacer un retiro!

Antes de subirnos en nuestras bicicletas a buscar efectivo, quería quitarme una de mis playeras. La temperatura en Cuba al fin había cambiado de la históricamente baja al calor normal. Me quité mi cartera de viaje del cuello y la puse en la parte trasera de mi bicicleta, me quité una playera y luego nos subimos en nuestras bicicletas y pedaleamos para buscar efectivo.

Como era domingo, nos costó mucho hallar algún banco o casa de cambio abierta o un cajero en funcionamiento. Fuimos hasta el final de la franja de hoteles en Varadero y luego dimos la vuelta y volvimos a recorrer las mismas 15 cuadras, todo mientras buscábamos un banco o casa de cambio. Cuando finalmente encontramos la única casa de cambio abierta, el empleado necesitaba uno de nuestros pasaportes como identificación. Cuando busqué los pasaportes alrededor de mi cuello, me di cuenta de que no estaban ahí. ¡Tampoco estaban en mi portabicicletas!

¡Un desastre total! 

Desandamos nuestro camino durante una hora, fuimos a todas nuestras paradas y a nuestro hotel. Pensé que tal vez se me había caído la cartera justo cuando empezamos a andar en bicicleta para alejarnos del hotel. Al menos sabíamos que los lugareños no podrían usar nuestros pasaportes o venderselos a alguien más. Sabíamos que el gobierno era increíblemente estricto con el crimen contra los turistas y pensamos que nuestros pasaportes aparecerían. Pero no teníamos idea de dónde podían estar o cuando tiempo nos tomaría encontrarlos otra vez.

Estábamos en un aprieto. Chris tenía 30 pesos pero su tarjeta de crédito no servía. Mi tarjeta de crédito, recuerden, ¡estaba en mi cartera de viaje perdida! Decidimos ir en bicicleta a la calle con los complejos turísticos. Tal vez pudiéramos usar la tarjeta de Chris en alguno de esos hoteles y contactar a la embajada canadiense. Nuestro vuelo era al día siguiente, pero pensamos que sin los pasaportes perderíamos nuestro vuelo.

¡Un desastre total!

Conforme íbamos en bicicleta por la franja turística, llegamos al primer hotel y le dije a Chris “vamos aquí y vemos que podemos averiguar! Me imaginé que bien podríamos empezar con el primero. Fuimos con la recepcionista y Chris le dijo “perdimos nuestros pasaportes”. ¡Ella nos miró y señaló hacia otra mujer que iba caminando hacia nosotros con mi cartera de viaje!

¡Desastre evitado!

¡Alguien la había hallado en la calle y la entregó a este hotel! Nuestros pasaportes y mi tarjeta de crédito seguían en mi cartera. Ya no estaban mis 30 CUC,s pero ese fue un pequeño precio a pagar por el regreso seguro de mi cartera. Nunca me he sentido más aliviada en mi vida. Abracé a la mujer que tenía nuestros pasaportes, quien se veía algo sorprendida. ¡Fuimos en bicicleta hasta la casa de cambio, sacamos nuestro dinero y luego tomamos unas Cubas libres para celebrar!

¡Éxito!

Nuestra próxima tarea era desarmar nuestras bicicletas y empacarlas en las cajas para bicicletas. ¡Abrimos las cajas para descubrir que nos habían robado nuestras herramientas y el material de embalaje! Faltaban la llave de pedales, las llaves allen, las correas de seguridad, pequeñas piezas de plástico y las bolsas de plástico del supermercado.

¡Un desastre total!

Mientras Chris y yo estábamos con las cajas y las bicicletas en la calle, la gente se nos empezó a acercar para preguntarnos qué nos pasaba. Les dijimos que ya no teníamos nuestras herramientas, que se robaron todas nuestras cosas. Un hombre se fue y regresó con herramientas para ver si alguna podía servir. Otra persona vino, vio lo que estaba pasando y cruzó la calle a ver a su amigo para pedirle prestadas sus herramientas. Ese amigo le empezó a gritar en la calle a alguien más. Luego unas 4 personas más llegaron con sus herramientas para ayudarnos a desarmar nuestras bicicletas.

¡Se evitó el desastre!

Ahí fue cuando aprendí que los cubanos son increíblemente ingeniosos y pueden hacer que cualquier cosa funcione y resolver cualquier problema. Esta cultura de la reparación, esta habilidad de solucionar cualquier problema surgió por varias razones. Una fue que el embargo comercial implicaba que muy pocos productos entraban al país. Además, Cuba no tenía el dinero para comprar nuevos productos de mercados internacionales.

Los Estados Unidos tiene embargos comerciales contra Cuba desde los 1960 's, lo que lo convierte en el embargo comercial más largo de la historia. Cuba ha tenido acuerdos comerciales con la Unión Soviética y Venezuela, pero ambas relaciones han fluctuado con la suerte de la URSS y Venezuela. Debido a que no pueden tener productos nuevos, tienen que reparar lo que tienen.

Como alguien de Norteamérica, es muy impresionante ver a los cubanos ingeniarselas para reparar lo que sea y como hacer que cualquier cosa funcione. Es por eso que el viajar me permite apreciar otras culturas y romper barreras, puedo ver gente viviendo en situaciones completamente distintas y ver cómo ellos resuelven problemas. Poder hablar español me permite hacer preguntas sobre sus vidas y entender más sobre ellos.

Chris y yo no desarmamos nuestras bicicletas: los cubanos lo resolvieron por nosotros con sus herramientas mientras nosotros estábamos a un lado platicando con los lugareños y señalando lo que había que quitar de las bicicletas. Querían comprar nuestras bicicletas porque eran de muy buena calidad en comparación con lo que había disponible. Teníamos miedo de decirles el precio de las bicicletas y dijimos que no, que no estaban a la venta. Finalmente, el espectáculo terminó y Chris y yo empacamos nuestras bicicletas en las cajas, protegiéndolas con ropa sucia y cualquier otro tipo de acolchado que pudiéramos encontrar. Pensamos: "a dónde fueres en Cuba, haz lo que vieres".

¡Éxito!

Claro, nos decepcionó que nos robaran nuestras cosas, pero no fue un robo demasiado costoso. 30 CUC o $30 USD fue un precio pequeño a pagar por la devolución segura de nuestro pasaporte y tarjeta de crédito. La generosidad y el ingenio de nuestros nuevos amigos cubanos superaron cualquier resentimiento que tuviéramos. Realmente nos impresionó lo que podían hacer con sus recursos. Apreciamos cómo se agruparon todos y discutieron la mejor manera de desarmar las bicicletas.

Como nota final, aún no teníamos suficiente efectivo para irnos del país. Calculamos cuánto dinero teníamos que pagar por el hotel, la cena y el taxi al aeropuerto, pero se nos olvidó la tarifa de salida del aeropuerto. Ese era un problema para el día siguiente. Obviamente, logramos salir del país, ¡así que lo resolvimos de alguna manera!

In 2010, my husband and I took our bikes to Cuba to do bicycle touring. We really enjoyed the trip, but the second to last day was very challenging! It’s a day I’ll never forget. It was stressful, hard, and funny (after the fact).

You can read and listen to this story in Spanish or download the side-by-side reader.

Story Text

When we first arrived in Cuba with our bikes in tow, we stayed at a beachside hotel in Varadero for one night. They agreed to let us keep our bike boxes and tools in one of their sheds. We would stay in this same hotel when we returned to Varadero for one night before our return flight home.

Before we get into the story itself, we need a bit of detail on the currency and getting cash in Cuba.

For our whole stay, it was hard to get cash out of a bank or currency exchange. Debit cards weren’t accepted at cash machines, so we needed to withdraw money on our credit card. This incurred a fee for each cash withdrawal, plus our credit card started charging us interest immediately on these withdrawals. We needed to balance between withdrawing money and having enough cash, and not the credit card charging us interest.. Added to this stress was that Cuban pesos were not available in Canada, so we couldn’t arrive with any CUCs.

When we visited, Cuba had two types of currency, one for locals called the Cuban peso (or CUP) and one for tourists called the Cuban convertible peso (CUC or “kook”). The government pegged the exchange rate as 25CUP to 1CUC to 1USD. The CUC was much more desirable than the CUP because of its greater purchasing power. Those who worked in tourism would get paid in CUCs and make much more money than those who were paid in CUP. In 2013, the Cuban government announced it would go through “monetary unification” and by January 2021 the country had one currency, the CUP.

Because we are Canadians withdrawing from a Canadian bank, we could access our money. When we arrived in the country, we tried to use the cash machine. For whatever mysterious reason, we couldn’t use our debit cards. If I remember correctly, his credit card didn’t work either, so we only had my credit card that we could use.  

During the trip, I kept both our passports, my credit card, and half our cash in the travel wallet around my neck. When we arrived back in Varadero after two weeks of bicycle touring, we rode from the bus station to the hotel. With one day left, we were short on cash and hoped the hotel would let us pay with my credit card. It only took cash. It was a Sunday, we needed to find a bank or currency exchange that would let us make a withdrawal!

Before we rode our bikes around to find cash, I wanted to take off one of my shirts. The temperature in Cuba had finally changed from historic lows to normal heat. I removed my travel wallet from around my neck and put it on the back of my bike, took off one shirt, then we got on our bikes and rode to find cash.

Because it was Sunday, we had a really hard time finding any open bank or currency exchange or functioning cash machine. We rode to the very end of the Varadero strip of hotels then turned around and rode back the same 15 blocks, all the while looking for a bank or currency exchange. When we finally found the one open currency exchange, the clerk needed one of our passports for identification. When I looked for the passports around my neck, I realized they weren’t there. Nor were they on my bike rack! 

A total disaster!

For an hour we backtracked our whole route: we went to all our stops and to our hotel. I thought maybe I had dropped the wallet right when we started cycling away from the hotel. At least we knew that no local would be able to use our passports or sell them to someone else. We knew that the government was incredibly strict on crime against tourists and we figured our passports would turn up. But we had no idea where they could be or how long it would take to find them again. 

We were in a sticky wicket. Chris had 30 pesos but his credit card wouldn’t work.. My credit card, remember, was in my lost travel wallet! We decided to ride down the street with the resorts. Maybe we could use Chris’s credit card at one of these hotels and contact the Canadian embassy. Our flight was also the next day, but we figured without our passports we would miss our flight. 

A total disaster! 

As we rode down the tourist strip, we came to the first hotel and I said to Chris, ”Let's just go in here and see what we can figure out.” I figured we might as well start with the first one. We went up to the receptionist and Chris said, “We’ve lost our passports…” The lady looked at us and pointed to another woman walking toward us with my travel wallet! 

Disaster averted!

Someone had found it on the street and turned it into this hotel! Our passports and my credit card were still in the wallet. My 30 CUCs were gone, but that was a very small price to pay for the safe return of my wallet. I’ve never felt so relieved in my life. I hugged the woman holding our passports who looked a bit shocked. We rode to the currency exchange, got our cash, then had Cuba Libres to celebrate! 

Success!

Our next task was to take apart our bikes and pack them into the bike boxes. We opened the boxes to find our tools and packaging stolen! The pedal wrench, allen keys, zap straps, little plastic bits, and the plastic grocery bags were all missing. 

A total disaster!

As Chris and I stood with the boxes and bikes on the street, people started coming up to us to ask us what was wrong. We told them that all our tools were gone, all our stuff was stolen. One man left and came back with tools to see if any of them would work. Another person came up, saw what was going on, and went across the street to his friend to borrow their tools. That friend started yelling down the street to someone else. Then about 4 more people showed up with their tools to help us take apart our bikes.

Disaster averted! 

That’s when I learned that Cubans are incredibly resourceful and can make anything work and solve any problem. This repair culture, this ability to fix any problem. came about for several reasons. One was the trade embargo meant very few new goods came into the country. Also, Cuba didn’t have the money to purchase new goods from international markets.

The United States has had trade embargos against Cuba since the 1960s, making these the longest trade embargos in modern history. Cuba has had trade agreements with the Soviet Union and Venezuela, but both of these relationships have waxed and waned with the fortunes of the USSR and Venezuela. Because they can’t get new goods, they have to repair what they have.

As someone from North America, it’s really impressive to see Cubans figure out how to repair anything and how to make anything work. That’s why travel gives me an appreciation for other cultures and breaks down barriers: I can see people living in completely different circumstances and see how they solve problems. Being able to speak Spanish gives me the ability to ask questions about their lives and understand more about them.

Chris and I didn’t take apart our bikes: the Cubans figured it out for us with their tools while we stood aside chatting with the locals and pointing to what needed to come off the bikes. They wanted to buy our bikes because they were such good quality compared to what was available. We were afraid to tell them the price of the bikes and said no, the bikes weren’t for sale. Eventually, the show was over and Chris and I packed our bikes away into the boxes, protecting our bikes with dirty clothing and any other kinds of padding we could find. We figured, “When in Cuba, do like the Cubans do!”

Success!

Sure, we were disappointed that our stuff was stolen, but it wasn’t too costly a theft. 30 CUCs or $30USD was a small price to pay for the safe return of our passport and credit card. The generosity and ingenuity of our new Cuban friends outweighed any hard feelings we had. We were really impressed with what they could do given their resources. We appreciated how they all grouped together and discussed the best way to get the bikes apart.

As a final note, we still didn’t have enough cash to leave the country. We calculated how much money we needed to pay for the hotel, dinner, and taxi to the airport, but forgot about the airport exit fee. That was a problem for the next day. Obviously we managed to leave the country, so we figured it out somehow!

Permalink

En 2010, tomamos nuestras bicicletas, alforjas y ropa y recorrimos los hoteles del lado oeste de Cuba, desde Varadero hasta Viñales. Durante nuestras dos semanas de ciclismo y turismo, experimentamos una ola de frío histórica, dificultad para hallar comida, divertidas excursiones en montañas, cuevas y un terreno ciclista desafiante. Conocimos cubanos maravillosos, amigables y generosos. Vamos a sumergirnos en el aprendizaje sobre Cuba, nuestra travesía y mejorar nuestro español.

Puedes leer y escuchar esta historia en inglés o descargar el lector lado a lado.

Texto de la Historia

Mi esposo, Chris y yo decidimos recorrer Cuba en bicicleta. Habíamos leído un libro llamado Bicycling Cuba y sus instrucciones eran tan detalladas que decidimos asumir el reto de llevar nuestras bicicletas a Cuba y hacer dos semanas de turismo en bicicleta. Pensamos que Cuba sería calurosa y un gran escape del invierno canadiense.

En 2010, agarramos nuestras bicicletas, alforjas y ropa y recorrimos los hoteles y hostales en el lado oeste de Cuba, desde Varadero hasta Viñales. Llegamos a Varadero, Cuba, en un vuelo nocturno y nuestras bicicletas a cuestas.

¡Qué reto sería! El viaje fue una serie de errores, equivocaciones y luchas, así como momentos inolvidables de belleza y generosidad. Aprendimos un montón sobre la historia cubana y pude practicar mi español. En mi opinión, fue una de las mejores vacaciones que he tenido.

En nuestro día de llegada en Varadero, nos registramos en un hotel, armamos nuestras bicicletas y paseamos. Acordamos dejar nuestras cajas para bicicletas en el hotel mientras recorríamos el resto del país. Al día siguiente fuimos a la terminal de autobuses a comprar boletos de Varadero a la Habana, donde comenzaría nuestro viaje en bicicleta. ¡Nos dijeron que los boletos estaban agotados hasta la tarde siguiente! Había mucho espacio en algunos camiones, pero esos camiones eran sólo para los lugareños. Aún si tuviéramos la moneda local (la cual no se nos permitía tener), no nos hubieran permitido comprar los boletos.

Cuando fuimos de viaje, Cuba tenía dos tipos de moneda, una para los lugareños llamada peso cubano (CUP) y una para los turistas llamada peso cubano convertible (CUC, también se pronuncia “cuuk”). El gobierno había prohibido los dólares estadounidenses y había fijado el tipo de cambio de 1CUC a 1USD. El CUC era mucho más deseable que el CUP debido a su mayor poder adquisitivo. Para ponerlo en perspectiva, en 2013, al trabajador cubano promedio se le pagaban 466 CUP al mes. Eso equivalía aproximadamente a 22CUC o 22 USD al mes. Cualquiera que trabajara en turismo tendría acceso al CUC y por lo tanto tendría un ingreso mucho mayor.

Dado que Cuba es un gobierno socialista/comunista, hay muchos servicios sociales tales como atención médica universal y educación obligatoria hasta los 15 años. Cuba cuenta con una de las tasas de alfabetismo más altas, con un 99% de alfabetización. Tienen una esperanza de vida alta, bajas tasas de mortalidad infantil y materna, tasas altas de vacunación y una gran cantidad de personal médico. ¡Una de sus mayores exportaciones es el personal médico! Hay un concepto llamado la paradoja de salud cubana: tienen salarios mensuales bajos pero su salud se compara con la de los países desarrollados.

Sin embargo, los salarios en el país todavía están decaídos. Según se informa, los salarios mensuales promedio en Cuba están entre los 67-188 dólares.

Decidimos tomar un taxi que nos llevará a la Habana por el elevado precio de 90 dólares. Un precio alto, pero que nos permitiría cumplir con el horario. Pedimos un taxi en nuestro hotel y apareció un sedán VW relativamente moderno. Nos sorprendió lo nuevo del vehículo, ya que Cuba estaba sujeta a varios embargos comerciales y tenía un suministro limitado de productos occidentales, incluidos los carros. No estábamos seguros de si era un taxi oficial o “un amigo de un amigo”.

Logramos meter nuestras bicicletas, alforjas y nosotros al carro, principalmente porque el conductor estaba decidido a hacer que nuestras bicicletas cupieran en su carro. Cerró las puertas y el maletero sobre las bicicletas varias veces. No fue un gran comienzo y esperábamos que nuestras bicicletas no estuvieran rotas. Me senté en el asiento trasero con la cadena de la bicicleta presionando mi pierna, esperando no quedar empalada en la bicicleta si teníamos un accidente.

En la Habana, nos quedamos 2 noches con Jesús, el dueño de una “casa particular”, que nos recomendó nuestro amigo en Canadá. Cada casa particular era como una posada sencilla. ¡En el campo nos daban de cenar también! Cada una costaba entre $20-30 dólares por noche para dos personas, dependiendo de la ubicación. Jesús era muy amable y la comida era excelente. Su casa tenía muchas ventanas y estaba muy bien ventilada, lo que era maravillosamente refrescante en un clima cálido.

¡Resultó que Florida y Cuba no tenían un clima cálido! Estaban en medio del periodo más frío registrado desde los 1940 's. Florida estableció un récord al tener 12 días con temperaturas máximas por debajo de los 50 °F (9 °C), lo que hizo que fuera aún más frío por la noche. Se produjeron daños por cientos de millones de dólares en el sector agrícola de ambos países.

Como solo podíamos llevar dos alforjas con ropa limitada, nuestra ropa no era suficiente para mantenernos calientes. La buena circulación del aire en las casas y la falta de cobijas significaron que teníamos frío por la noche. Para mantenernos calientes, nos vestimos con nuestros pantalones y chamarras y nos acurrucamos juntos toda la noche.

Paseamos durante dos días por la Habana, viendo los lugares de interés y comiendo. En la tarde del tercer día comimos en un restaurante más elegante donde comí tacos de camarones. No sabía que no era una buena idea comer mariscos en la Habana. La comida era cara y no valía la pena, ¡y perduró al siguiente día!

En el día 4, partimos de la Habana en nuestras bicicletas para un día de 85 km en bicicleta. Empezamos en la carretera principal. Las carreteras cubanas eran muy amigables con todo tipo de viajeros, pero casi nos atropellan varias veces. Vimos carros viejos, grandes recogiendo y dejando pasajeros constantemente. Estos Chevrolet y Buick de los años 50 con cola de aleta estaban llenos de gente y se llamaban taxis colectivos o taxis compartidos.

Los cubanos viajaban con frecuencia en esos taxis, subiendo y bajando en cualquier punto del trayecto. Los camiones con la parte trasera abierta se detenían para recoger y dejar pasajeros. A medida que nos adentrábamos en el campo, vimos toda clase de transporte: gente en bicicletas oxidadas, carretas y caballos, scooters, carros, camiones y a pie.

Después de algunas vueltas que se nos pasaron y unos cuantos kilómetros extra, llegamos a las Terrazas y nos quedamos en una pequeña granja. Esta familia era amiga de Jesús, el muchacho de la Habana. Así fue como viajamos en Cuba. No necesitábamos reservaciones, la persona con la que nos quedábamos conocía a alguien que tenía una casa particular o llevaba a la gente a pasear a caballo o a visitas a fábricas de puros. En esta noche en particular, luego de la cena, mi cena de camarón de la noche anterior volvió a atormentarme y tuve malestar estomacal durante la mayor parte de la noche.

En el día 5 fuimos a una pequeña villa con una alberca en un lago artificial. Nos seguíamos congelando, no usamos la alberca y fuimos al único restaurante disponible. El mesero era brusco y no le gustaba su trabajo. El extenso menú no tenía casi nada disponible. Pedí una ensalada del chef para cenar, porque mi estómago no se sentía bien por los vómitos y la diarrea de la noche anterior. ¡Esta cena también venía con una ensalada de entrada!

Ambas ensaladas tenían lechuga, tomate y ejotes de lata. El chef de la ensalada agregó cuidadosamente maíz, pimientos, unos cubos de queso, algunas aceitunas y algo de arroz.  Para el aderezo de la ensalada había un sólo juego de aceite y vinagre para todo el restaurante… Después de que lo use, otra persona me lo pidió y el juego pasó por el restaurante. Esa noche, de nuevo nos congelamos en nuestras camas.

En el día 6, partimos a través de las montañas en lo que todavía, 15 años después, clasifica como uno de los días en bicicleta más difíciles de mi vida. Estaba agotada debido a mi malestar estomacal y la mala alimentación del día anterior. No logramos conseguir nada de comida en el buffet del restaurante, no había tienditas y sólo teníamos nuestras barritas de respaldo que trajimos de Canadá.

Mientras íbamos en bicicleta por las montañas, observamos que los cubanos nunca construyen caminos que atraviesen las montañas. Todos los caminos van por encima de una montaña, bajan a un valle, suben otra montaña, bajan a otro valle, se repite, se repite. Nos llevó 3 horas hacer 20 kms.

En un momento, nos encontramos un camino desgastado donde faltaban unos 30 pies (unos 9 metros) de camino y estaba cubierto con plantas y hiedra. Mientras estábamos ahí tratando de decidir si darnos la vuelta o seguir por la estrecha conexión, vimos a un hombre que venía en dirección contraria en su bicicleta, atravesando fácilmente la sección lodosa a pie, y continuó. Entonces pensamos, “A dónde fueres…”

Una vez que cruzamos ese peligroso camino desgastado, llegamos a un punto de inflexión. ¿Seguiríamos derecho y continuaremos subiendo por las montañas o iríamos a la izquierda hacia el valle y luego pedalear hacia nuestro destino en la carretera plana? Elegimos ir a la izquierda y nos tomó unos rápidos 10 minutos llegar al valle.

Nos quedamos en San Diego de los Baños durante dos noches, con un día de descanso. Fuimos a observar aves con César, un cubano con un título en geología de una universidad búlgara. Hablaba búlgaro con fluidez y aprendió inglés en casa, de forma completamente autodidacta. Después de observar aves, fuimos a una fábrica local de puros, hicimos un recorrido por sus “instalaciones” de dos habitaciones y recibimos una demostración de cómo elaboran los puros. Era el primer día cálido de nuestro viaje y los dos llevábamos shorts.

Para llegar a Viñales, fuimos en bicicleta por la carretera en lugar de por las montañas. No queríamos repetir la difícil situación del otro día. En nuestro viaje de 60 km, recorrimos grandes cantidades de tierras de cultivo pintorescas, saludamos a muchos lugareños y vimos a gente que sembraba con un buey y un arado. Tuvimos una carrera implícita con un hombre en una bicicleta oxidada. Nunca nos saludó mientras se quedó a nuestro lado, empapado en sudor, durante unos 5 km. Logramos encontrar una tiendita “El rápido” y comprar algunos sándwiches. ¡Un día exitoso!

Cerca de las 5 de la tarde, estábamos en una bajada empinada hacia Viñales cuando un ciclista pasó en dirección contraria y nos saludó. Le devolvimos el saludo, pero no nos detuvimos. ¡Pensamos que simplemente estaba siendo amable! Resulta que Enrique quería nuestra atención. Se dio la vuelta y nos alcanzó en la subida. Nos dijo que la casa en donde se supone que nos íbamos a quedar ya estaba reservada por completo y lo habían mandado a buscarnos y llevarnos a la nueva casa. Una vez que nos dejó, se dio la vuelta y se fue a San Diego de los Baños, ¡de donde acabábamos de venir! ¡Nos llevó todo el día  llegar entre dos pueblos y él empezaba su trayecto a las 6pm!

Nos quedamos con Sanya y Paulito durante cinco noches. Cada desayuno incluía huevos frescos de granja, jamón, algún tipo de pan y piña madurada en rama, guayaba y papaya fresca.. Cada cena incluía pollo, pescado, verduras y postre. Toda la comida se producía localmente, porque, como nos dijeron nuestros anfitriones, Cuba no tenía ningún medio para transportar productos refrigerados. 

Históricamente, Cuba ha sufrido períodos de escasez de alimentos y hambruna. Como país, importa la mayoría de sus productos. Exportaba azúcar y recibía importaciones de alimentos de la URSS. Cuando la Unión Soviética colapsó en 1991, Cuba entró en el “Período Especial”. Las raciones subsidiadas por el Estado se redujeron y mucha gente murió de hambre. Nuestros anfitriones en Viñales nos contaron que criaban cerdos en su tina para que así pudieran tener suficiente comida para comer. Cuba comenzó a salir de este período cuando estableció vínculos más estrechos con Venezuela y restableció vínculos con Rusia bajo el mando de Vladimir Putin.

Para hacer turismo, un día montamos en bicicleta para ver los mogotes (que parecen colinas independientes con laderas empinadas). Otro día montamos a caballo hasta Puerto Esperanza. Fuimos a hacer espeleología en una cueva y montamos a caballo hasta la cima de una montaña, donde me picaron hormigas en la pierna. En el camino de vuelta de uno de nuestros paseos, encontramos una cabaña al borde de la carretera donde servían bebidas a base de ron en un coco, con popote.

Después de nuestros días de aventuras, nos sentamos en el pórtico de la casa y disfrutamos del pedazo de tierra que era su jardín. Tomamos “Cuba libre”, cuyos ingredientes son ron con “TuKola” (la versión cubana de la coca cola, porque los productos americanos no están permitidos). La Cuba libre se sirve en una taza pequeña con 3 hielos, ron cubano y una pizca de cola para el color. Muy fuerte y muy buena. En las tardes veíamos la tele en español con la familia, y luego leíamos en nuestras camas.

Eventualmente tomamos el camión de vuelta a Varadero y nos registramos en el hotel donde dejamos nuestras cajas para bicicletas. Ese día nos relajamos en una playa de arena blanca cerca del mar azul, un muy merecido día de descanso después de tantas aventuras y andar en bicicleta. Regresamos a Vancouver al día siguiente.

Experimenté estar en Cuba en 2010 y tenía una mejor situación económica que la actual. En una iniciativa sin precedentes, el gobierno cubano le pidió leche en polvo al programa mundial de alimentos. Es la primera vez que el gobierno ha pedido apoyo a la ONU. Espero que Jesús, César, Enrique, Sanya y Paulito estén superando estas dificultades.

In 2010, we took our bikes, panniers, and clothes and rode between hotels on the west side of Cuba, from Varadero to Viñales. During our two weeks of cycling and sightseeing, we experienced an historic cold snap, difficulty finding food, fun excursions into the mountains and caves, and challenging cycling terrain. We met wonderful, friendly, and generous Cubans. Let’s dive into learning about Cuba, our journey, and improving our English.

You can read and listen to this story in Spanish or download the side-by-side reader.

Story Text

My husband, Chris, and I decided to cycle around Cuba. We had read a book called Bicycling Cuba and their instructions were so detailed that we decided to take on the challenge of taking our bikes to Cuba and doing two weeks of bicycle touring. We figured Cuba would be hot and a great escape from the Canadian winter. 

In 2010, we took our bikes, panniers, and clothes and rode between hotels or hostels in the west side of Cuba, from Varadero to Viñales. We arrived in Varadero, Cuba, on a red-eye with our bikes in tow. 

What a challenge it would be! The trip was a series of errors, mistakes, and struggles, as well as unforgettable moments of beauty and generosity. We learned a lot about Cuban history and I got to practice my Spanish. In my opinion, it was one of the best vacations I ever had. 

On our arrival day in Varadero, we checked into a hotel, put our bikes together, and walked around. We arranged to leave our bike boxes at the hotel while we toured the rest of the country. The next day, we went to the bus depot to buy tickets from Varadero to Havana, where we would start our bike trip. We were told the bus tickets were sold out until the next afternoon! There was plenty of room on some buses, but those buses were for locals only. Even if we had the local currency (which we were not allowed to have), we wouldn’t be allowed to buy tickets.

When we visited, Cuba had two types of currency, one for locals called the Cuban peso (CUP) and one for tourists called the Cuban convertible peso (CUC, also pronounced as “kook”). The government had banned US dollars and pegged the exchange rate as 1CUC to 1USD. The CUC was much more desirable than the CUP because of its greater purchasing power. To give perspective, in 2013, the average Cuban worker was paid 466 CUP per month. That was roughly equivalent to 22CUC or $22USD per month. Anyone who worked in tourism would have access to CUC and thereby would have a much greater income. 

Given that Cuba is a socialist/communist government, there are many social services such as universal healthcare and mandatory education until the age of 15. Cuba has one of the highest literacy rates in the world at 99% literacy. It has high life expectancy, low infant and maternal mortality rates, high childhood vaccination rates, and high numbers of medical personnel. One of its main exports is medical staff! There’s a concept called the Cuban Health Paradox: they have low monthly wages but their health is comparable to those in developed countries. 

However, wages in the country are still depressed. Reportedly, average monthly wages in Cuba are between US$67-188/month.

We decided to get a taxi to take us to Havana at the steep price of $90. A steep price, but one that would keep us on schedule. We asked at our hotel for a taxi and a relatively modern VW sedan showed up. We were surprised at the newness of the vehicle, since Cuba was under a number of trade embargoes and had a limited supply of Western products, including cars. We weren’t sure if it was an official taxi, or a “friend of a friend.” 

We managed to get our bikes, ourselves, and our panniers into the car, mainly because the driver was determined to make our bikes fit into his car. He slammed the doors and trunk down on the bikes several times. That wasn’t a great start and we hoped our bikes weren’t broken. I sat in the back seat with the bike chain ring pressing into my leg, hoping I wouldn’t be impaled on the bike should we get into an accident.

In Havana, we stayed for 2 nights with Jesus, the owner of a “casa particular” that our friend in Canada recommended to us. Each casa particular was like a very simple bed and breakfast. In the countryside, they would feed us dinner, too! Each cost about $20-30/night for 2 people, depending on the location. Jesus was really friendly and the food was great. His home had a lot of windows and was well ventilated, which in warm weather would be wonderfully cooling.

As it turned out, Florida and Cuba did not have warm weather! They were in the midst of the coldest stretch of weather on record since the 1940s. Florida set a record for having 12 days of temperatures highs below 50’f or 9’c, which made it even colder at night! Hundreds of millions of dollars in damage occurred in the agricultural sector in both countries.

Because we could only bring two panniers with limited clothing, our clothes were not enough to keep us warm. The good air circulation in the houses and the lack of blankets meant that we were cold at night. To keep warm, we dressed in our pants and jackets, and snuggled together all night long.

For two days we wandered around Havana, seeing the sites and eating food. On the evening of day 3, we ate at a fancier restaurant where I had shrimp tacos. I didn’t know that it wasn’t a good idea to get seafood in Havana. The meal was expensive and not worth it and it kept on giving the next day!

On day 4, we set off from Havana on our bikes for an 85 km day of cycling. We started off on the main highway. Cuban roads were very friendly to all different kinds of travelers, but we were almost hit by cars a few times. We saw big, old cars constantly picking up and dropping off passengers. These fin-tailed 1950s Chevrolets and Buicks were full of people and called taxis colectivos, or shared taxis.

Cubans frequently traveled in these taxis, getting in and out at any point along the journey. Trucks with open backs frequently stopped to pick up and drop off passengers. As we got into the countryside, we saw all manner of travel: people on rusted out bikes, horse and carts, scooters, cars, trucks, and walking.

After a few missed turns and a few extra kilometers, we made it to Las Terrazas and stayed on a small farm. This family was a friend of Jesus’s, the guy from Havana. That’s how we travelled in Cuba. We didn’t need reservations: the person we stayed with knew someone who had a casa particular, or took people horseback riding, or took people on cigar factory tours. On this particular night, after dinner, my shrimp dinner from the night before came back to haunt me and I had gastrointestinal distress for most of the evening. 

On day 5 we rode to a little villa with a pool on a man-made lake. We continued to freeze, didn’t use the pool, and went to the only available restaurant. The waiter was gruff and didn’t like his job. The extensive menu had almost nothing available. I ordered a chef’s salad for dinner, because my stomach wasn’t feeling great from the previous night’s vomiting and diarrhea. This dinner also came with a starter salad! 

Both salads had lettuce, tomatoes, and canned string beans. The chef's salad thoughtfully added corn, sweet peppers, a few cubes of cheese, some olives, and some rice. For the salad dressing, there was one oil and vinegar set for the whole restaurant.. After I used it, another person asked me for it, and the set made its way around the restaurant. That night, we again froze in our beds.

On day 6, we set off through the mountains on what still, 15 years later, ranks as one of the hardest days of cycling in my life. I was exhausted from my gastrointestinal distress and the poor meal the night before. We didn’t manage to get any food at the breakfast buffet, there was no convenience store, and we only had our backup bars we had brought from Canada. 

As we cycled through the mountains, we observed that Cubans never build roads that go through mountains. All the roads go over a mountain, down to a valley, up another mountain, down another valley, repeat, repeat, repeat. It took us 3 hours to go 20km.

At one point, we encountered a washed out road where about 30 feet of the road was missing and overgrown with plants and ivy. While we stood there trying to figure out if we should turn around or navigate the narrow connection, we saw a man come the other direction on his bike, easily traverse the muddy one foot section, and continue on. So we figured, “When in Rome…” 

Once we crossed that dangerous washed out road, we came to a decision point. Would we go straight and continue climbing in the mountains, or would we go left down to the valley then cycle to our destination on the flat highway? We chose to go left and it took us a quick 10 minutes to get down to the valley. 

We stayed in San Diego de los Baños for two nights, with one rest day. We went bird watching with Ceasar, a Cuban man with a geology degree from a Bulgarian university. He spoke Bulgarian fluently and learned English at home, entirely self-taught. After bird watching, we went to a local cigar factory, took a tour of its two room “facility” and got a demonstration for how they make cigars. It was the first warm day of our trip, and we both wore shorts. 

To get to Viñales, we cycled along the highway instead of in the mountains. We didn’t want a repeat of the day on the struggle bus. On our 60km ride, we rode through vast amounts of scenic farmland, waved to many locals, and watched people farm with an ox and plow. We had an unspoken race with a man on a rusted out bike. He never acknowledged us as he stayed alongside us, dripping with sweat, for about 5km. We managed to find an “El Rapido” convenience store and buy a few sandwiches. A successful day!

At about 5pm, we were on a steep downhill into Viñales when a cyclist came the other way and waved to us. We waved back, but didn’t stop. We figured he was just being friendly! As it turns out, Enrique wanted our attention. He turned around and caught up to us on the uphill. He reported that the casa we were supposed to stay at was fully booked and he was sent out to find us and drop us off at the new casa. Once he dropped us off, he turned around and went to San Diego de los Baños - where we had just come from! It took us all day to get between these two towns and he was starting his ride at 6pm! 

We stayed with Sanya and Paulito for five nights. Each breakfast included farm fresh eggs, ham, some kind of bread, and fresh, ripened-on-the-vine pineapple, guava, and papaya. Each dinner included chicken, fish, vegetables, and dessert. All of the food was produced locally because, as our hosts told us, Cuba didn’t have any way to transport refrigerated goods. 

Historically, Cuba has suffered with periods of food scarcity and starvation. As a country, it imports most of its goods. It exported sugar and received food imports from the USSR. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Cuba entered “The Special Period.” State-subsidized rations were curtailed and many people starved. Our hosts in Viñales told us of raising pigs in their bathtub so they would have enough food to eat. Cuba started to emerge from this period when they established closer ties to Venezuela and re-established ties with Russia under Vladimir Putin.

For sightseeing, one day we rode our bikes to check out the mogotes (which look like freestanding hills with steep sides). Another day we rode to Puerto Esperanza. We went spelunking in a cave and horseback riding to a mountain top, where I was bitten by ants on my leg. On the way back from one of our rides, we found a roadside hut where they served rum-based drinks from a coconut, with a straw. 

After our days of adventuring, we sat on the casa’s porch and enjoyed the patch of dirt that was their garden. We drank “Cuba Libres,” the ingredients being rum with “TuKola” (the Cuban version of Coke, because American products are not allowed). The Cuba Libre was served in a small cup with 3 ice cubes, Cuban rum, and a dash of cola for colour. Very strong and very good. In the evenings we watch Spanish tv with the family, and after that we read in bed. 

Eventually we took the bus back to Varadero and we checked into the hotel where we had stored our bike boxes. That day we relaxed on the white sand beach near the blue water, a much deserved day of rest after so much adventuring and cycling. We made our way back to Vancouver the next day.

I experienced Cuba in 2010 and it was in a better economic situation than it is now. In an unprecedented move, the Cuban government has asked the World Food Programme for powdered milk. It is the first time the government has asked the UN for support. I hope Jesus, Caesar, Enrique, Sanya, and Paulito are weathering these hardships.