And here we are again!
Saturday august 30th was my last day at work. Flo and Chan came to the VeloPlus store and we bought our last parts of equipment. Every day of the coming week was planned out with packing, storing some of our belongings with different family members, good bye dinners and my sister’s wedding. Two das of that week we also gave slide presentations at the EuroBike, the biggest bike exhibition of Europe, at the stand of our trailer’s company.
Monday September 8th we got up at 6am. We got a ride to the train station and started our 3 days journey back to Argentina. We checked in our baggage at the airport and then went to my mother’s place for luch, where all of my family came togehter to say good bye. Our flight was at 5pm that afternoon and now we were moving towards Salta for the next 50 hours by plane and bus.
When we left Argentina 8 months ago, it felt so close to Europe, so much better off than Peru or Bolivia. Arriving at the airport of Buenos Aires, nothing at all resembled Europe, even less at the bus terminal with all the garbage lying around, the luggage carriers competiting for customers and the small stalls with plastic toys, chips and cola. Out of the bus window we looked into barren winter landscape. Everything was brown. Only here and there gave the light green spring leaves some colour and the further north we came, the more trees were blooming in purple, orange, yellow and red. At the outskirts of Rosario, a city 200- 300km north of Buenos Aires, I shuddered, when realizing, that people really lived in those tin- and cartboard houses, some of them even only built with dirty cloths, right on top of the city dump. Small smokey fires burnt here and there and children and dogs were searching through the garbage, looking for something usable.
Chan travelled very well. He slept most of the flight and the bus ride. If awake, he was content watching children’s movies or playing with his new cars. It was nice warm, when we stepped out of the bus in Salta, but the next day was cloudy and it cooled down since. Now we are wearing three layers and I even got my woolen cap out.
All our cartboard boxes we brought here are empty, our new panniers packed and ready to go. Chan’s bike is put together, the new axel is installed on the trailer. Flo’s bike got his front wheel and bottom bracket replaced and we would all be ready to start cycling again, if not for my back wheel. When taking out the rim tape, to replace it, I discoverd cracks in the rim, we didn’t noteice, when preparing our bikes for storage 8 months ago. There are no Mavic or Sunrims here in Argentina. So we decided to call VeloPlus and ask them to send us a back wheel. For this we are now waiting here in the casa de ciclista of the Marin family in Salta.
