A Technological Tale - a Lament by The Navigator

When we set off on our travels in 2003, we took no technology with us. None. Nada.  No mobile 'phone, no laptop, no camera (yup, that's right, no camera), no tablet, no Kindles, no electric boiler.  We bought phone cards in whichever country we were in, we used the Internet wherever we could find it - libraries, cafes, etc.  We used book exchanges, wrote letters and postcards, and had acres of paper maps which we sent home to long suffering friends when we were done with them.

And now.  We left home last month with the following:

Canon Ixus compact camera, with charger, and gizmo for transferring pics to the iPad 

Unlocked Blackberry mobile phone, with charger

Two Kindles, one with wifi, both with 3G, with charger

iPad Mini, with charger

Three-gang extension board

Single cup boiler

And so my tale begins.

We arrived at the flat in Bs As to discover that the wifi signal that we had been pirating for some years had been upgraded - and locked. So we didn't have the luxury of getting organised in comfort before we left.

The SIM card that I bought for the mobile failed to register itself as promised, and it took a fair bit of digging to find a number to call to finally make it happen.

On the Sunday evening, before we left early on Monday on the train, we discovered that the iPad charger had deceased leaving about 23% charge on the iPad.  That's where the mapping program is...

It took about 4 hours and many kilometres of foot slogging in 40 degrees in Santiago del Esteros to find a shop with a charger (fyi - the iPad mini uses the same charger as iPhone 5.  If I had known that...)

My 2nd Generation Kindle deceased as part of the screen degenerated to lines.

Blogsy, the app that we've been using to update the blog, has stopped working.  Just stopped.  Deleting and reloading makes no difference.

The new iPad charger blew up after about two weeks when the sparky Argentine electrical system got the better of it.  Meant that we had no map at all to get into Mendoza.  This time it only took two shops to find an iPhone 5 charger. But at least four gas stations to find a map.

The extension board blew up with a pop and flash yesterday when I plugged it in to the wall socket.  Fortunately, nothing was attached to it at the time. Being nice and simple and made in China and bought in Bolivia, we were able to rewire it and upgrade the insulation

Having sent several text messages from the mobile, it suddenly decided that it didn't want to send any more.  Turns out it had just taken a dislike to the one message, and a different one to the same number was fine ...

Then, let's not forget the bank cards.  Ever since we started travelling, we have used the ATM network, with few problems.  Occasional empty or grumpy machines, but generally no big issues.  Argentina has been meddling with its ATMs.  When we have four different cards issued on four different banks and none of them will yield up a single peso, we reckon it's not us.  Finally managed to achieve paltry amounts from machines at big city banks.  Chatter on line reckons that Cristina is trying to piss off the tourists.

Bought Chris a pair of shorts in the supermarket; when he put them on, several kilometres later, discovered that the zip was broken and surgery was needed to re-attach the slider. (OK, that's older technology, but it still had to be fixed)

The camera and the cup boiler are working just now.

The bikes are great.  The new hub gears are working impeccably.  On other fronts, the Prunes are seriously considering reverting to paper and steam.

Fossils

 This should be the definitive version of this posting. The old blog site that I was happily working with has blown up, the tech wizard managed to recover all of the intended drafts. This new site has, with the latest connection decided to put the 'publish' button where the save button was a few moment earlier. Hence the rather truncated, unpunctuated blurb that recently came your way. That's my excuse. I apologise..

                          Meeting the fossils

"When are you going to grow up"', the eternal plea from parent to offspring. Starts around  primary four and perpetuates through adolescence and on into early adulthood. When said parents give up vocalising the plea, although by that  age of responsibility it's a subliminal scream to leave home before you outlive your welcome. 

As we haul our bikes down a bank, and scurry under the road, into yet another deep shade culvert, the navigator makes, what is becoming a common refrain; "when are we going to grow up?". It's rhetorical. There is no answer, only several questions. Who wants to grow up anyway?, what is growing up?, and WHY? Even the petulant adult can do: "Why!". 

There's a lot of fun to be had being the petulant adult, the perpetual adolescent. The initial intentions for this trip were simple, to escape a capital city's clutches by train, to explore up the Valle del Tafi and to head over an Andean pass. The intended one being a recommendation that we acquired four years ago. Some ideas can stick around for sometime. The first two have come to pass, the latter has been a bit more problematic. We arrived at the junction where we would need to turn right and start a long, slow climb. There's a bus stop, a sun shelter. Deep shade and a siesta. There was no discussion when it came time to leave. We both silently turned 'left', into a strong headwind, when it would have been easier to have used the tailwind and gone climbing. Thirty five years of not growing up together has its advantages. Neither of us was ready for an Andean crossing. The effort, the altitude, the water scarcity are all physical presences, but crucial to the venture is a mental fitness. The body might be ready but the mind isn't in it yet. We head south to the Next pass and to find out if it's open yet. 

Only if we're not careful we'll be riding some old favourite routes, one that have already had an investigation, some multiple interrogations. Which is how we found ourselves in Capital La Rioja, having riden through some beautiful 'Bad lands'. Sculpted mud rocks, pock holed lava blocks, rotting granite hills. There's little planning, decision making taken at the next junction. It's fun to be an adolescent adult. But have we backed ourselves into a corner, the prospect of hot, pampa cycling on roads that roll away in front, all the way to a vanishing point. Fun for a few days, but have a he potential for tedium and numb butts.

Our non topographical map shows an intriguing anomaly to the west. The natural grain of the landscape is north- South, yet there are two twisting roads heading towards each other, west-east, across the first hurdle of the Andean foothills. Logic suggests there must be a reason, either they service two separate mines; a distinct possibility or there's the intention to join them up. Need to find out. 

What follows is an "auld sang to a new words". It involves our old friends in the tourist information kiosks. It's a story of mixed information, and a map that would do credit to a bingo card. An attempt to send us off on a deviation tour of over three hundred kilometres, to revisit places we've encountered before, rather than answer the two simple questions we posed. 

The route and the road are remarkable. Another incredible piece of civil engineering that begs the question as to its intention and necessity. Short tunnels quarry through cascading mountain buttresses, that then spit us out over canyon crossing bridges, thence to sweeping hairpin bends that are suspended out in thin air. A new flickering view with each linked turn. Two hours of effortless freewheeling viewing on an empty tarred road. As we literally pop out at the bottom onto a vast open pampa, I remember to give thanks to the venture capitalists in New York who I assume have financed my morning's entertainment. If the sun bleached bragging board is to be believed they stumped up 234,986,368.95 pesos in July 2007, for just one ten kilometre section. Those two serpentine squiggles on the map do join up. And yes, Mr Informes, the road does go through the national park and yes it does connect to Ruta Cuarenta. Thank You!

I 

                           Start of route RN150.

However I do feel aggrieved that a liberty has been taken. . The first roadside signage states an assumption of our capabilities, or a warning to others of what they may encounter. Constructing a road just for "fossils", old fogies who should have grown up, who presumably should be sat in front of and tending the fire.