10/16 More fun leaving Metan. The 4 lane highway with no shoulder turned into a 2 lane highway with no shoulder. There was no way I could ride on the narrow road with all the trucks going by so I ended up riding on the grass/loose gravel/glass all day.
I stopped in Rosario del la Frontera and found a hotel. The one I ended up at is called Hotel Rosario. It was $60 pesos ($14 US) which isn’t bad. No wifi however there’s a computer in the lobby with internet access. The other place I checked out was on the main street near the plaza but they wanted $160 ($38 US). While on a beer run I found a place hidden on the same street as the bank for $85 pesos (they had wifi). There’s a Howard Johnson’s on the outskirts of town but I didn’t go in. Seeing a HoJo here was pretty weird.
Dinner is getting to be a bit of a problem. Argentines eat late. Like 10pm late. Very few options are available until about 9pm when the restaurants start opening. Around 7pm I start getting pretty hungry so 9pm doesn’t work too well. Last night I ate at the hotel and had a fried slab of chicken, some fries and a 1 liter bottle of Coke. That cost $9.50 US. The 1 liter bottle made me laugh. Who brings someone eating by themselves a 1 liter bottle of anything? Scary. Even scarier that I paid for it. You can bet I drank every last drop and I took the bread that came with dinner back to my room since what should have been a $3.50 meal cost $9.50. Showed her. 
The next day I rode to El Tala and it was PERFECT! The secondary road (Hwy 25) was paved most of the way, traffic was almost non-existent, I saw another fox and an owl and the weather was incredible with highs near 100F and a light tailwind for the most part.
On the way out of El Tala my typical disaster of a day kicked in. The paved road wasn’t in great shape and on one of the bumpy sections I suddenly found myself basically walking over the handlebars when the front wheel locked up and the back end rose up like the Titanic about to plunge into the depths of the ocean. I managed to escape a fall by unclipping in record time and jumping overboard, landing quite gracefully to the amazement of the kid riding behind me.
Turns out the left mounting bracket for the front rack snapped off the fork causing the part of the rack that crosses over the tire to fall into it and clamp down. This basically locked it and all forward motion ceased. The other front rack mounting bracket broke a few days ago but I didn’t mention it. I just used some zip ties and secured the rack to the frame. I was able to bend my front fender back into shape but there was one casualty. The kickstand I just bought in Salta bent and snapped in half. That had to be a new record for shortest life of a kickstand.
On the south side of El Tala there’s a municipal campground so I pulled in. It looks safe enough although when I went back to get a beer at one of the stores the lady invited me to stay in her backyard when I told her where I was camping. Some people live in a house within the park and the guy, Jose, came over with his gf to say hi. Nice guy. He brought over a cold beer and invited me to dinner but I was in kind of a pissy mood so I declined. Been a long time since I camped on grass. There are a million ticks here so I’ll have to watch out for them.
As for the bike I’m going to see if it’s possible to get a new frame shipped to Tucuman. I just don’t know. The worst part is that I’ll have to pay a fortune for a place to stay unless I beg a Warmshowers.org host to stay there for possibly a couple weeks. I hate that idea; I’d rather be alone in my misery. 2 weeks at Argentina prices will probably cost me close to $300 US. Plus food. Then I’ll have to pay another couple hundred for the frame thanks to fees/taxes/freight (or more…who knows). This assumes of course that the frame even arrives in Tucuman. It could end up being held in customs in Buenos Aires, “lost” en route with no means of tracking it or sent back because the address is wrong/unknown. Then I have to find a competent bike mechanic since the entire thing will need to be rebuilt. Just getting the bike built could take a couple weeks. That’s my biggest worry.
I’d prefer to wait until I’m in a country where getting things shipped isn’t a similar experience to having Bubba take a liking to you in state prison. The thing is I’m not really comfortable riding on this frame knowing that at any minute the zip ties holding the rack on could break causing the front wheel to lock up again. Not a big problem at 5mph but at 50mph it would probably suck.
I’ll upgrade the zip ties to wire but my confidence in this frame is zero. If Koga can’t ship me the old model frame I had (WorldTraveler) I’m going to consider buying a new bike. Thorn Raven was my #2 choice before I settled on Koga. I’ll pay dearly for it but at this point I’m just sinking money into replacement Koga frames with no guarantees that the problems I’ve had will end. OK, maybe when I get out of cold weather I’ll be able to drop some gear weight but honestly it won’t be that much. Maybe 10lbs? I doubt even that much. What fun.
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