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Altitude sickness and custom issues

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We left Salta with the plan to head to Susques for the night, before heading over the Jama pass to San Pedro de Atacama, Chile.

Upon leaving Salta, we found ourselves on a narrow windy country road which took us through thick green vegetation, reminding us a little of Sumatra – a very different experience to the rough, dry, arid landscape we had been in since Patagonia.

We then crossed a mountain range which was again, magnificent, unique and spectacular.

Dean and I had previously discussed the altitude we were climbing to over the pass and agreed that a night in Susques, on top of the elevation we had been in for a few days since Mendoza would be enough to avoid any altitude sickness.

We arrived in Susques earlier than expected and as usual wondered what we were going to do with ourselves for the rest of the day. Susques is a dusty small town with about 3 streets and it was 4 pm.

‘There are hotels at the pass… Should we keep on riding?’ I said, hoping to get ahead of the queues of trucks and buses the following morning.

‘May as well, there is nothing to do here’ said Dean.

As we were riding up the pass, it occurred to me that we hadn’t discussed the elevation gain we were making and the fact we would be spending the night at 4300 m. We also had got out of the habit of checking the Windy app…

The wind was picking up and I was vaguely aware of a slight headache…or maybe I was imagining it? I was certainly out of breath, having to take larger gulps of air the higher we went. It wasnt a pleasant journey and we were regretting our decision to push on.

We found a very simple place to stay with a lovely family and went to the only restaurant in town to get an early dinner.

We were both feeling very tired and experienced a prickly, itchy feeling all over our body…maybe it was the sand blowing through our clothes but it was pretty strange. We looked up symptoms of altitude sickness which included headache, fatigue and trouble sleeping.

We crashed early however both woke withing a few hours with our hearts racing. This continued all night and we were unable to sleep.

‘Why didn’t we just stay at Susques?! This sucks!’

It didn’t help that I had Kylie stuck in my head on repeat.

Early the next morning we headed to the border to beat the line up. There were already 3 trucks and about 6 cars ahead of us at 7.30am but we were glad to have missed any buses.

All was going well until we entered Chile and I saw the aduana guy shaking his head at Dean

‘You are not allowed to leave Chile with Chilian bikes as a foreigner’ he said. ‘I can let you back in, but you won’t get out again’

‘but we’ve crossed between Chile and Argentina 10 times in the past couple of months, and have had no issues’

‘Well they obviously didn’t know the law’

They spent time looking up the law and appeared to be confused but egos are big in these positions and once they’ve said one thing they are not going to let some foreigner tell them otherwise.

It made no difference to us as we were already in Chile however it did mean we had to change our plans, which was to cross back into Argentina on the same pass a few days later.

We left tired and confused and made the steep ascent over the Jama pass.

Dean had been told that the northern borders were harder to cross but this hadn’t occured to us when we had been planning our route.

‘Is it legal or not?’ I said to Dean in the intercom. ‘i can’t believe all 10 crossings had it wrong but this guy is right!’

‘We are going to be back in Santiago in a week if we can’t do any of these crossings…and we’ve just changed over $1000 to Argentinian pesos!’

We stopped by another border crossing into Bolivia on our way down the mountain to get their opinion.

‘What are you doing coming from Argentina?’ the border control guy said ‘you can’t leave Chile with a Chilian bike as a foreigner’

So it was clear what he thought and yet another one of our plans (to cross into Bolivia) was squashed!

Its pretty frustrating that even though we own the bikes, Chile has some control over where we go and what we do with it. They are concerned for some reason that we will sell it in another country…we have had to sign a power of attorney that we will return the bike to Chile and this document is usually all they need to give us a temporary export into Argentina but for some reason, in the north, they go by another set of rules.

We were happy to get off the mountain which was freezing and descended into San Pedro de Atacama, a touristy town in the middle of the desert with amazing landscapes.

There are hundreds of tour operators in the town which take you to a number of different excursions in the area. Tours aren’t our thing so we headed to a couple of places and tried to avoid the tour buses.

We visited Valle de la Luna which was stunning and watched the sunset with hundreds of others on one of the many lookouts.

The next day, we decided to visit one of the salt lakes. There was one close to town that lots of tours go to, and another one 45 mins away which has less tours. We found out what time the tour buses got there and timed our visit almost perfectly to miss them.

The lakes have 300 grams of salt per litre compared to sea water which has 35 per litre. It was pretty cool. You could float on your back, on your front and you could even stand horizontally without touching the floor…it was impossible to go under the water without really trying, which Dean did and found out how painful salt is in your eyes!

After doing some research on the law for foreigners leaving Chile with bikes, we decided to cross the borders in reverse now that we couldn’t cross back over the Jama pass.

We headed back on the road yesterday, prepared for a couple of days of boring highway miles to make our way south to get the the next pass. Today we arrived in Curico which is the last big town before the San Francisco pass. We feel pretty confident that we will be able to pass and have downloaded sections of the law that state that we can cross into Argentina. If this doesn’t work for us we will have to turn round and return back to Curico (175 kms) which will suck. If we are able to cross, we have a long day (480 kms) to get to the next town in Argentina.

Fuel tanks are full, as are our 10 litre fuel bags and 3 x 1 litre oil containers that Dean managed to find.

Altitude sickness shouldn’t be an issue as long as we dont get stuck on the pass for any reason.

Fingers and toes crossed .

Exactamente😁

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After spending a couple of nights in Cafayate and trying to find any wine that didn’t require a knife and fork to drink, we are now in Salta.

Salta is a beautiful city that feels more like Europe than anywhere else. It has a beautiful plaza surrounded with restaurants in old buildings with high ceilings and huge verandahs, a little like Bologna but without the good food.

The ride to Salta was stunning…the scenery so gigantic it’s impossible to capture it in a photo…the rocks are as red as anything you see in Australia and the mountains go on forever.

To get an idea of the scale, you can see Dean here.

We finally decided to get our bikes cleaned as we approached Salta. They have never been washed and they were filthy.

Now Roger can see again and I can see my mighty boosh sticker

Our quest to find good food is somehow still continuing however I think I have now surrendered (although I do have my eye on a place tonight…and then I will definitely surrender).

Upon arriving in Cafayate, I had a couple of places marked for lunch…amazing reviews, in a winery setting… surely?

We were presented a menu upon arrival by a smiling waiter (let’s call him Rupert). The prices looked reasonable and it had items other than a ham and cheese sandwich and Milanese (schnitzel) so we took a seat. Dean asked if the winery was open so we could taste some wine and Rupert explained the opening hours.

“so it’s closed?”

“yes” beamed Rupert

We asked if they had white wine but was told they only had a sweet wine. No thanks. We asked if they had red wine and Rupert explained that they had a Malbec.

Surprise surprise. “So, nothing else?”.

“No” smiled Rupert.

Perfect. I ordered a lemonade which is against my religion and Dean insisted on ordering the red because “I’m not going to a winery and not having a wine”. Red wine for lunch means Dean sleeps all afternoon.

We decided on a couple of items from the menu.

“We’d like the trout salad please”

“Oh yes, for pasta we have ravioli with a tomato sauce”

“So you don’t have the trout?”

“No” beamed Rupert.

‘Ok…we’ll have the Burrata salad then’

“Oh we don’t have that” said Rupert

“Ok…so you don’t have the trout or the Burrata?”

‘Exactamente!’ beamed Rupert (imagine Manual from Fawlty Towers trying to blunder his way through understanding what’s going except we were speaking his language). No sorry, no acknowledgement that the menu we were shown had few of the items available, just a big smile.

We ended up getting the only salad that was actually available which took about an hour to arrive, but that’s not unusual here. I was getting edgy but he did pour Dean half a bottle of wine into his glass so it wasn’t all bad, except for the fact that we still needed to ride to our accommodation and the riding limit here is 0.

The salad was ok but all in all it was another failed dining experience.

Last night was another ‘experience’. As it was our 14 year anniversary (and Dean still owed me a dinner for my birthday), we thought we would find somewhere nice to go for dinner (we clearly don’t learn). We found a few places that had good reviews and decided to check them out during the day as prices, opening times, menu items and addresses are rarely accurate here. None of them passed the test so we decided to discard our idea of finding anything nice and thought a pizza might be the safest bet.

We went to a bar for happy hour (all the bars have the same happy hour with the same drinks on offer). After waiting 20 minutes to get served, and then another 30 minutes to get a drink, we paid and left a less than ideal tip in search for somewhere to eat.

All venues here and in Chile have their menus as a QR code which is pretty annoying when you don’t have a local SIM, as we always need to ask for their wifi details just to see what they serve.

We walked into a brewery and asked to see the menu/asked for their wifi details.

“Its not working” I said

“yes it is”

“no it’s not”

‘”ook, it’s working on my phone” said the waiter

“ok…it’s not working on mine”

“oh, sorry!x again, big smile

Not a ‘would you like to see the menu on my phone?’ or ‘here is a printed menu’ just, “how strange”

So we walked out of there. To cut a long boring story short, we ended up back in the place where we left a shitty tip due to the bad service. We ordered a pizza ($30), which had grated cheddar and ‘prosciutto’ cut so thick you couldn’t bite through it. We were also sat next to a road that turned out being the main route for all the buses in Salta. They were pretty much constant and buses here are loud and old (think Johnson’s school bus). It wasn’t great. Feeling deflated, we walked home feeling sick and full from the heavy food at around 11 pm.

Yesterday we withdraw money from Western Union. We transferred $1000 AUD and the rude girl at the counter gave us the equivalent back in $2 notes. She didn’t bother telling us that she didn’t have any big notes and seemed annoyed that she had to deal with people who didn’t speak Spanish fluently, despite working for a business the arranges money for foreigners. Luckily I brought a backpack…not sure what we would have done if I hadn’t?!

We then proceeded to change money with the dodgy money changer on the plaza (who had reasonable note denominations) with a tattoo under his eye…but this was more for old time sake than anything else. Good to see that the blue dollar rate is alive and well, just not as profitable as it once was!

Me with a bag full of money.

Today we found a bank that changed the money into more reasonable denominations so we now have space to carry the money.

Another task today was to buy some decent coffee.

We had searched all the mini marts but couldn’t find anything decent. Today I found where the biggest Carrefour was and we found a coffee we were familiar with and the only one that was vacuum sealed.

It had no price on the shelf so we scanned it, expecting it to be more expensive than we were prepared to spend. The scanner didn’t recognise the product.

Exactamente.

We went to the checkout and the same thing happened.

“Its not showing up, sorry”

“so…can you ask someone for the price?”

”sorry”

“erm….we would really like to buy it…”

He seemed very reluctant to make any effort to find out a price for it but eventually made a call to someone and then explained that he couldn’t sell it because it was out of date.

It was the only vacuum packed coffee on the shelf so no doubt the freshest by far and the use by was December.

“we don’t care” said Dean

“are you sure? I’ll just scan this (shitty cheap) coffee if you’re happy to pay that price?”

He clearly thought that the local small packet of coffee was more expensive than the one we wanted.

“absolutely!”

So we got a good fresh coffee which probably should have cost about $20 for $3. Good result!

So, one last hope for good food tonight. It’s a bar that serves wine and apparently has good tapas …let’s see.

Tomorrow we are back on the road and heading to San Pedro de Atacama before zig zagging our way slowly back to Santiago x

*update* I don’t want to talk about dinner tonight, I have officially surrendered, but we did come home with some bread and cheese that we stole from a variety of restaurants and walked out of yet another one. Looking forward to going to a small country town where there are no decisions to make.

Windy apps and Google maps

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This is what life felt like for a few weeks…constantly checking and rechecking the windy app for updates on wind speed and searching for alternative routes. Its a good way to stop scrolling on social media!

Dean has covered most of the past few weeks, no doubt while I was trying to keep fit and work off the various combinations of ham and cheese that our diet has become.

The food is just so unimaginative. Every restaurant serves the same food. Hamburgers, crumbed meat, pizzas and maybe empanadas. And yes, they all have ham and cheese. Things are bad when a toasted ham and cheese sandwich if the healthy option! There are meat options in Argentina but they are usually a little more expensive and from the experience we’ve had, they like to overcook it. Sacrilege.

We are now in Mendoza where we have an apartment and are spending a few nights over new years. It’s great to have space and a kitchen. And it’s hot! Dean is currently in the shower with his suit on which is filthy. I think I need to do the same.

It is 6.30 pm and we plan to go into the plaza to celebrate the new year. We went to the central market and bought some salmon and salad so we can eat a healthy meal before we head out. Everything in Argentina closes at around 1 pm every day and reopens at 6 pm. Even restaurants close at 3.30 pm and reopen at 9 pm so there are a few hours every day where the cities are dead and there is nothing to do.

Trying to delay going out for a drink or dinner before 9 pm is quite challenging…I don’t know how/why they work these long days yet have dinner so late! Being new years eve, all businesses closed for the day at 2 pm so with no restaurants opening until 9 pm, we have some time to kill which is very challenging for Dean and I. I have no doubt that the city is going to come alive in about 4 hours and will continue into the night 😊 I just hope we find something to do tomorrow when EVERYTHING is closed all day 😬

The ride to Mendoza was a little boring but there was still the magnificent Andes in the distance which still have a little snow on the peaks. We took a detour on the way up, which Ben recommended but unbeknownst to us, hadn’t actually done…it wasn’t great but there some nice views

After Mendoza, we continue to head north. We have a rough idea of the route we will take which takes in some of the stunning scenery northern Argentina has to offer and as many of the mountain passes that we can do in and out of Chile. I’m bracing myself for some challenging off road riding but I have no doubt it will be spectacular. Everything is also getting cheaper as we head north which always makes travel and life in general easier 😊

It seems to be a ‘thing’ to create stickers when you do overland trips here. Every petrol station, cafe, sign post and sign on the Ruta 40 is covered with stickers. We obviously missed the memo

Over and out for 2025!

Wind. Holy shitballs.

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‘well i’ve never turned left while leaning right before ‘ says Ben in his Johan Zarco frenchy accent.

It’s true, and I haven’t either.

We’re riding between the frontiers en route back to Chile, the road is loose gravel and all of us are leaning hard to the right while going more or less straight.

This has me wondering at what point the front will tuck. Geez. Sally is understandably freaking out a bit, but at least the wind is consistent (not gusting much), and the road is not terrible so it all goes without issue.

We stop after the Chilean frontier in one of many places plastered with overlanders stickers to take refuge from the wind, and empty a fuel bladder into the tanks.

The forecast is for lower wind speed as the day rolls on, so we decide to do the famous loop through the Torres del Paine NP, 175km of mostly gravel road with some of the most breathtaking scenery I’ve witnessed.

Once up in the mountains though it changed into wind like I’ve never experienced before, gusts out of nowhere, whirly winds taking dust up into the sky with such force you felt they’d take you up too.

At one point I’m following Sally and one of them passes close to her, holy shitballs, I wonder how that would feel if it went through you…

Shortly after that we found out.

I hear a “woooohhhh ahhhhhhhh” through the intercom as I crest a hill and see Sally riding slowly ahead of me.

“oh my god oh my god I need to stop I need to stop” she sounds manic, I’m confused as I didn’t see anything happening and she was still upright on the bike!?

I find somewhere to park and run over to her, grab the bike as she dismounts.

“what’s going on, what happened?”

“I don’t know I don’t know I hit the barrier oh my god”

It’s not making sense yet, but eventually I get it. The wind was coming from the right pretty hard so you lean right to counter it, but in an instant it switched and blew TO the right, and so already leaning that way it shot Sal into the Armco barrier. The crash bars and her MX boots took the hit and she wobbled to a stop, in more than a bit of shock.

I saw the scrape on Sally’s right boot and put it all together. Lucky there was a barrier, there was a steep drop maybe 30m into a freezing lake otherwise.

‘yeah you would have got wet’ says Ben dryly.

Sally is a bit too freaked out to see any positives just yet.

Are you hurt? No I’m fine. Nothing at all? No she says, just as surprised as me.

Bet you’re glad you bought those boots!

Off to Argentina…?

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Today has been fun.

We set off from Cochrane this morning with Ben, ready to cross the border into Argentina. With fuel bladders full, paperwork printed for the remote border crossing and dreams of bife de chorizo and red wine for dinner.

Fuel is hard to get in Argentina, especially in remote towns, and if there is a petrol station, it doesn’t mean it has petrol. We identified a town that had a petrol station with a reliable supply and made that our destination. 423 kms. As our bikes only do around 230-250, we had to take extra.

I was expecting the road to the Paso Robalo pass to be a bit rocky so I was prepared for a challenging day. The weather was beautiful and the scenery stunning and thankfully the road wasn’t too bad in the end.

As this border post is remote, we had to apply for a permit (a Salvoconductor) online ahead of time and specify the date of entry. It said on the website that you needed to allow 5 days to receive approval and if you indicated a date less than 5 days it would be an instant refusal. We also read on numerous posts that the date you specify doesn’t matter and you can pass at any time as long as you have the approval.

There is clearly a reason I am telling this story.

We applied for the permit 4 days ago but specified tomorrow’s date, thinking we could pass whenever we were ready. After riding to Tortel (dont bother) and Villa O’Higgins (end of the Carretera Austral), we were ready to cross the Paso Robalo border.

After riding 80 kms we arrived at the border post and presented our documents.

‘The date on your permit is tomorrow, you can’t cross today’

I won’t go into the pleading in bad Spanish we did and reasoning we gave them. They were not going to budge.

‘Can we sleep here?’ I asked, already knowing the answer but trying to portray how desperate we were to cross

‘no’

The thought of doing the ride again, despite its beauty, and spending another night in Cochrane was super disappointing for all or us. It’s one thing to mentally prepare for a hard road once but to have to do it three times was a little overwhelming.

We eventually left with the plan to try to get wifi back close to town and reapply with today’s date as the guard advised.

‘but it says it will be immediately rejected if we specify a date within 5 days’ Dean said in his Italian/Spanish.

They assured us it would be fine.

So, we head back, all pretty deflated and in disbelief. Around 10 kms in, Ben saw a caravan parked a little way off the road and went to ask them if they had internet.

Bingo.

A lovely couple from Holland were happy to share it with us. So, we reapplied with today’s date.

The approval came through in 10 minutes! So happy, we all headed back to the border post and processed customs with no problem.Next Argentina.

Once the guard had finished his lunch, he processed us one at a time and before long we were on our way.

The road on the Argentinian side was a lot more rocky than the Chilean side but just as beautiful, maybe even more. Less green but with blue lakes with pink flamingos. Well worth the stress!

Ben went off ahead while Dean patiently rode behind me as usual. About half an hour ago, around half way through the rocky road towards to Ruta 40, Dean realised that he was missing his backpack.

‘I have to go back to the border post, it’s the only place it can be. Find a shady place and wait for me’

First of all, there is no shade. Second, we already have limited fuel so I’m not sure where this is going to leave us, and third…what if he left it in Chile and not Argentina? Or with the Dutch couple? The papers for the bike are with me so crossing into Chile is going to be impossible

Its at least an hour each way (it took us/me about 2 to get this far) and it’s 4 pm. We still have 300 kms to ride to get to our destination/fuel. I just hope he doesn’t try to go too fast.

Ben has come back to find us and is now sitting with me under a ‘tree’ to wait for him…

Dean retuned at 5.30.

After contemplating what we would do if dean didn’t appear after two hours, Ben heard the motorcycle over the mountains.

He had left his bag at the Chilean border post and after some pleading with the Argentinian guard, he was allowed to cross back into Chile by leaving his passport with him. The guard in Chile handed him his bag and gave him some petro to get him through! How kind. They weren’t so bad in the end.

We ended up arriving into town at 10 pm, just as the sun was going down, totally exhausted. Thankfully, restaurants in Argentina are open until 1 am so we found a place to eat some meat (not bife de chorizo) and drink some wine before crashing.

Rider v Pillion

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The scenery is getting better every day. Waterfalls everywhere you look, amazing snow capped mountains, spring flowers of purple, pink, blue and yellow and crystal clear streams, rivers and lakes. Photos just don’t do it justice. 

Riding my own bike makes for a very different trip to being a pillion. There were several concerns I had and still have about riding on this trip, which mostly centre around off road riding….narrow roads with oncoming traffic that don’t move over….over taking on dusty roads…insane winds the push you over into oncoming traffic…riding on the wrong side of the road (I feel I have mastered this one!) and falling off a cliff etc.  So far the roads haven’t been so bad….mainly hard packed gravel with the odd bit of loose stones. The journey has only just started though so I’m not cheering yet!  

I don’t love riding off road and am not confident pulling over suddenly to take photos, and as I can’t take my eyes off the road, I am probably missing out on some of the sights….luckily I have my own personal photographer who can take photos for me.

‘that looks amazing’ I say as I quickly look to my left ‘would make a great photo’

‘no worries babe, I’ll stop and take one and will catch up with you’

Poor Dean has to spend all day riding in my dust so he can keep sight of me.

While I love being on my own bike, I do miss the connection of being on the bike with Dean, and sharing experiences. Little ‘wake up Dean’ squeeze of my legs at traffic lights, holding his sunglasses when it starts to rain, reminding him to drink water by bumping him on the helmet with the water tube…..the odd power nap here and there…

But, riding is so much more engaging. Even the off-road bits, despite not loving them, are a lot more enjoyable on my own bike compared to  hanging onto the back with Dean’s bum in my face and my eyes closed whilst being smashed around everywhere. Funny that.

Riding with other bikes has also been a concern of mine. Knowing how many riders do this trip, I was worried about feeling pressure of having other riders behind me, and feeling as if I am holding them up.

Yesterday we had to take a ferry and despite still being early in the season, there were about 50 other bikes on the ferry – I’d hate to see it when it’s high season!

Leaving the ferry, I knew we had a bit of off road to ride so I was worried about holding up other riders and had plans to wave them all ahead. We all rode out of the ferry up the steep ramp and approached the gravel road. Everyone took off and continued to ride slowly…I wasn’t sure why everyone was going so slowly so I followed them for a while….then I overtook a couple…then a couple more… Before long we were ahead of them all.  Phew! The complete opposite to what I expected! They all had such big heavy bikes with so much luggage. It was almost comical.

There are always those riders who don’t want to be overtaken, especially by a girl. Yesterday we caught up to a couple of guys who would not let me pass them. It was one thing for Dean to pass them but I, was too much. On the straights they sped up (well done guys, you have bikes over 700 cc and mine is 300) but when I caught them on the turns, they wouldn’t move over or let me through. It was pretty frustrating and dangerous. These guys obviously have very small penises.  

Today was a beautiful day and the roads were great. We rode from Puyuhuapi to Villa Cerro Castillo with Ben, who we’ve met from France and it was the best riding day yet with amazing weather! 

Tomorrow we are planning on walking up to Cerro Castillo and then heading on to Puerto Rio Tranquilo. We are making the most of the beautiful weather and trying to time our journey to sit out any rain so we don’t miss out on any of the stunning scenery.

Oh, and the food? Still very average.

Into the Andes

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After a couple of nights at Viracay national Park, we decided to head up to the frontier with Argentina at the Pechuente pass, with a yet to be decided plan thereafter.

The options were to cross into Argentina, ride a bit of the route 40 and return to Chile, or just turn around at the border and come back down the same way.

There were a few things at play… We had no mandatory Argentinian third-party insurance, but could possibly buy it at the border (cost penalty unknown). We also had no Argentinian pesos, which would usually not be any sort of problem. However, there’s a currency crisis in Argentina which means it’s actually quite hard to get cash. You can withdraw cash from an ATM but the maximum withdrawal is $50 and the ATM fee for doing this is $10. Not really the way we roll.

Alternatively, we have some US dollars on us which we could have possibly changed on the black market, and the last option was to do what all the other travelers here do and transfer money to ourselves via Western Union and go pick it up in a Western Union office, which surprisingly ends up being one of the most cost-effective ways of doing it.

You just need to find a Western Union office. In the Andes. That has cash. Seems easy enough.

The last problem was that our new bikes only have 11 lt fuel tanks and we weren’t really sure where the next petrol station was going to be….

On the way up to the pass I was feeling quite nervous. It’s been 7 or 8 years since we last did this stuff, would we still remember the ins and outs?

The road wound its way up higher and higher from forest Forest into open mountains, snow covered peaks around us, mountain lakes and snow melt rivers coursing down along the roadside.

We only got as high as 2,500 m, which is moderate for the Andes, further north we saw 4,900 m on Betsy! But the scenery was magnificent nonetheless. Just the scale of the view is like nothing else, it’s vast.

And a bit scary when you’re alone and unsure about fuel range. Predictably we arrived at the border and decided to cross over and work the rest out as we went. The insurance was a non-event, no one asked for it, and there was a guy selling fuel at the back of a restaurant behind the Argentinian customs post. This time I filled a fuel bladder as well just in case.

Then I got talking to some Argentinian bikers at the same restaurant to get the lowdown on the currency rates, and managed to change 100 USD with one of them!

Win 3

Killing it babe, we have fuel, food, dodged the insurance, and now have cash. It’s no longer no cash here.

Next was to get to a town with a Western Union office and get loaded up on pesos. This part of the Andes is extremely remote, road conditions very wildly and you can’t really trust anything anyone tells you about the road, including the info on the maps we have.

We suspected the road to the next town included some non-paved sections, which from what people had told us we guessed might be about 70 or 170 km worth, but the description of that section varied from, it’s excellent dirt, it’s volcanic rock, to its deep sand the whole way.

Okay, let’s head out for a look, if it turns to snot, we can just go back to Chile. Sally seemed good with this plan.

In the end it was just a normal gravel road, with some sections of vaguely loose small stones, which on Betsy would have been comfortable at 120 km an hour with my eyes closed, but on these Chinese bikes was not so comfy even at 80. Anyway, we got there.

The bikes are actually not horrible, particularly for what they cost, we’re just used to something better. It’s going to take some adjustment.

We made our destination late in the day and quickly (Not really) found a nice Posada to sleep in, with a little restaurant just next door. Perfect.

Next days mission was to get pesos. This was an important task for us because we think that the further south we go the towns will get smaller and the task of getting cash might get harder and harder. Compounded by most places not taking credit card payment.

We had two waypoints for Western Union agents in subsequent towns 100 km apart or so. The first was a no-go, a place selling knick-knacks with no cash here. But the next looked more promising, there was a line of locals with bundles of cash in hand paying their bills.

Is there any cash here? (This is not even a joke)

Yes we have a lot, really a lot.

We connect to their Wi-Fi, download the Western Union app, register, go through the two-factor authentification which is a total pain in the ass, transfer myself 1000 AUD, show the girl behind the counter the code and get the cash. F*** yeah. Mission accomplished.

It’s not Cuba but still… I now have significantly more stuff in my jacket pockets. AUD 1000 is 10 bills. The Argentinian equivalent is a wad 2 in thick! Geez.

With that, we rode another 100 km to the final destination for the day, filled with fuel and decided to go another 100 km to a town higher up by a lake, it was only 4:00 p.m. so this seemed reasonable..

30 km into this section we turn into a small dirt road and a storm comes to meet us. Balls.

This was a terrible idea

Cue sheltering in a border post for a few minutes to get our wets on and off we went.

Apart from the rain and cold at 4°, it was a spectacular ride that took us through high mountain Forest with weird shaped pine trees, rivers and long valleys in succession.

Most significantly though it was incident free!

Sal had found an apartment that was hugely discounted for off season, so we avoided the riding around and looking endlessly for a place to stay, went straight to a supermarket to buy dinner and wine, and settled into a warm clean room, put on some music, cooked some dinner and defragged.

That takes me to yesterday…. Time dilation… So hard to believe yesterday was only yesterday and last week was only last week, so much has happened.

Got to run now, bikes are getting their first oil change to maintain the warranty which will be finished in a bit so I have to go

Xoxo