Day 56
40,163 – 40,453 290 Miles today (17,753 Miles Overall
San Pedro De Atacama, Chile – Purmamarca, Argentina
Country #44
I slept like shit yet again but I don’t feel too bad. I packed up the bike as quick as I could after a nice hot shower cleaning out all the shit in my nose. I was on the bike at 7Am and heading out to the border. I threw my heated gloves on and plugged them in right out of the hostel and threw my neck cover on. I didn’t throw my Patagonia jacket on because I didn’t think it would drop below 40 degrees for too long.
FUCK WAS I WRONG
I stopped for fuel at the end of town and filled up to try to get rid of most of my Chilean money. I got on the road and it was long and straight, and it went up. Slowly the temps dropped from 47 Degrees down to 40. The road kept climbing up into the mountains. Then it hit 35. It started to get windy around the side of the mountain. I hit some shade and I see 30 degrees. I haven’t seen the outdoor temp gauge flashing at me in years on this bike. The road keeps climbing. Well shit I just be at 15,000′ at this point. 25 Degrees on the dash. My hands are thankfully so warm and I’m very happy I ride with heated gloves now. But my body is a bit chilly as all i’m wearing is a short sleeve shirt under my Klim Jacket. 20 degrees and the road keeps climbing. I’m pretty sure I hit maybe 16,500′ on this ride.
The lowest temp I saw on the ride was 16.1 degrees. I couldn’t believe it. Reality set in and I realized how fucked I was if my bike broke down here or I got a flat. I need to start checking elevation on my rides if I’m going to start riding at sunrise. This was very dumb. I saw a few 18 wheelers on the ride but that’s it. No one else. I stopped a few times to take some videos and got right back on my bike with my hands nice and toasty in the heated gloves. I also finally got to see the god damn pelicans everyones talking about. These idiots were hanging out in water with their toes and it was 16 degrees out and the winds were blowing. What is wrong with them!
Onwards! The road finally started to descend down to 14,500′ The temps got to 30 but I was stoked it wasnt in the teens anymore. I got this Patagonia jacket that’s in my pannier just for shit like this and I’m not even wearing it. I got to the border 2.5 hours after I left the hostel and I was stoked to be inside for a bit. The border crossing was hella quick, maybe 20 minutes total which was lovely. I met a nice girl working at the other side of the border crossing and she checked my paperwork. She spoke great English and we chatted for a bit about Argentina. She told me I had a long cold ride ahead of me but at least it wouldn’t be 16 again.
Onwards yet again. I tried to get fuel at the border but no one was there. I’m very thankful for this big gas tank yet again. I wanted to ride into a town called Purmamarca which is pretty touristy as they have a rainbow mountain literally in their town. I was going to turn around after I got a SIM card and $500USD exchanged into Argentinian pesos and head right back to Ruta 40 which is a road I’ve been dreaming of riding for a long time.
I eventually got into town and decided I would just stay here even though I arrived at 11:50AM which was very very early to call it a day. But I’m thankful I did. I found a campground and paid $2.75 to camp there. I’m going to camp the rest of my way through Argentina because I’ve been spending quite a bit of money in the last two weeks especially with the bike breaking down and I need to use this damn tent.
I got a SIM card which didn’t work for a while, I met a nice man who spoke English in town that exchanged my money for an incredible rate and I got some food while catching up with Sameera and some friends on wifi at the restaurant. I did some research on what I had ahead of me and I’m super happy I stayed here. There’s no gas stations between here and going back to rt 40 so in the middle of the day I ended up riding 30 minutes north to another town to get gas and with my luck as I show up the big fuel truck shows up to refill the tanks at the gas station. I ended up waiting about 35 minutes for that to end while also hoping it wouldn’t start raining back in town.
I met two guys riding from Brazil who had the same bike as me and we chatted for a bit waiting for the fuel to be ready for us. Once I filled up I shot back to town. It was raining a bit so I went back to my tent to work on the blog and organize some of my paperwork and money from the last few weeks of it all being thrown around. Argentina is like Spain where the restaurants don’t open till 8Pm. So I hung out at my campsite till about 7 and then rode into town to get a few cups of hot tea to warm me up and worked on the blog some more. Then right at 8Pm I went over to a restaurant I heard was the best in town. It sure was. I had a lovely Llama steak with flan for dessert and listened to live music for a while. It was lovely. made me smile and appreciate life so much. I rode back to the tent in the rain pretty late and crashed real hard in my tent.
