3-22-10 Rodeo, Argentina

(Sorry for the delay in posts, been out camping for a while. We're on track to hit the bottom of South America in about a week, weather permitting)

Had a stellar ride today from La Serena, Chile to Rodeo, Argentina through the Andes. We set out after a large breakfast of bread and marmalade at our German-owned hostel and pointed the bikes east. After an hour we started climbing up the huge valley which was lined with vineyards and olive trees by the thousand. The road continued on until we hit the Chilean customs office at about 6k ft elevation. There, we signed out of Chile and were in no-man’s land until hitting the Argentina customs office some 4 hours off. In between was quite the ride. We had heard that it was a high altitude pass and that it was cold at the top but were unsure exactly what that would mean to us. The road was narrow and full of gravel, slowing us down to around 15 mph for most of the ride. We started seeing glaciers above us, then below us and were hit with a little snow squall.


We hit the top of the pass which was over 15,000 feet around 2pm. I was thoroughly bundled up with my heated vest on and was fine except for my hands when I took them out of my gloves, they were instantly cold. I’ve never felt anything like it, but they started throbbing excruciatingly and didn’t stop when I put my gloves back on and grabbed my heated grips. My hands stayed like this until I dropped below 11k feet.

Mark was not doing well at the top. He was a little slow in answering questions and had a glazed look in his eyes. He’d had trouble at 11.5k feet a week before so it was no surprise that he wasn’t doing too well at our current elevation. I had him follow me closely for an hour or so, winding back and forth on the narrow cut in the mountain until we decided we needed a break for some water and bananas. Mark’s bike had virtually no power at this elevation. He has a smallish motor. Mine was dogging up high and his only has 20% of the displacement mine does, making him go at jogging pace for quite some time. Probably for the best though as his reactions weren’t all that crisp. Neither were mine. I had a hard time fastening my helmet even though I seemed fine mentally. I would multiply the numbers on the odometer to keep my mind thinking and I seemed to be doing fine, no slower than usual.

We hit pavement after about 90 miles of steep gravel and were quite content to be on it, despite it having lots of patches and torn-up spots. We made it to a military checkpoint then aduana some 36kms later. We are now at Rodeo, Argentina. OK little spot for Mark’s birthday. Had some pretty good sandwiches for $6 as well as a liter beer for about a third that.