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We head off early, fill up at a no-name petrol pump outside Susques (the only one around for 150km before Jama on the one side and Tilcara on the other) and embark on a chilling trip through the breathtaking Andean Altiplano, over the Paso de Jama.

The immigration and customs point for the Argentinian side is at the village of Jama, the last village on the Argentinian side. This is about a three hour drive from Susques. There’s a petrol station with a cafe here and a few buildings, one of them near the station which is for the entry/exit formalities, but I don’t recall whether there’s any accommodation, I don’t think so.

From here on it continues on a good asphalt road, well sign-posted, all the way to San Pedro. It’s high, it’s desolate, it’s cold and it’s absolutely gorgeous! No trees. Only rocks, sand, patches of ice or snow, small shrubs and little lagoons or mountain streams.

Plenty of finger-thawing stops along the way…

Occasionally a little bird swoops by to say hello and we feel delight at the encounter of another living being up here. The most rewarding encounters though, are with the graceful wild Llamas grazing on the shrubs among the rocks and lagoons. They are beautiful creatures! They look so proud and groomed as they stare over at you curiously. Ebru tries to initiate conversation with them on a few occasions but I can’t understand what they’re talking about.

We’re surrounded by volcanoes exceeding 5000 and 6000 metres in altitude. They rise up majestically around us, purple, black, brown and green, white snow on the top. It’s unreal.

We weave our way between them and eventually are on a descent into a huge basin, the Salar de Atacama, a massive volcanic cone to our right hand side. The long road down into the valley is straight runs aside a massive craig, kilometres long, extending from the base of the volcano all the way down into the valley, in places so deep you can’t see the bottom. Something to do with lava flows by the looks of it. Looking back from San Pedro, the slopes around here are totally serrated with these cracks. They look thin and fine from a distance, but close up they’re massive.

The Chilean immigration and customs is at the entry of San Pedro. The Chilean entry is quick and easy for us, and thankfully the Aduana lady makes our lives easy by just running our baggage through the X-ray machine and not asking us to unpack anything, which would have been a pain.

Something to keep in mind though: I don’t know whether this was because of unpredictable weather conditions at the time, but the Argentinian border guards told us that the San Pedro border office closes at 16:00, which means you should get moving early in the morning to ensure you get there on time. In our experience, the border was still operating after 16:00 when we were there, but I’m not certain if this is always the case.

Somewhat before you reach San Pedro, up on the pass, you find a gravel track leading off to the right, which is the road to Bolivia. It takes you past some of the most popular touristical sites on the way to the Salar de Uyuni. It looks like a lonely road indeed and I wouldn’t attempt it without solid navigational information.

PS: Although we’re really short on time we do manage to do our drop-off for the crazy walking Austrians we met in Susques. That story you can read by clicking here.

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From Tilcara we branch off toward the Paso de Jama, which is the Andean pass over to Chile, around 4500m high.

The journey starts through the amazing Tilcara Quedebra, a canyon reflecting the most unimaginable colours in rock and sand – red, pinks, yellows, purples, greens, oranges, browns… this is the kind of scenery you only find high up.

The ride takes us up steep slopes on continuous S-bends, over freezing mountain passes. It gets so cold up there moving though the open air that I have to stop every half hour to thaw out my fingers on the hot engine. Around midday it becomes more bearable with the extreme sunshine up here, but still freezing.

Eventually the terrain evens out and we see in front of us a vast expanse of white: the Salinas Grandes. These are massive dried up salt lakes, probably from oceans of ancient times, I’m not sure. Huge, flat and bright white, with white salt clouds rising up off them in the distance where the strong winds come in from the surrounding mountains.

Since we’re on our motorbike we of course take a detour off the road and ride the salt planes. Great fun! It’s like riding on a snow field, white all around you, but flat and dry and crunchy. Handy having a compass out here because if visibility deteriorates I recon you could easily get lost.

It’s unreal out here! The salt is flat and powdery in places, in others it’s shaped hard, crystalline honey combs, others yet it’s like a dried up mud crust. A few hundred metres in the distance we observe some garbage tumbling across the plane – apparently bits of card board being thrown up a few metres into the by the strong gusts (“damn litterbugs”)…. We ride closer and realize it’s sheets of salt being lifted and broken up where the wind has pushed in underneath the cracks! Rolling across the plane like tumbleweed.

When we get back on the main road it’s afternoon and the winds start coming in stronger. We can see huge salt-dust clouds coming in from the West (the direction we’re heading). We quickly figure out that these tell us just where we’ll be knocked sideways on the moto. I have to lean the bike against the wind as if taking a curve, to carry on going straight. Tiny salt particles are blown through the foam seal on my goggles and start burning in the corners of my eyes. Excellent stuff!

Come sunset we reach Susques, a tiny, dusty little mud-brick town, high up in the freezing nowhere. El Kactus is the first hostel we see. It’s clean, it’s cozy, hot water, towels & soap, heater in the room and they let me park my bike in the reception area. All for 130Peos excl breakfast. I love the mountains!

We’re hungry and we walk around the little town looking for some place to eat and an ATM, as we’ll need to get fuel tomorrow and we couldn’t get any cash in Tilcara. Lo and behold, we find an ATM! Did I mention I love the mountains?

Then we bump into two tourists. Must be the only two gringos up here aside from us. We get talking and I detect a familiar accent – turns out Marvin and Rowin are two crazy Austrians from a village right next to where I was born! Get this: they decided to do something to raise awareness for an environmental organization called Global2000. So they headed up to Vienna and started walking.. down through Morocco.. flew to Buenos Aires and have been walking ever since, now about to walk the Paso de Jama after having been turned back from Paso Sico due to bad weather. Once they reach the Pacific the plan is to fly into Asia somewhere and walk from there Westwards, possibly all the way home. – Only an Styrian…

Well, we decide to have a drink together. The conversation goes
something like this:

“Yes let’s have a drink somewhere.”
Me: “What do you fancy?”
“Oh, something unhealthy..”
Me: “Awesome, let’s get a beer.”
“No, no. Not alcohol.”
Me: “You joking with me right?”
“No.”
Me: “What then?”
“A Cola perhaps.”

I’m stunned. Austrians that don’t drink beer. The world has changed.

Anyway, we find a nice little restaurant (the only one in town as far as we could make out), sadly we don’t remember the name. It’s toward the end of the same road which has the ATM. Our new friends have their Coca Cola as we munch down a great dish of Lama stew. The chef there, Gustavo, is awesome. Very friendly host and obviously very enthusiastic about his cooking and his restaurant. These are the moments I love: in the most forgotten places out in the sticks where there’s little more than dust to keep you company, you find a jewel like this! A good reason to visit Susques if you’re in the area.

As we talk to Rowin and Marvin about their journey across to Chile they tell us about their little water problem. At 30km a day it’ll take them 5 days to reach San Pedro de Atacama. This would mean carrying at least 5kg in water which is a lot, so they’re hoping to arrange some way of sending provisions ahead. We offer to help them out.

By the time we head back to our alojiamentos we’ve agreed a plan and written it on the back of our restaurant receipts: Ebru and I will take 3 litres of water across the Chilean frontier and and after 90km we will drop them on the left road side, by the closest road sign or prominent feature, and mark the area with some green duct tape the guys give us. Awesome! Hope it works.

UPDATE:
I eventually received word from the Crazy Austrians. Unfortunately they did not find the water, because they did not attempt to walk the pass after all. They we’re strongly urged not to attempt the walk due to the temperatures and possibility of bad weather. Too bad, but hey at least they didn’t freeze to death. So they made their way up to Ecuador (if I understood correctly) and are walking on from there. Best of luck guys! Anyone walking the Paso Jama needing a backup water supply and a box of biscuits get in touch with us.

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A good leaving breakfast at a Salta cafe and we’re ready to go.

The ride to Tilcara is uphill on a good tar road, but just before Tilcara the road’s being repaired and for a few kilometres it’s grooved as hell.

We actually intended to stay in San Salvador de Jujuy but after driving around there for an hour trying to find a hostel we decided the place had even less to offer than Salta, and moved on. As we approach Tilcara the mountains about us become very colourful and we have to stop to take lots of pictures.

Comfortable, clean accommodation in Tilcara we find at at Club Hostal, 60/pp/n dorm + breakfast. And as an added bonus we have the whole dorm to ourselves – courtesy of the administrations’ favourable organizing skills. The bathrooms are shared but large and clean. And there’s a small common kitchen and a TV room. Outside there is a pool, a sitting area and a BBQ, which we unbelievably don’t make use of.

One night we meet a local petrol station manager called Carlos, a cooking enthusiast. He’s a friend of the hostel owners and comes around when he’s in town. He introduces us to Lama fillet. Watching him prepare the dish with his home made stock and native potatoes and other vegetables is an experience.

And the Lama steak? Wow! We’ve not had a more tender and tasty steak to date! Seriously, even softer than the succulent beef Down Under!

We spend a couple of days exploring the surrounding area by motorbike and we view some beautiful mountain scenery and waterfalls.

The bike has started to make a strange noise, just a bit. I don’t know what it is, sounds like it may be the exhaust manifold coming loose… but I check that (the hostel owner lets me borrow his ratchet) and it doesn’t seem to be the case. Must be the altitude. We’ve climbed to around 3000m here – could be altitude.

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I was looking forward to Salta. My brother had told be about it once. We were expecting the accommodation situation to be far better than we’d experienced in the last few towns, but again we end up looking for a place for two hours. The fact that it’s local winter holiday season doesn’t help, but hostels here are relatively expensive (120Pesos+) and on average seem to be pretty dirty.

We check in to Hostal Condor Pass for 150 Pesos a night and this gets us an un-heated room with shared bathroom, the luxury of dressing our beds with sheets and covers ourselves, and the all-important bike parking space in the corridoor. For a 10 Pesos extra, you can even rent yourself a towel. And for another 20, you can use the kitchen. Hmmm.

People don’t seem to be fully in touch with what’s going on around them during the frenzy of afternoon foot-traffic. I had to cross the narrow pavement and up the little step into the hostel doorway to get the bike in; if you thought that people would stop for a minute to let me proceed or move around another way to get by, you’d be wrong. One guy actually put his foot under my spinning back tyre whilst trying to squash past and then tried to complain at me… you have got to be joking!

Aside from that the town is quite tranquilo and has some very nice spots, especially towards the centre of town around the main square.

There’s some really beautiful architecture and sculpture on show.

And we do find some really impressive graffitti!

We visit the Museum Arqueología de Alta Montaña at the main square. The exhibition is rather small but interesting none the less. There’s some information about Incan life culture. However the highlights here are three Incan mummified children dating back about 500 years. These were buried at near 7000 metres altitude on the Mount Llullaillaco volcano (alive if I understood correctly) in sacrifice ritual and their bodies are therefore extremely well preserved. The down-side is that, for preservation of the mummies, they only put one on display at a time so you’d have to visit three times in several-month intervals to see them all – a bit disappointing.

There are also quite a few parilla restaurants which look really good – they bring a small BBQ to your table and you can take it from there. The best value ones (very much frequented by locals it seems) are toward the east of town, on the main road going south past the cerro with the gondolas (cable cars) going up the mountain.

Talking about the cable cars, we decided to go up the hill with them one day. We had to wait in front of the building for half an hour because the place was closed for some reason. Then we entered, paid our 60 Pesos each for the return trip and proceeded to wait in the queue for about an hour until it was our turn to board the half hour trip upwards. It was painful! Well, needless to say, we walked down the footpath on the way back, which took us 20 minutes. What a waste of money that was.

Content that we’ve spent enough time here, we leave Salta the next day.

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We head from Santa Maria to the quaint town of Cafayate. On the way we stop by the Quilmes ruins, which are interesting but, unarmed with further information about them, nothing more than neatly stacked up rocks.

Fernando, the biker we met in San Agustin de Valle Fertil, gave us a business card for a good hostel he stayed in at Cafayate (Hostal La Morada, Miguel Hurtado 111 / 03868-427748). It’s run by Fabiola and Rol[an]do, a couple from Buenos Aires who worked in the pharma industry and decided to get out of the rat race and set up their own piece of paradise out in the country. They certainly picked a good area. It looks like La Morada only have a vacancy for two nights and we desire to stay a bit longer to get some rest, but compared to all other places in the area we still prefer this place and we check in, expecting to have to move elsewhere later.

Though Cafayate is small and there’s not much going on, it’s in a splendid valley and it’s the heartland of Argentinian wine production, the oldest winery here being founded around 1830. There’s lots of wineries to visit, wine museums, a cheese farm and of course some artesanal shops selling all sorts of hand made stuff.

The central mercado is nice for grocery shopping and particularly interesting is a place near the plaza called (in Castellano) “The Last Pulperia” This is a rustic shop selling all sorts of foodstuffs – herbs, dried fruit, spices, you name it – all scattered around the shop in large sacks and jars, like you’d expect to have seen in a shop a couple of centuries ago. I think that’s why it’s called “The Last” one.

Rolo and Fabiola built this hostel (Hostal La Morada) from scratch whilst stil managing employment in Buenos Aires (a 20-hour drive away), plus a pregnancy on top of that. Wow! It’s a relaxing little place, good atmosphere and there’s creative activity going on here, which we really enjoy. Because the place is only open since three months they’re still decorating and throwing around various ideas about how to do it. We’re happy to get involved and they’re happy to have the input.

We take part in a few good activities whilst in Cafayate:

Most rewarding of all, we take a long bike ride through the Quedebra de Cafayate.

This is a stunning landscape of eroded rock formations stretching a continuous 80Km through a valley North of Cafyate, along Ruta 68 (exit the town to the North and the turn right). It’s truly spectacular!

When it comes to artistic ability, Mother Nature doesn’t have any competition, that’s for sure! Note that this trip is best done early because very strong winds stir up in the afternoon!

We follow a sand road along the river about 3km East of the town, where there is Cabras de Cafayate, a goat cheese farm. It’s an interesting visit, for 10 Pesos you get a tour around the farm and they describe in detail the process, from the breeding to the feeding, to the cheese-making, and you get to taste a variety of the produce. We buy a couple of cheeses that we really like, but it’s disappointing that later we discover that, at the factory they’re selling you the cheese at a higher price than you can buy it at the local stores in town. But that seems to be a recurring theme with various touristical visits we’ve done out here, so now we normally just avoid buying from the “original” outlets themselves – they tend to be tourist traps.

It would be a crime to visit to this area without partaking in some wine tasting, so another day walk out to the Nanni (http://www.bodegananni.com/) and Etchart (http://www.bodegasetchart.com) wine estates, the former being rather small and purely organic setup, the other being much larger, but producing some excellent wines.

Now this – is – a – table!

We taste some great specimens and take a couple of bottles home with us. Particularly good are the Torrontes, a famous grape of Argentina derived from an accidental crossing of Muscatel with a local rogue, and also a Malbec-based rose wine we much liked.

But if you’re looking to buy your wine cheap, the best deal you will find is to buy one of the large gallon bottles at any of the convenience stores around the town. The wine is reasonable and the bottle will only set you back between 45 and 60 Pesos if I recall correctly.

Back at La Morada there’s a hive of activity. Marilla, a good friend of Fabiola’s, is painting old tomato crates for use in the house as book-shelves and in the kitchen. I try to help out setting up their WiFi connection and lend a hand to Rolo trying to fix the old washing machine (without success).

We finally find our opportunity to plant our first tree in South America for our Planting Around the World mission! It turns out Fabiola and Rolo have been quire keen to plant a tree outside the front of the hostel for some time now and never seem to have got around to it. Now the job has become ours and we’re all very pleased about it.

The next day we intend to leave but Fabiola and Rolo invite us to stay longer and we accept. A good thing too, because 1. we get to do our laundry in their new washing machine, and 2. the next day is bloody freezing, so a long ride on the bike would have been hellish!

On the final night a group of youngsters arrive at the hostel. It’s winter holiday in Argentina and everyone in the NorthWest area is taking to the road out here. We go to bed rather early so as to be fresh for the next day’s ride. Of course these folks for some reason decide they have to party in their bedroom next door instead of in the common area, which is completely free and available to them and conveniently removed from the dormitories for that reason. It’s too loud to sleep and eventually we ask them to keep it down as we have an early start, but they ignore us…. and I so look forward to the next morning. Did I mention I have a motorbike to warm up?

Around 8:30AM I move the bike to the sunny patch of lawn right in front of their dorm and get her started. The engine is really cold and it takes several attempts, which is awesome because the starter makes a loud, coughing, wheezing noise – excellent! Then after about 10 minutes, by when I’m sure they thought the disturbance is over, I start the engine, pull the choke and let her rev at 3000/min for a while. One by one, shell-shocked and grumpy-looking the youths start appearing from their rooms. Mission accomplished! It is unfortunate that there was another family there whose morning was slightly disrupted by this vengeful behaviour, but this collateral damage was necessary, I’m sure they’d understand.

Cafayate was a great experience for us. Great wine, beautiful natural surroundings, calm and quiet atmosphere. And of course, we spent it in very good company and we’re really happy to feel that we’ve made some good friends out here.

Fabiana and Rolo, we won’t forget you. Come and visit us !!

OUR FIRST TREE IN SOUTH AMERICA!!!

Fortunately for all of us, our lovely hosts and friends, Fabiana and Rolo at Hostal La Morada in Cafayate were planning to plant a nice tree in front of their hostel but hadn’t yet got around to it.

When we asked them about planting a tree at La Morada they were just delighted.

A lovely young orange tree was planted in the place of a dead bush in front of the window of La Morada’s common room.

Fabiola and Rolo, we’re so pleased to have spent time with you in Cafayate and to have been able to plant this tree for you. May it grow tall and strong and when you pick your fresh fruit, may you remember the good time we had in La Morada together.

We congratulate you on your great achievement of becoming independent from your city jobs; you are an inspiration to us! We look forward to seeing you – next time.

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After Aimogasta we head to Santa Maria, another small blip on the radar. The road starts out on good asphalt but works put a 40Km extent of loose gravel in the middle which is tough riding on a smallish bike, 2-up with luggage.

The terrain is the dry cordillera we’ve become accustomed to, with river beds and shrubs, but it’s beautiful in its own way.

I plant the bike in the ground once attempting a foolish maneouvre of crossing over a gravel mound separating me from the rest of the track, but we’re at low speed and nothing bad happens.

We do have to take the baggage off though to get the bike upright again. After the works the road changes back to some excellent asphalt, which after the gravel can be thoroughly appreciated!

Santa Maria is small and there aren’t many places to stay here either. Frustratingly, contrary to our expectations, all the accommodations are again quite expensive! By night-fall we still haven’t found a place to stay. Eventually someone points out an economical guest house (Residencial Perez, San Martin 94 Esq. Mitre / 03838-420257) two blocks from the square. It’s reasonably priced (100/room/night), has courtyard parking for the bike and the room is clean and comfortable. It’s really nicely set up, a bit like you may imagine a Greek holiday villa.

We go out to look for a restaurant where we can have a good meal and a bottle of wine, as we think we really could do with a warm, comfi dinner after the long ride. We check out two places at the plaza (there don’t seem to be more) but we’re not sure about either so we walk one of side-streets in hope of finding another option.

Not many steps further and we can smell something cooking, it smells mighty fine and we follow it. Then – behold – on an undeveloped piece of land between some buildings, we see a guy doing a braai (BBQ). We walk up and see he’s grilling some fine-looking sausages and big cuts of beef. Other local people are around and they’re buying. He serves the meat up in big baguette sandwiches with tomato, lettuce, mayonnaise, mustard and a special picante sauce of his own concoction, with chilli, onion, oil, parsley and other herbs and spices.

Needless to say, there’s no contest and we opt for eating here, out in the cold, rather than at a restaurant. The food is divine! And cheap; 10-15 Pesos depending on your choice of meat! I can’t help myself and have to have seconds. We chat with the guys there in broken Spanish. We learn that the chef and patron is named Mr Cafa and he tells us he’s been running this stand, called El Cafa, for ten years! Talk about a good business!

For a sun-downer we head to the hotel restaurant at the plaza, which seemed quite lively, and have a bottle of Argentinian Malbec. There’s a big tribute show going on, for some long-standing TV show host, and everybody’s watching attentively. He’s obviously earned the love of the nation. That’s followed by a few amateur boxing matches and we’re off to bed.

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Aimogasta is a small town about an hour North of La Rioja, so it’s not too far back to La Rioja if the bike gives us more trouble. Also it’s a small dot on the map, thus we expect to encounter no problems with accommodation.

The road is good and mostly flat with beautiful mountains in the distance, but you cross one mountain range and thereby ride through a most spectacular valley – gorgeous!

Approaching the town, we get a sense that the place is rather big. Big warehouses scattered between square miles of olive plantations.

As luck has it, there’s hardly any accommodation around here at all. The hospedaje at the plaza is full. There’s a posh-looking hotel up the street from that, which charges about 400Pesos a night. We head out on a sand track for a few kilometres, hoping to find something on the outskirts, but nothing. There’s a parilla (braai/BBQ) restaurant out there in the middle of the olive groves, but it’s not an accommodation. The guys there tell us about “El Turko” another place near the bus terminal in town, and judging by the name we think we’ve struck it lucky. We go to check it out. They charge 120 a night and it’s a flea pit! Shit! What is is with accommodation in this part of the country?!

Once again it’s late afternoon and we’re desperate. We have to choose between driving another 2 hours in the dark, which is dangerous, or finding a place to camp, but nights are cold out here in the mountains.

We take a chance, ride back to the parilla restaurant up the sand road (Parilla El Christo, Av. Castro Barros, S/N Aimogasta / 03827-15655321) and ask whether we can camp out on their lawn. Luck has it that the owner’s son-in-law, Eugene, is there and he agrees. He shows us a nice spot right in their olive grove to pitch our tent and even cuts up a few large nylon sacks to lay underneath it. Excellent! We know it gets cold here at night and we only have summer sleeping bags but we recon we’ll manage somehow, and it can’t be worse than getting eaten alive by the bugs in El Turco!

At night we have dinner at the Parilla El Christo restaurant. Eugene and the Patron, Fred, serve us up a feast for kings. A healthy mixed salad, potato chips fried in olive oil and a meat BBQ that leaves nothing to be desired: biffe chorizo (a kind of tender loin or filet steak), a tangy pork-beef chorizo sausage, grilled blood sausage, beef ribs, grilled stomach strips and a gland from the cow’s neck. And of course, fresh green and black olives from the local harvest. There’s so much meat on the table that we can’t finish it but we try hard, and it’s absolutely delightful! We wash is down with some dark Salta beer, some Argentinian wine and, to aid the digestion, some dark Dominican rum, as we soak up the warmth from the large open fireplace beside us.

Sated and buzzing with comfort, we retire to our tent and get our much needed rest. We couldn’t have wished for a better end to our day. I have to send my family out here for a meal! This place is fantastic. And it’s been running for eighteen years.

Our deepest gratitude goes out to the Cordoba family, who so kindly gave us a place to stay in their olive grove (awesome!) and showed us some of the best dining Argentina has to offer, without a doubt. May you live long and prosper! We hope we can return again some day!

And folks, seriously: if you are ever passing this town you’re doing yourself a great disservice if you do not stop by Parilla El Christo for a meal. Do it!

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We get up early to leave Villa Union and get the bike fixed in Chilecito or, that failing, up in Salta. Heading to La Rioja would be a backtrack of about 200km and we really don’t want to ride that road again. Additionally, we’ve tried to avoid the place deliberately a French family we befriended in Santiago warned us that it’s costly and not particularly worth visiting.

We push start, let her warm up and start saddling up. It’s an annoying exercise in the relentless sunshine. As we’re about to pull away, I disengage the choke and she dies on us. DAMN!

We attempt a few push starts with all the luggage on and fail. It’s all really tedious and tiring in this heat and we’re irritated that we’ve lost so much time already. On a further failed attempt I somehow manage to drop her and something snaps. I lose my temper and am ready for murder. I shout and curse and give her a good kick up the fuel tank with my steel capped boot. It produces a dent. She deserved it, the bitch! We’d been thinking of a good name for the motorcycle and today she’s just baptized herself – “Bitch”

We eventually get a helping push from the canaba owner and get her running, so we head off. A couple of kilometres out, at the town limits, we get stopped at a police control post. We tell the officer we’re headed for Chilecito. “Oh, via La Rioja,” he recons. “No, via the mountain pass,” we reply. “Not today, not possible,…” the pass is closed for dynamiting and road repairs, but it’ll be open from about 7PM tonight. SHIT! Do we stay, do we go? We hate the thought of back tracking to La Rioja, but we don’t want to stay up here for another night (and who knows what the state of the pass will be by tomorrow). We go to La Rioja!

We have to trace back our arrival route (ruta 76) about 120Km on flat, featureless terrain until we join up with the ruta 150 heading East. Strangely though, there is one huge rock astride the street which seems totally out of place.

This takes us all the way around the south of the mountain range we were hoping to cross directly over. Where we pass the mountains there are some impressive cliff faces, but then the terrain turns flat and monotonous again along the ruta 38.

Ruta 38 provides a gorgeous asphalt track though, on which you can motor down into the green planes surrounding La Rioja. Straight as a ruler and silky smooth!

Several hours, a service station and a helpful push from a friendly by-stander later, we reach La Rioja. We stop in at a bike mechanic on our way into town (Frontera Motors). They’re cool guys, friendly and honest. They check the problem and concur that the coil-thingy (solenoid) must be the issue, and replace it with a new one. I also get them install a new front brake lever, which snapped off when I dropped the bike. 150 Pesos later (30 for labour) I’ve got a working bike and a spare clutch lever as well, since it comes as a pair with the brake lever.

Finding accommodation in La Rioja proves more difficult than we expect. We ride around for over an hour, up and down the one-way streets, hardly able to identify any hostels, hotels, hospedajes with rooms available… and those that we do find are very expensive! 200 Pesos or more!

Then comes the cherry on top: the as we attempt to leave an accommodation we just inquired at, the bike fails to start! Just what we need. This is becoming a bit of a joke now. Ebru’s about to go over the edge. I get some passer-by to give me a push and we stop at a Honda dealer (Lucera) around the corner. I give him the history, he does some checks and determines the battery to be a problem. A new one (and they only have the Honda original) will cost me 500 Pesos – that’s about 70GBP – OUCH! Taking advantage of someone in need I take it…

It will only be ready by tomorrow. And since we won’t be able to do any shopping around and want to leave early tomorrow, we’re left with no choice. Ebru drops into a vortex of negative energy. All thoughts are on heading back to Santiago ASAP and selling the bike. It’s 9PM, the place will close in half an hour and we don’t even have a place to stay yet!

Leaving Ebru and the bike at the dealer, I go running around the area, stopping at a few accommodations mentioned to me by locals. Some don’t seem to exist, others are all fully booked. But finally I manage to get us a twin room for 150 Pesos at the Hotel Savoy (are you kidding??) two blocks away. Thank goodness for that! It’s not cheap (relatively speaking), but we fully appreciate the hot shower and stiff, clean bed sheets on our beds and a substantial buffet breakfast with good coffee!

The next day I get my new battery (and an emergency tyre repair kit while I’m at it) and everything seems to be working. Ebru spends the time using the Hotel WiFi and at about midday we saddle up to move on. An old couple walks by and as they see us, they approach us all enthused and ask about our journey. They’re lovely. They’re really excited for us and they’re patting us on the backs, gesturing encouragement and wishing us good luck and health on our way. This is not the first time we’ve had this kind of encouragement from people. And it makes me think to myself – especially after all the frustration we’ve been through: if this is the kind of reaction we get from complete strangers, especially folks of retirement age, maybe we are doing something pretty special here and, being in the position to do it, we should persevere with it no matter what.

We decide to give the bike another chance and head towards Salta and over the Andean pass to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile. If we still have problems by then we can head back down to Santiago and end it.

TRIP INFO BOX

We manage Villa Union without any problems.

The trip to Villa Union is about 177Km and fairly monotone, but there’s some impressive mountains on the horizon.

It turns out the place is even smaller than San Agustin and there is hardly anything out here.

We find a super cheap cabana, Los Alamos, for  30Pesos/pp a night, on the main road into town. It’s no luxury but it’s got plenty of space and running water. The owner points us the way to a bike mechanic and we head there, but we don’t find a work shop at the given location. We ask a young chap nearby and he leads us to somebody’s house.

The mechanic, a really friendly chap by the name of Angel. He goes tests the battery which seems fine. The little coil thingy which I tried to repair in the morning seems to be the issue, because when we bypass it and send current directly to the starter it works. At least we have a diagnosis. The problem is that we cannot get that part here as they only drive small bikes out here. Angel says I will have to go to a capital city like La Rioja or Salta. I tell him we were planning to go via Chilecito, across the mountain pass, and he tells me I might have luck there as it’s four times bigger than Villa Union. We’ll try that then.

Angel doesn’t accept a single peso as payment and wishes us a good journey. What a saint. Earned his name I would say.