Motorbiking Chile/Argentina

Across the Andes

With my bike fixed (or at least rested and cleaned), we headed back down the coast of Chile to attempt another pass into Argentina – a slightly lower one.  It was also great to arrive again back to Joaquin at El Conquistador in Los Vilos. In the evening we headed out the same restaurant we had eaten at last time, with the great cerviche and seafood empanadas. As we sat down, we spotted another motorcyclist who had turned up at El Conquistador that afternoon sitting on his own. Despite some trepidation that he may not want company, and we may not be able to converse enough in Spanish for a whole dinner time conversation, we approached him, sat down and began chatting to him. 


Victor was a middle aged Argentinian farmer from Cordoba. He was riding a BMW 1200 and was very encouraging of our little bikes and expressed surprise that they had not made it over Paso del Agua Negra. We talked all through dinner and it was a wonderful chance to practice our Spanish in a real situation with someone who didn’t really speak any English, as well as ask questions about motorcycling through Chile and Argentina. 

After we had finished eating, another couple joined the conversation and the fairly understandable Spanish dissipated into fast Chilean/Argentinian drawl. Victor promised to have breakfast with us the next morning before we set off and give us some more information about Argentina. It was a wonderful evening spent with a new and interesting friend. In the morning, after a series of photos, we said goodbye to Victor and Joaquin and set of for another day of driving, towards Los Andes and the border with Argentina.

The ride was not too arduous, however we were up to our fifth day of riding in a row and we were starting to feel quite tired. Day six of riding turned out to be a long one. We headed off early towards the Andes and Paso Liberatadores, feeling a little bit nervous, but hoping that we’d be alright at a lesser altitude and on a sealed road. The ride was still spectacular even though it was a much less challenging road, and there was a lot more traffic including large tour buses and trucks than Paso del Agua Negra. The road wound its way through the Andes and up a series of switchbacks that increased our elevation to 3200m. At the top of the Pass, we drove through a tunnel, appearing on the other side of the Andes and entering Argentina. 

 

The process of exiting Chile and entering Argentina was not difficult, but took some time due to the large crowds at the border. One particular official was not convinced that we had bought the bikes legally and questioned Jono for some time. I don’t think we was trying to be difficult, but he didn’t seem to understand the process of owning vehicles in Chile. We, of course, told him we lived in Santiago for the purpose of ease, but it took some convincing before he let us through. The ride down the hill to Uspallata and on to Mendoza was also very easy but the wind was a challenge for our little bikes and light load and I spent most of the trip just trying to stay on the road. We had lunch in Uspallata, where there were many bikers parked up – mostly Argentinians on a weekend ride. By chance, luck, fate and some guidance by some friendly Mendozans, we arrived safely at the camp ground on the outskirts of Mendoza just before 7pm.

Our first glimpse of Mendoza City when we biked in was filled with promise of avenues and interesting architecture and town planning. We were not disappointed, and in some respects (given it was Sunday) it was great not to be inundated with lots of Mendozans going about their normal business. In fact it was not until approx 7pm that the Plazas began to fill with families and markets, leaving us to spend the day wandering the streets and enjoying the coffee and medialunas followed by a luxurious (by our standards) liquid lunch of local chardonnay and grilled fare. Of course, we were obliged to go on a wine tour in Mendoza, and the wine did not disappoint. We drank our way through many tastings, and discovered we enjoyed much more of a variety of wines than we had allowed ourselves to in NZ.  

En route to San Juan, we turned off the main road to try to get to the Municipal camp ground. It was a beautiful drive through the countryside, however despite asking directions of a number of people, including an army officer, we did not manage to find the camp ground. So, we headed into town for our other choice, the centrally located Hostel Zonda. We were given a room with a balcony fit for our “Boston Legals” (drinks overlooking the city with deep and meaningful conversation), and there were two playful kittens to keep me amused. We went out for dinner in the evening to a parradilla, or barbeque restaurant, and had a decadent meal of a variety of barbequed meats, salad, and San Juan Malbec.

The road to San Agustin was beautiful and very varied, ranging from arid, desert-like landscape, to low craggy mountains, to a road that followed the undulations of the terrain like a billowing ribbon. We passed through tiny little settlements with no more than a few houses in each. The road wound its way around the foothills of the small mountains, and into Valle Fertil. San Agustin was completely asleep when we arrived, shop doors closed, curtains pulled and blinds down. On the main street we started talking to a German couple who were motorbiking around South America like us – unlike us they were on large bikes that they had shipped over to Chile taking 5 months to get there. They directed us to the tourist information centre, where we met a lovely man who helped us to find the municipal camp ground and information about the nearby Parque de la Luna. La Luna was a strange and intriguing place. The landscape was so varied, despite there being almost no vegetation,  in terms of rock formations and colour.

 

We carried on up the road, connecting with Ruta 40, and headed over a spectacular gravel road, Cuesta de Miranda, to Chilecito (“Little Chile”, named so after all the Chileans living there to work on the now defunct mine). Here, we have met a lovely Argentinian called Luciano who is motorbiking around Argentina, and has been very patient with our Spanish. We are now here for a third night (a long time without traveling for us!) as the weather packed in yesterday with rain and thunderstorms - the first real rain since we arrived in South America. We are camping on the lawn of Hostel del Paiman and the rain has cleaned much of the dust off our tent, but with rainy weather reports for today, we decided to stay put for another night. A blessing in disguise as we were ready for some down time.

Altitude sickness

The plan was to wake Monday morning in Chile and fall asleep Monday evening in Argentina, or at least en route to Argentina. We packed up camp in Paihuano before sunrise, in that time where only foreigners seem to be awake, and set off back to Vicuna for provisions. We collected our padron, food, and plenty of fuel, and began our journey eastward towards the grandiose Los Andes.

The road was superb – windy but well-sealed and with enough space to be able look around and enjoy the mountainside vineyards and icy streams. By lunchtime we approached the frontier, and we officially departed Chile. With cautious advice from a carabinero (police officer) not to attempt the pass that afternoon, we hit the gravel road with the intention to free camp along the way. At the 30 km mark (and over an hour later), we approached La Laguna and found our camp.

The spot was breathtaking. We put up our tent just off the road, on a shingle ground beside a large rock. It was clear that others had camped there before, as there was a circular area with a low stone wall and remnants of a fire. We were in a triangular shaped valley where two sides were steep craggy mountains, and the third was the lake. Once we were set up, we wandered along the road, with occasional deep breaths due to the altitude (3100m) and took photos and video footage. That afternoon a few cars and some motorbikes came past, lifting our spirits for the following day. Jono managed a quick dip in the lake, and we spent the evening playing Monopoly Deal in complete isolation. With the lack of any other light source and the high altitude, the night sky was the most incredible we’d ever seen. Our first night camping in the Chilean Andes was truly magical.

Tuesday morning we attempted an early start, but the pitch black and chill of the early morning encouraged us to sleep a little longer. We packed up our bikes as the sun began to appear over the Andes, and set off for Paso Agua Negra which peaks at 4800m. We were hopeful of a good climb – the weather was perfect and road was much better than it could have been, and we had already climbed to 3100m.

As we set off, I began to notice with increasing frequency that my bike was being very jerky. I had started to notice this way back after leaving Vicuna, however then it was infrequent and not much of a problem. Negotiating a windy, gravel road on a motorbike is not easy work at the best of times, but with my bike lurching around every few seconds, things were not looking too positive. We soldiered on, and the scenery was well worth the effort. The mountains in this area are called the coloured mountains, because there are so many metals found in them, that there are streaks of red, yellow ochre, brown, teal green, in beautiful marbled patterns.

At about 3700metres, we stopped and Jono had a tinker with my bike to see if there was anything we could do to make it run better. The spark plug came out and was replaced with a new one, the revs were adjusted, the air filter was examined, but nothing seemed to work. It was as if there was not a constant flow of petrol reaching combustion chamber. Each time I got on my bike to try it out, it got worse and worse, so that finally I was right down to first gear and losing power at an alarming rate. At 4200m the engine cut out and that was the end of the ride. Try as we might, the engine refused to restart, and when it finally did, the revs faded and it cut out again. It appeared that my bike had altitude sickness.

Dejected, we sat on the side of the gravel road in the middle of no mans land, at 4200m, and made the decision to flag down a truck to try and get a ride preferably in the direction of Argentina. The road was pretty exposed here, and while we could have managed a night camping, we didn’t really have enough food and we were already onto our emergency supply of iodised lake water. Frustratingly, we were only about 15km from the summit.

Jono, unable to sit down and wait for help, continued to make adjustments to the bike, while I sorted our papers so that if we were separated (particularly with one of us in Chile and the other in Argentina) we could cross either border. This was suddenly a very strong reality – that if I managed to get a truck to take me and my bike to Argentina, Jono would have to ride over on his own, and with our bikes being exactly the same, who was to say whether he would have trouble with his bike and have to descend back into Chile.

Fortunately, within the hour, we spotted a red ute heading down from the pass – the opposite direction to which we wanted to go, but a better option than getting stuck in the Andes overnight. I flagged them down and was very relieved when they told me they spoke English. We are making much more of an attempt to speak a lot of Spanish this trip, however in a situation where you don’t need any misinterpretations, it was a relief to be able to explain our predicament in English.

Fernando and his father were tourists from Portugal, on their second 4x4 trip of Chile and Argentina. They readily agreed to put my bike in the back of the ute, and take me down the mountain (back into Chile), with Jono driving in front on the motorbike. Luckily for us Fernando and his father were in no rush to get to Vicuna, and we managed to accompany Jono all the way. Fernando chatted away to me for the whole trip and it was absolute heaven to be seated safely in the back of his ute talking about NZ and Portugal. I don’t think it ever really hit us, the potential severity of being stuck in the Andes, other than the relief I felt to be driving back to a country we were starting to understand, and talking about Portuguese wine and cuisine.

At the Chilean border post, there was much surprise from the officials to see us back only one day later, particularly with no further stamp in our passport. They were all very patient and sorry for us, and we were away in no time, back to Vicuna and Rancho Elquino. Fernando and his father decided to stay at Rancho Elquino as well, and this gave Jono and me the opportunity to say thank you to them by cooking them dinner on the camp charcoal barbeque. We had a wonderful evening with them drinking Carmenere (a type of Chilean red wine), eating sausages and kebabs, and talking the night away. We are eternally grateful to these two lovely men.

Norte Chico

The ride was extremely beautiful, with a mixture of straight and sweeping roads which caused much less stress and allowed for much more enjoyment. We passed through green countryside, with fields of vegetables, vineyards of grapes for wine or pisco, and colourful hippy retreats where New Age followers can marvel at the stars in the clear night sky, and meditate and stretch in the heat of the day. Vicuna itself is a sleepy, crumbling town set around the central Plaza de Armas. It has the feel if being laid back and yet a little more gritty than where we have been before. School children look a little more brash, and there seems to be a number of young mums promenading the streets. We felt comfortable and at home here – due to the size, atmosphere and the congeniality of the local people.

We stayed at a fantastic camp ground, Rancho Elquino, (which we were escorted to by a helpful local on a bicycle) that was green, clean, has a swimming pool and a friendly maintenance man who gave us bags full of fresh tomatoes and chillies, and had grape vines full of juicy grapes that you can help yourself to. We looked up at the grand, spectacular Andes all around us. It is easy to see why people could pitch a tent here and never leave. One afternoon we got on the bikes and headed up the valley to explore. We found a good bit of gravel road to practice our unsealed driving on, and found ourselves at Elqui del Sol – a restaurant with food all produced in solar powered ovens. After a delicious lunch of chicken and rice, we carried on to the pisco factory, CAPEL. We had a tour of the factory, learning about the distilling process for making pisco and did the obligatory tasting. Our evenings in Vicuna were spent preparing and eating delicious barbeques at Rancho Elquino.

Friday morning began with some disappointment. We had decided to attempt to hasten the process of obtaining our padron (to allow us to take the bikes across the border to Argentina legally – the paperwork that was holting our progress) by going to the local municipalidad to see if they could do anything. As in NZ, there was no possibility of bribery and we left the office with confirmed knowledge that we could be waiting for another 10 days to leave Chile. This was a dejecting start to an otherwise wonderful day.

When we first arrived at the camp, we happened to run into a lady visiting the camp owner. Annette – an American woman who’d lived in Chile for over 20 years – is now the local organiser of a project happening in the mountains near Vicuna. Cheekily, I asked if we could come and have a look at the project in the next day or so and she enthusiastically gave us directions and instruction to come up whenever we could. So, after making the decision to stay on for a third night the camp in Vicuna, we emailed her and arranged to go and visit her and see the project. While the site of the project was only 20km off the main highway, it was a spectacular and at times slightly treacherous ride, two up on Jono’s little 125cc motorbike. The gravel road wound its way up the mountains, past an observatory, a lot of cacti, and even more dust, to the site of Annette’s house and the project.

The project is run by an American based organisation called Vocations for Orphans. A group of highly dedicated people, led by Dale and Sandi Boe have been gifted some land to build accommodation and training facilities for teenagers who have been living in orphanages in La Serena. Their work is entirely volunteer based, and they have already constructed lodgings for volunteers, a training centre, and are well through an accommodation block for the students.

We arrived in time for lunch (an amazing meal of corn tortillas, black beans, guacamole and fresh grapes prepared by Sandi), then drove down in the back of a pick up truck to the building site. We helped as best we could for the afternoon along with two volunteers, Wayne and Karson, who had real building skills and were making a big impact on the project. Everything was done to a very high standard, and there was considerable consideration for the environment they were working in – very harsh, hot days, and very little rain. We were asked to come back next week and help, but we are unsure of our plans at this stage. This is a wonderful project, with extremely generous and dedicated people running it, and we were very lucky to see what they were producing. Definitely an inspiration to us.

Back in Vicuna we set off for the Mamalluca Observatory Tour, with the strange feeling of being back on the tourist trail again. After a delayed start, where the tour company ran out of seats for us and coerced a French tour leader with a mini van full of elderly French tourists to take us up to the Observatory, we sat through a long powerpoint presentation, made all the more tedious because it was in Spanish and we had no idea of what was being said. Finally, at about 11pm, we got close to a telescope (with about 100 other tourists) and had a look at some of the stars. Despite the mishaps of the tour, the highlight was seeing the moon through the telescope – being able to see craters and undulations – and seeing Saturn so clearly you could see all the rings.

Much to our amazement and excitement, we discovered that our padron had been accepted and we are now free to cross the Andes into Argentina! Elated, we enjoyed a café cortado (espresso with milk) at Club Social (an old time club for the “who’s who” of tiny Vicuna – including tourists in jandals) and an empanada at the local bakery. We now had the dilemma of whether to stay and volunteer up the mountain, or hit the road and attempt the Paso Agua Negra into Argentina and make some ground after a fairly stagnant period. Our heart told us to stay and volunteer, but our heads told us to make some leeway, as it is fairly slow going on the little blue bikes. Nonetheless, we packed up camp and headed up the spectacular Elqui Valley to Monte Grande and Pisco Elqui. After much searching, up and down the road, we eventually found a lovely campsite by the river (and with a swimming pool!) halfway back to Vicuna, in Paihuano.

We made the difficult decision to carry on to Paso Agua Negra on not go back to the Vocations for Orphans project. This decision simply came down to time, and was something that we were very sorry to have to give up. Looking at the distances, we have a long way to travel, whether we get all the way to Mexico or just to Panama on the bikes.

The start of the motorbike adventure

D-Day - time to pick up the bikes and begin our adventure! After about 4 hours of learning about our bikes in Spanish, and a well-timed visit from Alvaro, we were off on our first tentative ride, in Santiago rush hour traffic, 30 degrees, and uncertain of our route. Needless to say we made it unscathed, feeling pretty stoked (and at times terrified) back to Casa Condell, in time for salami sandwiches and an episode of Bones.

The next day was our earliest start yet – up before dawn to get packed and away before the morning traffic. Packing took longer than expected with more to try and fit onto our tiny bikes than we’d have liked. Jono did an amazing job of strapping packs, dry bags, tarps, and jerry cans onto our little blue bikes and we departed Casa Condell by just after 8am. We managed to negotiate the Santiago traffic – not an easy feat as this was our first time travelling with a heavy load. It was such good foresight for Jono to order the Bluetooth head sets (despite some ridicule), as we were able to keep contact with each other constantly. There were several hurdles to overcome on this first day of riding – initially going 60km on a 120km highway, keeping my load on my bike (this needed at least 5 stops to retie, including pulling over in the middle of busy traffic in Vina del Mar with my jerry can dragging along the road!), 2 dark long tunnels, toll booths, steep windy roads, interpreting directions in Spanish.

The campground, Racho Cassanova was a stange place – almost deserted when we arrived, and possibly more dusty than Cambodia. That night we had tents all around us, with Chilean and Argentinian families cooking meat on charcoal BBQs (giving us food envy) and little children running around still at 10pm.

The next day we wandered down the long dusty drive of Rancho Cassanova and picked up a local bus heading towards Vina del Mar and Valparaiso. The bus dropped us at the far end of Valparaiso and we headed straight for coffee and WiFi. Travelling like we are now, and have in the past, is exciting, spontaneous, and lets you determine your fate at with every decision. However, it also means that you have to allow time to investigate, email, request and book on the go, so our entire morning was spent planning the next couple of stages of our trip – Ranaca to Los Vilos, Los Vilos to La Serena , then who knows? We have several times, asked the advice of Susan (Chasing Serendipity blog) and Pembo (who did this trip in reverse last year), both of whom have been so helpful.

Once done, we moved on to find some spare parts (repuestos) for our motorbikes. Good old Easy and Jumbo (similar to Bunnings and the Warehouse in NZ) came to our rescue. In the evening we swam in the cloudy pool along with a tribe of exhibitionist Latino youths, drank red wine from the Concha y Toro wine glasses we had so carefully brought with us from Santiago, and relaxed into another episode of Bones.

We had begun to really loved the early morning starts we have had in the past few days – the quiet, the peaceful rising of the sun. However, we got so little sleep the previous night due to partying, loud conversations which necessitated screaming and yelling, and a discotheque that was still pumping out a thudding bass at 6:30am when we hauled ourselves out of our tent, that the early start was bittersweet. 

Once we got going in the cooler morning air the trip was amazing. Not half as stressful as our first day of riding, partly because we were feeling more comfortable on the bikes, but also because the air temperature stayed bearable with the cool onshore breeze, and the road was not at all busy. The drive was very beautiful as we followed a coastal highway out of Renaca, stopping in Zapallar – a very beautiful beach resort town cascading down a steep hill to the ocean. 

We arrived in Los Vilos at lunchtime to be met at Hostal El Conquistador by the owner, a lovely French/Chilean man, who was very hospitable and enthusiastic to see us. Los Vilos does not seem to be a terribly common tourist spot, and I don’t think he had any other guests. On his advice, we had lunch at a quaint little seaside hut, which had amazing empanadas and cirviche. We then caught a taxi to the far end of the beach where there is part of a copper mine as well as a bird reserve and walkway, and spent over an hour walking back along the coast. In the evening we watched the sun set over the Pacific Ocean.

The highlight of the following morning (apart from the feeling of waking up after a really good sleep) was the personal account we were given over breakfast by the owner of the hostel. He started to tell us about how he’d come to be running the hostel in Los Vilos, this little copper town on the coast of Norte Chico, Chile. His father had owned the place, and Joaquin had returned here after many years in France. Joaquin had been a young student activist in the Pinochet era, until he was caught handing out leaflets that criticised the regime. He was shot in the groin, and imprisoned for 18 months. Throughout his time in prison, he was tortured for information on who else was involved in the Communist party, who sent the leaflets, who printed them, etc. At the end of his time, he was banished from Chile for seven years. Consequently, he went to France, met his partner and had two children. During this time, the Pinochet era ended and Joaquin was summonsed to give evidence to support the claim that he was a victim of human rights abuses. During the course of the trial, over 100,000 people were identified as being victims of human rights abuse but only 30,000 were recognised officially as the court required proof of their alleged torture. We began our trip later than planned due to this enthralling and disturbing account of this young political refugee.

We made the last minute decision to travel via an inland route which appeared to be a lot more interesting and varied than the Panamericano. This turned out to be a great decision, however the extra kilometres and added time (our biggest day yet travelling most of the day), meant that we were feeling exhausted by the time we arrived in La Serena.

After leaving Los Vilos we travelled up Ruta Cinquo, (the PanAm) to find the “best empanadas in Chile”, according to Joaquin. These were made at a cooperative, where a village had developed its own type of cheese. The cheese was used to fill the empanadas to the brim.

A little further up the road, we turned off on to the inland route, which would take us eventually to La Serena. It was very beautiful – rural, in parts very green, rolling countryside, with small villages dotted throughout. In one such village we stopped for fuel, only to find that my bike would not restart when we wanted to set off. An hour later, with sweat dripping down our jackets and pants, we were still sitting in the same spot, with perplexed Chileans sauntering over to see if they could assist. Finally, Jono managed to kick start the bike and we were away, tentatively, towards Ovalle.

As we had been told, the road to Ovalle was very beautiful, but at times quite steep and windy. I found this riding hard, and had to take it very slowly, but most drivers were patient enough and we finally pulled into Maria Casa 9 hours later. Maria Casa was a wonderful place to stay – the owners warm and welcoming, very helpful and extremely patient with our Spanish.

A day off biking, but not off motorcycle jobs. While it was unfortunate that we had a problem with my bike this early in the trip, we were incredibly lucky on the following accounts: the bike wouldn’t start at a petrol station with loads of helpful people around and some shade, the “rustic” bikes are able to be kick started so we could get going again, we were heading towards the major city of La Serena where mechanics and spare parts could easily be found, the hostel, Maria Casa, was literally right around the corner from the Honda dealer, we were able to get both bikes serviced for free under the warranty, my bike just needed a connection secured, so the mechanic did it for free.

After dropping the motorbikes into the mechanic in the morning, we spent an idle day looking around the town centre, drinking coffee, eating empanadas and icecream, looking through the market and perusing the shops. We walked out to the uninteresting and a little disappointing beach, and sat looking out at the Pacific Ocean in the late afternoon.

At this point we are still waiting on our padron (the final piece of Chilean paperwork). We are going to head inland to Vicuna today and the Elqui Valley where Pisco is made and there are some observatories, then over the Andes into Argentina as soon as we can.