A blog about one man, one bike and thousands of kilometres...
I am starting the day by returning to Paposo to get water for two days. Then I need to decide on the road. I have two options. The first one is paved Ruta 1 which climbs to 2000 meters and then continues through the desert. Option two is ...
In the morning I am too lazy to get up. Part of this is due to late night working on the internet -- I was trying to figure out what happened to my GPS because it started to forget current time. And as if to make the morning even ...
After my failure to cross Paso San Francisco I am forced to go back to the Chilean coast. Of course, I am reluctant to go the same way back so I scout an alternative to Diego de Almargo. This promises a nice Salar de Pedernales views.
What I did not ...
Paso San Francisco is my next target. This is my second really high Andean pass, the first one being Paso Agua Negra. Unfortunately, I could not really finish the pass. Read on if you are interested why.
April 15In the morning I am finishing last preparations for the next ...
While this coastal route in a desert isn't the most spectacular one, it is much better than taking on Ruta 5. And quite solitary. Except for a few trucks and two or three villages, there is virtually nothing and nobody here.
April 11I am enjoying my standard when-in-camping ...
Vicuña marks the start of my journey through Atacama desert. And also the start of another Ruta 5 avoidance operation. While this cannot compare to the majestic ride through Paso Agua Negra, the road (except for the unavoidable parts of the autopista) wasn't terribly boring.
April 6As each ...
This was my first really really high pass. Paso Agua Negra is around 4770m high and this promised a lot of excitement. That is, until the wind literally hit me. This changed the excitement into an incredibly tough ride. Nevertheless, the views are worth all the trouble.
March 31The ...
Final connecting part before I can start climbing to the Paso Agua Negra. According to Pike's description "The road isn't especially scenic and on some sections the surface is not particularly good". I think that the first statement is a bit too harsh -- while the altiplano route isn ...
After successfull cross of Cristo Redentor pass my next plan is to head directly north. The route goes on a deserty altiplano but it is quite nice.
March 26The first plan for today is to finish the remaining 40 kilometers of descent to Uspallata. While this looks like a ...
After leaving Santiago, my plan was to finally start with the "real" Andean passes. The first one on my list is Paso Cristo Redentor (sometimes called Los Libertadores) which is a main connection between Santiago and Mendoza. This means a lot of traffic. Fortunately, all the traffic disappears to the ...