Changes
Metamorphosis of landscape and climat
We wanted to get up early to be able to bike at least for the first little while in cooler temperatures. But as it turns out so often, we didn’t make it out of the campground before 9 o’clock. The sun was intense though not too hot. The road led straight towards the mountains with no curve. From San Pedro de Atacama we now had to climb 2400 meters up to the first of four over 4500m passes and this within only 40km. The first 10km were flat and then it got steep. After 20km I was exhausted. We took break after break, but by km 25 I couldn’t ride anymore. I had to push my bike which was loaded down with food for six days. Luckily some people we had met on the campground were brining most of our water to kilometer post 30 for us, so we only carried about 10 liters of the 40 liters water we had to bring on that lonely 300km stretch of road lying ahead of us. After 160km, at the border to Argentina, we would be able to fill up on water again. But we needed three or four days to get there, over another 4800, 4700 and 4300m meter pass through the driest place in the world, the Atacama Desert. The only water up in this vulcanic area is salt water.
We barely made it to kilometer post 30. We needed an hour for the last two kilometers! Chan was walking, somethimes helping me to push my bike. Flo came back for me now and then to take my bike for a few hundred kilometers, so that I could rest my arms a bit. When we had made it to our water, we first needed to sit down and rest. We were watching cars and trucks go by effortlessly. Finally we cooked spaghetti, put up our tent and went to bed. It was getting cold up there, close to 4000m. It was New Year’s eve, but we saved our bottle of red chilenian wine for another night.
The wind gained on strength throughout the night and in the morning it blew into our faces. Now we had to carry our water ourselves, so the bikes were even heavier than the day before! The road was still incredibly steep and the wind didn’t want to settle down. I started to push my bike. Flo was as usual riding. The wind almost brushed me from the road. My legs and arms were hurting from the day before. I was tired. But Flo kept on going. I couldn’t push my bike beyond the first kilometer. This was going nowhere. We needed to bike at least 40km a day for our water supply to last until we would reach the border. We had only made 30km the day before and I was exhausted after only one kilometer this morning. The pass was after some 40km from San Pedro de Atacama, that meant at least 10km more to climb. I couldn’t do it. I yelled at Flo to wait for me. I wanted to get a lift up to the first pass. Flo wanted to ride. We were in a pretty bad mood for quite a while. Finally I got a ride for me and Chan and all our luggage but Flo had to ride his empty bike. So we both got what we wanted! Chan and I were dropped off just a few hundred meters below the pass, where we waited for Flo. Even without the weight of the panniers it took him over an hour for those 10km. I was glad I didn’t ride. From here the wind lost some of its strenght and the road curved its way up and down through vulcanic desert landscape on much gentler grades. We made it 50km further.
On the other side of the mountains we had had the most beautiful warm and sunny weather without any clouds in sight, up here though, back on the southern end of the altiplano, the clouds were back, but we didn’t get rained on yet.
When we had made it up the last 4800m pass before the Argentinian border it felt really good! Finally I started to see the end of those months riding through deserts, dust, sand and salt, grey, brown and white colours. A different climat was waiting for us, soon we would be whizzing down into a green, fragrant argentine summer. I longed for trees and flowers, some grass, some life. Rolling down that pass somehow promised more than just another uphill through desolate landscape.
Even the rocks on this downhill were different, they were sticking out of the sandy ground vertically, shaped by wind and weather into oddly looking figures.
We stopped to fix a flat. Flo looked up to the pass we had just left and said:” It loods like some rain up there!” and for sure black clouds were wrapping around the peaks in our backs.
Before us was an another salt lake and barren landscape as far as we could see. No trees or bushes not even big rocks to look for shelter. So we kept riding and the clouds came closer, thunder begann its growling tune and the first lightenings made me feel extremely uncomfortable on my bike. There was nowhere to go. Finally Flo exclaimed that the most secure move for us would be pitching our tent at the foot of that hill we had just reached now. Thunderstorms were now in front of us as well, actually all around and any of them could catch us at any moment.
Chan waited in his trailer while Flo and I put up the tent in record time. Then I unpacked the bikes and carried our stuff to the tent, while Flo parked and locked our bikes a few hundrerd meters away from us. I went inside to roll out our thermarest matresses and to distract Chan from the thunders.
Flo installed the stormstrings because the wind had picked up now, then he came inside as well and in the same moment the rain and hail lashed down onto our fragile home. We needed something for dinner. I suggested bread and olives. I didn’t want to get outside anymore. But Flo said he needed spaghetti. So he went out in a calmer moment and turned on the stove. But as soon as it was running the wind picked up again and with it the rain as well. It took him probably five tries until he could finish cooking. It was nice to get something warm into our stomachs.
The world around us was white the next morning.
We could still see the clouds on the horizon but above our heads the sky was blueish. We followed the road up onto a plateau from where we enjoyed beautiful views onto freshly snowed on peaks above 6000m. The wind wasn’t too strong yet and we made it to the border before noon. it was almost shocking to see so many people there after the isolation of the past three days. Chan and I waited outside, watching the many tourist groups from adventure jeep trecks and tour buses. Flo waited in line to get our passports stamped.
This part of Argentina was no different, we were still riding through sandy desert. Clouds started to come in and once more we were looking for a sheltered place to camp but there was none. We put the tent up at the foot of another hill, behind a gravel mound right next to the highway. And as it happend the other night, the first raindrops fell, when Flo came into the tent, only this time with a steaming pot full of pasta.
The clouds were still there in the morning. We packed our bikes and rolled off, observing the sky. As ususal it was impossible to tell in which direction the clouds were moving. I wanted to hitch hike. I was not in the mood of getting soaked in this desolate land. We still had to ride one more day to reach the first town. The sky around us grew darker and finally it rained all around us. We stopped to put on our raingear and wrap our shoes with plastic bags. Flo wanted to ride, I wanted to get a ride. There was hardly any traffic and mostly small cars. The trucks that passed didn’t have any space, so we kept riding through the first rain. There was no thunderstorm yet, but another salt flat to cross. In the middle of the flat Flo wanted to stop for lunch. Men are always hungry in the most impossible spots. We stopped and even got some rays of sunshine. I tried to get a ride again with no luck. I was in a really bad mood. How many times did we have to take flight from thunderstorms?! And now again it was black all around, no thunders yet but it could be extremely dangerous to be caught in one on the salt flat. I was just done with this situation, this nightmare. I wanted it no more!
It started to hail and the wind was blowing the ice kernels into our faces twinching cheeks and forehead. I was soaked within seconds, my rain jacket is only jacket. When we were passed that storm, I was done with biking. Every time I saw a truck in the back mirror I told Flo to stop and we tried to get a ride. The third truck stopped and led us get on. It was so nice to be inside the driver’s cabin and watch the clouds outside without fearing to get hit by hail or lightening. Our clothes slowly dried while an engine worked to get us 150km further. The truck brought us up onto the last pass of 4300m, the entrance to the argentine summer.
I felt so good. I didn’t regret that ride at all. I was more than done with desert and storms. All I wanted was smelling grass again, listening to the songs of birds and the wind playing with the leafs of trees. Riding down those 30km was like a dream. At first scattered tussocks appeard between rocks and sand, then a cactus now and then. A few bushes covered the ground in a dent. Soon there were more plants on the ground than bare rocks and suddenly we discovered the first trees way down in a canyon. We passed truck after truck, letting go of the breaks to get closer to the green. With the first scent of the trees in my nose and the sound of birds in my ear I had tears in my eyes. I was so happy – We had passed another milstone on our journey!
And now what?
Finally in Argentina we had to decide about our further route. For us it was now too late in the season to try and get all the way down to Patagonia. By the time we would reach Ushuaia, the most southerly town in the world, it would be deepest winter there. That’s why we thought about a loop through Paraguay, Brasil, Uruguay and back into Argentina. There were two problems with this idea: Northern Argentina at this time of the year is in the season of thunderstorms and rain and can get temperatures past 40 degrees celsius. Moreover would our money probably just have lasted to reach Buenos Aires. We thought about giving slide shows in Buenos Aires, though we wouldn’t have any guarantee of actually making some money to continue our journey.
Then we had the idea to continue southwards with a loop through the mountains by Cordoba, take a break in Mendoza and give slide shows there. But after a phone conversation with my sister I came up with a third idea: What if we would fly to Switzerland for a few months to work and then continue our journey with more money and at a better time of the year? Without beeing sure of actually getting a job at least for Flo, we didn’t want to risk buying flight tickets. So we sent some e-mails out to potential employers to check out the situation in Switzerland. Next morning we had an answer from Flo’s ex boss. He wrote that he had a job for Flo, if he could start within the next two weeks. If not he would give the job to someone he had just interviewed the day before. He needed to make his desicion at the latest in two days.
It was not an easy desicion for us. The flight to Switzerland was incredible expensive. The move to Switzerland would cut off the thread of our journey very abruptly, but there was not really time to think about it. We needed the money. We would see our families, Chan could connect with his cousins he had never met before and I could work on a slide show to give in Switzerland.
So we decided to go for it. It was a journey of four days with 20 hours by bus from Salta to Buenos Aires. We are in Switzerland now, living with my sister and her partner in Winterthur, sharing a three bedroom apartment. Flo has already worked in the Landscape Architecture office for one week. I am still trying to adjust to all the changes, the culture, the climate, the language. Half a year we will be here, our flight back to Argentina is booked for the first week in September. Our bikes are waiting for us in the “casa de ciclista” in Salta.
