Susques to San Pedro de Atacama - Wind, Altitude, and Desert...

From time to time I really ask myself what I’m doing here… When we pushed our bikes out of the hostel in Susques the wind blew into our faces; and surprise, surprise: It was once again headwind… This diminished my motivation dramatically and as everyone else just cycled ahead and left me behind, my motivation was completely gone. When I suggested hitchhiking once again, Stefan was not excited at all and for a reason still unknown to me, I gave in and continued cycling. The wind grew stronger and stronger and even on our way downhill after a small pass we hardly advanced. But luckily Stefan for once let me cycle in his slipstream, which made my life a little bit easier.

If there wasn't any wind it would be pretty nice...

There's salt everywhere!

After over 9 hours on the road we finally reached an old, destroyed house that we used as a wind protection and there we also met the 3 French cyclists again. At that point I only wanted to do one thing: Eating something and sleeping! Trying to avoid the wind at least a little bit, we got up before sunrise the next morning. But the wind did not calm down all night and it was freezing cold when we had our breakfast in the sleeping bags. We left towards the border as soon as the sun rose, but the wind grew incredibly strong very fast, so soon we hardly advanced. When we interrupted our fight against the wind for a short while, suddenly a car appeared out of the nowhere and as they reached us, we were told that they live on a hill out in the nowhere, where no street leads to, so they just drive through the desert to reach the street… After we assured them that we were okay, the children waved at us as they left and we continued our fight against the wind. As we finally reached the border, we first warmed up at the gas station, before we looked for a place to pass the night.

Finally, the border
But unfortunately the road will still climb and climb and climb...

However, they didn’t let us pass the border anymore and we were told that they are expecting snow in the next days, so that they will maybe have to close the pass again. Therefore, we organized a few trucks that would take us to San Pedro the next morning. However, the next day everything came differently: It was beautiful weather when we got up and there was hardly any wind. After crossing the border (fortunately they didn’t find any of the forbidden food we still carried…), an Argentinean police officer told us the exact opposite of what we were told the day before, namely that the weather should stay good and no snow was expected. Therefore we decided to continue by bike and not to hitchhike with the trucks. However, as soon as we finally hit the road, the wind started to pick up again, so that soon we hardly advanced anymore. 

One of the many salty lagoons...

At the next walls we found next to the street we decided to camp, as some protection from the wind was absolutely indispensable and we didn’t want to risk having to ride into the dark…

If I wouldn't have been dead at the time I guess I could even
have enjoyed this landscape...

Some wind protection was indispensable to camp...

Some more salty lagoons

It seemed to have been a wise decision, because as soon as the sun set, the temperatures dropped below freezing, so drying our pots wasn’t necessary anymore… :p Due to the freezing cold we hid in our sleeping bags really early and just hoped that the night would not get too cold and mostly, that the wind would finally calm down and eventually let us advance a little bit... As it was still dark when we got up the next day, we eat our warm porridge in the sleeping bags, but after that it was still freezing cold… And the worst was that getting up in the dark and cold did not even allow us to cycle a few hours without wind: Again we head strong headwinds from the early morning on! In addition to our slow advancing due to the wind we also had to fix two flat tires on Stefans’ bike that day; obviously in the middle of nowhere and fully exposed to the wind. These two incidents completely destroyed our time-planning, but we didn’t really have a choice, with the strong winds we had to continue to the next protecting walls… Finally the street started to climb and several short breaks later we reached the highest point shortly after 4 pm. This will most likely be our altitude record by bike 4827 masl, that’s higher than the Mont Blanc!! :-)

Vicuñas at 4800 masl!

The first few km after the pass we advanced pretty fast, but as soon as it was flat again, the wind hit us hard and the last 10 km to our campsite were absolute horror: We were both tired, did hardly advance against the wind and were completely freezing.

What the heck are we doing in this desert?!?!

When we finally arrived, it was already so cold that we just sat up the tent and decided to eat nothing else but cookies, as we both just wanted to get into our sleeping bags as soon as possible! That night was probably the coldest of our whole trip (as our odometer with the thermometer is still broken, we don’t know how cold it was, but I assure you that it was too cold to be camping…), in the morning Stefan and me as well as the three French cyclists all stayed in there sleeping bags until the sun rose. Fighting against the still blowing headwind we attacked the last 20 km to the last pass, but it was a heavy fight: With the wind constantly working against us it was also very hilly. After lunch we finally reached the last pass, again over 4800 masl, but that wasn’t enough yet, after that we couldn’t enjoy the long anticipated downhill to San Pedro de Atacama yet, no, for another few kilometers the road continued to lead up and down, until we finally reached the intersection to Bolivia. And now the best part of the day started: An almost endless downhill lay in front of us, so steep that pedaling was definitely not necessary anymore!

Finally - the steep downhill into the Atacama desert!

It was crazy to roll down that road, thinking that all these meters of altitude we had to climb earlier… Slowly the temperatures rose again, eventually gloves and beanie were not necessary anymore and very slowly I started to feel alive again! When we arrived in San Pedro, more than half of our water bottles were still frozen (this might give you some idea of how cold the last night really was…)! We immediately went to a bike shop, where we met Guilherme, a guy from Warmshowers, with whom we went for a beer and who gave us some tips for our stay in and around San Pedro. Later we went to a cheap hostel and then went out for dinner, as we definitely had to celebrate our successful crossing of Paso Jama!