“The Chileans don’t want to receive you. We cannot let you through.” The speech had been consistently negative for two days because the 4,850-metre-high San Francisco Pass, the one border crossing linking Argentina and Chile, was sealed to all traffic due to a blizzard. At the Argentinian border post, Las Cortaderas, begging was all there was left to do so as to have a crack at crossing the Andes alongside Ojos del Salado. The last volcano on our 25,000-kilometre itinerary, the world’s highest active volcano at 6,887 metres, sits at the top of the pass.
Photos of previous cycling adventures were displayed to the border officials-including a winter crossing of Tibet and the Himalayas-along with family action shots of skiing, skating, and snowman-making. Our sledgehammer argument: we’re Canadian; we know snow, so please, please let us through! We thought we had an ironclad defence, yet it was coldly rejected by the gendarmeria officers. Beyond the range, Chile’s culture has evolved apart from the rest of the South American continent, as if it were an island.
This is a logical outcome when studying Chile’s unique geography: a 4,329-kilometre-long and no more than 180-kilometre-wide ribbon of land lying between the high Andes
and the Pacific Ocean. Getting in or out of Chile overland is feasible only through a few scattered high-mountain passes bridging it to Bolivia and, farther south, to Argentina. The San Francisco Pass was our return-to-Chile dream passage. Try again! A month before, leaving Chile to reach Argentina through Socompa Pass was no picnic either. According to most maps, the ascending road starts at the southeast fringe of the bone-dry Atacama Salt Flats.
Well, it might have existed at some point in the past, but we found no sure signs of it. Plan B: get to the southwest fringe of the salt flats and connect with a track that “really” existed. In brief, we were lost! We had to detour around sand dunes for a few hundred solitary mining-industry-road kilometres, hoping food and water supplies would just miraculously appear. At the end of the second day, a vehicle finally appeared on the lunar horizon. Our saviour left us with water bottles, fruit juice Tetra-packs, and boxes of cookies! He said we would come to a copper-mine camp sometime the following day. He also mentioned something about us being “locos!”
The mining camp was there as he had said, and our panniers miraculously gained weight! Hallelujah! But the Devil reared its head again. The mine’s staff would not let us ride to the pass: “Too many land mines. Ground erosion moves them every rainy season and it’s impossible to tell where they all are now.” Sadly, Pinochet’s legacy will outlast him. A pickup truck was provided, and two hours later, our caravan was safe at the summit of Socompa Pass, where Argentina begins. “Gracias caballeros!” – Thank you gentlemen!
Only two small buildings sit atop the 4,475-metre-high Socompa Pass. one is host to the Chilean customs and immigration officers, the other one for their Argentinian counterparts. Then it’s one exit stamp, one entry stamp, and something more said about Canadian “locos.” Some five days down the winding road is the 1,200-metre-high Salta, reached by way of San Antonio de los Cobres and El Toro Canyon. A colonial agricultural centre situated on the Arias River in the Lerma Valley, Salta lies in a mountainous, strikingly beautiful area. Founded in 1582, it was one of the first places in Argentina colonized by the Spaniards. Reaching an urban district for the first time in weeks meant that email messages could now be sent to family members explaining our long silence.
Since the last connection in San Pedro de Atacama, two weeks had passed. What was once considered a short time lapse, since the arrival of the Internet, is now thought to be an eternity. Gone are the days when travelers could casually send a postcard home to loved ones every three months. Also gone are the days when keeping in contact with Pedal magazine’s editor was difficult. A blessing and a plague in one. Farther south on Route 68, the lush humid valley gives way to a wild gorge packed with fascinating rock formations of different colours. When a wide valley appears again, it is semi-arid and dotted with vine plantations. You’ve reached Argentina’s Cafayate wine region. The riding is easy, the weather is perfect, and the wine-tasting is free! En route, we crossed paths with other “raidistas”: a Dutch couple on recumbent bikes, an Australian-French duo, two Argentinians, and three other Aussies on loaded bicycles. Word spreads fast about a good road and great grapes!
The word was also out about a certain “casa de ciclistas.” Some generous bicycle enthusiasts have opened their homes to long-distance cyclists. They provide hundreds of raidistas with road information, a place to stay, a shower, conversation, home comfort, and sweet memories. Scattered along the long road, some “casas” are legendary, and everyone’s eyes sparkled while talking about Kelo and Ô°ric’s casa in Los Andes, Chile. All had stopped there on the way north from Santiago. We were the only ones heading south. Apparently below the Tropic of Capricorn, when May comes around, you should start to move north! Farther south, we were riding down from the stormy and now-closed San Francisco Pass; northbound cyclists were most likely sipping a homemade Chardonnay by green cacti!
In Tinogasta, a small friendly town in the foothills of the San Francisco Pass, we had made many acquaintances while previously stationed there for 48 hours prior to our long haul. Having no choice but to come through again, we gladly re-visited some “old friends” during Sunday “asado,” a well-known and well-liquored traditional Argentinian barbecue. In most Argentinian towns, all shops close during siesta time-from noon to
6:00 p.m.-and not a soul can be found on the streets. This custom is often a frustration for calorie-deficient cyclists trying to stay on top of their game. It is, nonetheless, a symptom of the country’s general laidbackness. As one Argentinian said, “For us, success is a hobby, not a life goal.” The access to the high pass was again denied, so we moved on to Plan B. For us, it involved visa extensions and a 650-kilometre ride south to the next open pass. Linking the Argentinian city of Mendoza with Chile, La Cumbre
Pass is, in fact, permanently and officially closed to all traffic, but a few hundred metres below it, through the range, runs the 3.2-kilometre Cristo Redentor-Christ the Redeemer-toll-road tunnel.
A notoriously beautiful, extremely windy paved road leads to it. No kidding! I saw myself drafting Pierre…while walking my bike! on the 203-kilometre climb from Mendoza to the tunnel, one can stop and ski at Los Penitentes, a small ski resort at the 165-kilometre point. Farther on, we marvel at Puente del Inca, one of South America’s natural wonders: a natural bridge over Mendoza River created by sulphur-bearing hot springs. It has a span of 21 metres and is 27 metres wide. Two kilometres on, to the right, Cerro Aconcagua appears, standing white and tall. At 6,959 metres, it is the Americas’ highest summit. Our bio-propelled parade was put on a pickup truck by the border officials.
The ingenious tunnel to Chile is a dangerous black hole dense with toxic vehicle-exhaust fumes. The lift is mandatory for all cyclists, unless, of course, one sneaks into the railway tunnel! It was the beginning of June, only a week before Chile’s famous 2,855-metre-high Portillo ski resort would open for the season. But we were just leaving, on our way to the Cuesta Juncal, a road section adorned with 29 switchbacks! Heeyaa! Down the hill, in Los Andes, we reached Kelo and Ô°ric’s famous “casa de ciclistas.” Ô°ric, the son of a French immigrant, was off on a one-year cycling trip to North America while his wife, Kelo, managed their veterinary clinic, took care of their two boys, and welcomed the two-wheeled migrants into their home. The house is Ô°ric’s design, and it includes a whole floor for the cycling visitors. Already present were Michael, Stephan, Carter, and Fernando, respectively from Germany, Belgium, the U.S, and Mexico.
At the end of our 25,000-kilometre bike ride, we were invited to stay the time needed to prepare for our departure out of Santiago, Chile’s capital 80 kilometres to the south. Even knowing that in one year’s time we would reunite, saying hasta luego to the incredibly generous Kelo was hard. I arranged by email to sell my bike and panniers to Anna, a strikingly beautiful, energetic Chilean woman with a plan. Pierre and I bought two tickets to North America and, 10 days later, we were ready to fly home. After 25 months on the road, we needed to go home, regroup, and organize a slide presentation tour across Canada: 12,000 slides and many boxes filled with information were waiting to be worked on.
The images and data (1,000 slides relayed by three projectors and supported by an original soundtrack) were shaped into a two-and-a-half-hour-long show called “Cycling the Pacific Ring of Fire. Part 1. Vancouver/Santiago,” and it was presented by Pedal. Fifty Canadian towns and cities hosted the slideshow. We had to resort to using a motorized vehicle-our first ever! Our 1985 camperized gray GMC Vandura, affectionately referred to as the “Gray Whale,” is now for sale. We are packing bikes and panniers and getting ready to set out on the second stage of our “cyclovolcanic” quest: Santiago, Chile/Manila, Philippines. “You’re going to Patagonia on your
bicycles during wintertime,” you say. “Haven’t you learned anything? Are
you locos?”