4. Valleys, Lakes and High Altitude
Day 162 - 164
No need to spring out of bed before the sunrise today. It should be an easy ride to my destination at a high altitude lake 20 km past the border. The last information I have says that the road is fully paved.
I had a leisurely breakfast and off I went. There are a few things I need to consider before I leave this town. It is 550 km before the next gas station. There is also no town or settlement or shop until I am almost at the Pacific Coast. I should be technically able to do it with my large fuel tank with some to spare. But that wouldn't leave me too much leeway in the case of contingencies. There is no point not to take extra fuel when I have a chance. The same thing with drinking water. There's no place to get drinking water for two full days. This is the longest stretch without refuelling I have experienced. There are more refuelling stations even in Alaska or Yukon.
There is only one gas station in this town, and there is a long lineup. There is no other choice then suck it up. It took about one hour, but I wasn't in any hurry. I have 37 L of fuel which gives me range over 700 km. The next stop is a grocery store to stock up on drinking water. I have in total 7 L of water for two days now. That should be enough.
All stocked up, I am on my way. It is easy morning ride to Fiambala about 50 km up the road. The Dakar Rally had some stages out of this town when it was being held in South America. It is a nice valley between two ridges. The sun is shining and the road is good. After Fiambala the road started to climb every so slightly but relentlessly. There were some amazing rock formations beside the roads with narrow canyons and jagged peaks. They were also mountains and hills with amazing colors everywhere. Some of them were bright red among the sea of grey. I was stopping every few hundred meters, taking pictures. The valley eventually opens up. The road goes through one giant valley into another one connected by narrow passages in the mountains. There is no traffic here, I mean nobody. It is partly cloudy with temperature around 20°. Higher the altitude, the darker the blue of the sky is. It is a feast for the eyes. Yellow colours of feather grass, red colours of mountains, the green colour of vegetation, and the blue sky. There are places for pictures to be taken at every turn. More than every turn because the road is very straight. It is a nice and relaxing ride, not challenging at all, as riding goes. There are hundreds maybe even thousands vicunas along the road. They live at altitude between 2500 m and 4500 m. Also, they are endangered species, and therefore protected by law. I also saw ostriches crossing the road in front of me. I didn't know they live here so I stopped and took some pictures. When I was leaving, the noise of my bike spook them, and they started to run. Man, they are fast!
I've met less than five cars all the way to the border, 250 km away. I've seen as many people on their bicycles there. Learning from my experience near Atacama I always stopped and asked them if they need anything. There's virtually no traffic and no sources for food or water. Luckily, everybody was good, but everybody appreciated that I asked. This road being at extreme altitude, the weather can change in a heartbeat. If unprepared, it can be very detrimental to your life. There are a few emergency shelters along this road. There are very basic inside, but they will protect you from the elements. Also, there is an emergency communication system in each shelter. There is no other place to hide, the landscape at this altitude is barren. There is no trees, no structures, no big boulders you could hide behind. But the entire road is spectacular.
The highest point on this road is Paso de San Francisco, at almost 4800 m. And that is actually the border between Argentina and Chile. There is no other road around, even for the hardest of smugglers. There's no point to keep customs and immigration officers at this altitude. Therefore the Argentinian border control is actually about 30 km from the actual border at altitude of 4200 m. It doesn't seem like much but every metre at this elevations counts. And the same thing is on the Chilean side of the border. The border control is actually 90 km inside the border. Speaking of the border controls, I'm not apprehensive about going through the border now. And this one was the easiest of them all. It took an entire five minutes to get my passport stamped, and my motorcycle importation permit canceled. Customs officer only got out of his chair to the doorway and asked me if that bike is mine, there was no other bike, and said OK you can go. Awesome. The road keeps climbing. I have some beautiful shots of vicunas posing for a shot with beautiful mountain background behind them. They were also llamas, which were way less frequent than vicunas. The road surface is perfect. No need to maintain it. There's almost 0 traffic here. I haven't seen one commercial vehicle the whole day. This road is also the only road in the world where you have volcanos reaching over 6000 m. They are all dormant, but still very impressive. At least they say they are dormant…
At last I have reached the summit. Very barren and inhospitable place. The wind is howling here. There are few signs saying where you are and the big sign welcoming you to Chile the altitude almost 4800 m. And you can feel it. I took a few pictures and continued to my destination. I have descended slightly to 4400 m. After 20 km the lagoon is in front of me. It's turquoise color, contrasting with anything around.
I got off the highway and found the shelter on the lake shore. This one was a little bit bigger than the other ones I saw along the road. This one is more makeshift and heavily used. There are also some garbage left behind by previous occupants. There is a first come, first sleep policy there. I asked the people who are already there and they advised me not to sleep there. They said it is noisy at night and there are mice everywhere. No problem I will set up my tent outside. It is very windy outside and this shelter is the only place I can hide behind, so I set up my tent right next to it, also anchoring my lines to the building and to my bike.
There are already about two dozens tens along the shore line. They all are from several expeditions, which specialize in high altitude trekking and climbing. I set up my tent but it is way too early to sleep. I grab my camera and the climb above the camp and take some pictures. The lake has amazing colours changing by different direction of the sunlight. The shoreline is all white. It could be easily assumed that it is ice. But these are slabs of salt. Not only the lake, but also all the small springs which are feeding the lake are salty. I had some inclination to go and dip in the lake but then I got smarter. The lake is cold, the air is cold, and I have no way of warming up.The next time. The sun was slowly setting down, covering the entire area with rich, deep colours. I didn't use any filters on my camera, but the picture still came out like they have been photoshopped. One of those things, you would have to be there to believe it.
When the sun disappeared behind the horizon, the temperature went from cold to really cold very quickly. The wind is still howling. There's nothing else to do so I crawled into my tent. I have a new plan in my head. I will wait till the wind dies down. Then I will go out and shoot some stars. This should be a perfect opportunity of taking pictures of Milky Way with the reflection on the lake down below. There is no light source inside 250 km radius. The only issue is that the lake is about 1 km across and I have to get on the other side to be able to shoot Milky Way. A brilliant idea.
Of course I couldn't sleep, but I got all my gear and off I went after the midnight. It was really cold at this point, quickly going down below 0°. I had six layers on me and one more jacket in my backpack. I had a headlamp to see where I'm going. The walking was very difficult in uneven terrain. The salt slabs, deep sand, uneven salt crust, which buries your foot at every step and many water springs. Because of all this I was making a very slow progress. But the biggest problem was that I was very, very tired. I'd only a small breakfast in the morning. I didn't sleep much the night before, and I didn't sleep at all before I left the camp. It has been a long day, regardless. Then add the high altitude and that's the recipe when bad things can happen. Even though I was going slowly, I eventually got to a place where I was satisfied with a composition for my pictures. I wasn't even close to be on the other side of the lake though. The night sky was absolutely incredible. Everything was so much clearer and darker than in Atacama desert. There is no light pollution out here, and I am also two kilometres higher. The Milky Way is right in front of me, incredible sight. There are no satellites at these latitudes, and I see no airplanes lights either. I set up my camera and my tripod and start taking pictures. I took many shots of the Milky Way, each with different settings, making sure at least one of them will be good. And they were. Then I set up my camera for a time-lapse photographs. That includes taking many photographs of the sky with a long exposure. We are talking about 200 photographs, each 30 seconds to expose with one second interval between the shots. Then you would take all those pictures and merge them together and you get one awesome picture with star trails. That is the idea. I dialled the settings in my camera and took some test shots. I was satisfied, so I hit the start button and let the camera do its magic. Is going to take almost 2 hours for camera to complete the cycle. However, I forgot about the time when the moon supposed to come up. All of a sudden everything starts getting brighter and the moon quickly rises above the horizon. It is a half moon tonight and the moon is incredibly bright at this altitude. Everything around is lit up like somebody flashes a giant flashlight on everything. It is all cool and beautiful except it messes up exposure in my camera. Basically, the time lapse set is ruined. I have only about 15 pictures out of 200 I need. There is no point hanging around. At this point, I started to feel really bad. The altitude with everything else I've mentioned is really getting to me. And I have about 3 km of hiking in a very difficult terrain at night in front of me. I started to walk, but I am more and more exhausted with every step I take. It gets to the point that I have to stop and sit down every 100 m. When I sit down, all I want to do is close my eyes and take a short nap. In my head I have been recalling every single high-altitude disaster I have ever read about. And I've read many of them. It is crazy, I am at 4500 m and I am completely physically and mentally exhausted to the point I have never experienced before. Nobody knows that I'm here. I have gotten my solved into the situation, and I have to get myself out of this. My stomach is churning, I am dizzy and I feel like I have just climbed the Mount Everest. It is hard to breathe. I feel like a 400 pounds gorilla is sitting on my chest. I can exhale with no problem, but to inhale takes a huge effort. I don't have anything to eat, the only thing I have is a bottle of water. I channel all my mental strength to walk, one step at a time. 100 m and stop for the rest. Repeat. I have totally lost any sense of time. There’s only one goal, to get to the camp. There is a warm sleeping bag waiting for me and my medical kit. I have some herbal supplements for dealing with the high altitude but also the real deal pills for that. But I don't wanna take any unless it is absolutely necessary.
After what it seems to be an eternity, I stumble, literally, into the camp and collapse into my sleeping bag. I feel miserable. And all this just to take a few pictures of Milky Way. Crazy, I know. I should at least get a National Geographic medal for my effort. I'm laying in my sleeping bag but I cannot sleep. I know what's going to happen. It is not going to get better until I get to lower altitude. But I'm not going anywhere in the middle of the night. It is past 3 o'clock in the morning. I've been out for 3 1/2 hours. I checked the temperature before the sunrise and it is -4°. I wait until sun comes up and starts warming everything up. I crawl out and start packing. IIt is past 3 o'clock in the morning. I've been out for 3 1/2 hours. I've been out for 3 1/2 hours. still feel crappy, but at least I am much warmer now even though it is only +4°. My packing today is messy, but I couldn't care less. I filled my tank with my reserve fuel, and I am on my way. It is morning, but all I can think about is how I gonna lie down in a comfortable bed. Luckily, in the preparation for this stage, I put a coordinates of a first nice hotel in my GPS just in case I need to get out of here quickly so I don't have to search for it.
Road is nice and there's almost no traffic. A few big BMWs with Brazilian license plates. The road is nice and the sun starts warming everything up very slowly. But it is a while till I descent below 4000 m. Landscape around is beautiful but desolate. Not even feather grass grows here. I reach Chilean border control, and I feel better. Better, not great. The Argentinian border control was fast, the Chilean site was a speed of light. Immigration process took only a few seconds. I filled up two forms and it was done. Motorcycle import permit took less than two minutes. Unreal. Custom ladies wanted to see my bags so I open some of them. And inside my top bag right in the middle there was my bag with my herbal supplements. They looked at it and they started to laugh. It's all good, you can go. Then they spotted my Ziploc bag with my stickers and they ask if they can have some. It was my turn to laugh. They took it and put it right away among the other ones on the door to the customs office. This was my friendliest and fastest border crossing ever.
The road after the border went from perfect tarmac to a dirt mountain road. Didn't expect to be climbing up again, through saddles way above 4,200 m at this point. But I got through and started endless descent towards my destinations in the city of Copiapo. It was getting hot and I was really tired by now. It was a quick approach to the hotel. Thankfully, I've had it in my GPS. I didn't book my room, but I was hoping that they have some available. They did and soon enough I was in a nice room. I was too tired to go outside, and the hotel didn't have too much of choice of food available. I got chips and a juice and that was my dinner. I booked my room for two nights so I can sleep in tomorrow and get some rest. I really need it.
I had an awesome sleep and I feel like 1 million bucks. I slept in and went downstairs for breakfast. It was a full buffet and I ate like a pig. I feel great. Nothing on a plan today just relax, edit my pictures and write a blog.
What an adventure! Pictures from the night, and from the previous day came out really well, I am quite happy with them. And the day is over, too soon. Last few days have been something. Great experience I will never forget.
Tomorrow is an easy transitional stage to another city in Chile before I head back to Argentina via another high altitude pass. But that will be another story.