4. Illegally in Argentina
Day 139
The breakfast is served quite late in this place. It starts at 9 o'clock in the morning. There are not too many people in this place beside me, I think two or maybe three people. It's the same breakfast every day. It is good I'm not a picky eater. It does the job, though. It is nice that you can sleep in, if you can that is, because the best time to sleep is in the morning when the temperature is pretty cool. In town here the temperature goes down to 12°.
With my belly full, I set up for another exploration ride. I head up on the road number 27, the same as I was on yesterday but I will try to go a little bit farther this time. I am looking for a specific location for my next photo shoot. I want to have a Milky Way in the background with a lagoon in foreground, and the Milky Way and the stars reflecting on the surface of the lagoon. I am very specific what I want 😉 Only problem is to find a lagoon in the desert. But I don't give up.
I get to the top of the climb with no altitude problems whatsoever. Me or my bike. The road is very twisty and goes up and down and there is a great view at every corner. Well, there are no lagoons so far. But I am taking pictures and enjoying great ride. Then about 80 km out, there are some small puddles with lots of pink flamingoes there. And there are a couple vicuñas there as well. It is not a big lagoon, but I think I can make it work if I don't find anything else. I keep riding as the road goes slightly up, then slightly down, but stays pretty high at all times. I feel pretty good, better than yesterday. I keep telling myself one more turn, one more pass then I will turn and come back. And I keep saying that for couple of hours. And then there is a huge sign saying welcome to Argentina! There is no border post over here. It is a few kilometres further down in the valley. Of course I have to ride a few hundred metres into Argentina just because. Then I come back to the post which has hundreds of stickers from different riders coming through. Obviously, I have to put my own sticker together with others . Mission accomplished. I crossed to Argentina illegally and got away with it 🤭 I cannot go any further, so I turn around and head back. The town is 160 km away.
On the way towards the border, I met a cyclist going westbound towards San Pedro. He was about 110 km away from the town. There are some big hills ahead of him, up-and-down, and altitude on average 4600 m with two passes over 4800 m. It is not easy just to sit on my motorbike at that altitude not to mention pedal your bicycle with all your gear for hours. There are no services until you get to San Pedro. Only water is the lagoon I passed, but it is full of birds, so I am not sure I will not be save to drink. I made a mental note where I met the guy and make sure that I will stop when I passed him on the way back. Besides, the high altitude problem, there's a dehydration problem as well. With the humidity in single digits, you are losing a huge amount of body fluids. Most of the times you don't even realize it because you don't sweat at all and when you're thirsty it's already too late. I have some cookies with me and I have few litres of water so hopefully I can share it with the guy He might have something with him, but you can only take so much on your bicycle and there is a long way ahead of him.
After taking compulsory photos in Argentina, I had back. I calculated that I might catch up with the cyclist about 70 km from San Pedro. Sure enough, I caught up with a guy 73 km from the town. He wasn't riding, he was sitting on the ground by the road sign. Obviously, something was not right. I stopped and asked if he needs any help. He said he is tired and has a horrible headache and cannot continue. Symptoms of oncoming altitude sickness. He was a young Dutch guy riding from the bottom of the continent all the way up to Columbia. He started in the town Ushuaia which is my primary destination. He was in pretty good physical shape, but altitude gets you no matter how good a shape you are in. I gave him all my water from my Camelback and filled up his water bottles. He said if he cannot continue, he could camp over there. But that would not solved his problem. He needed to get to the lower altitude, sooner the better. And San Pedro is 2400 m lower than the altitude we were at. I stayed around and we chatted a bit and hoping he will recover so he can continue. If he cannot continue, the option would be to put him on on my bike and take him down to the town to recover then come back and pick up his bike. There is another option if you can at least sits on the bike. I have some straps with me that can rig up so I can pull him behind my bike. And that's what we ended up doing. After a little bit, he recovered enough so then we can at least try it. It requires us to ride like this for another 30 km and through another pass at 4800 m. I was pulling him uphill while he was holding to the straps attached to my motorbike. To make the situation worse there was a very strong wind at that altitude, much stronger than it was yesterday. No problem for me, I have 136 horses helping me, but for a guy on the lightweight bicycle, it is a huge problem. But it worked. In the descent he was tucked behind me and on a straightaways I was blocking the wind so he doesn't have to work that much. We needed to get to a point 43 km from the town and from there it is all downhill. We went through all the uphills and downhill and the high pass and finally came to the top of the decent. I stayed with him for a little bit and he was doing fine. I had his phone number so we agreed to go for dinner when he gets into the town.
Sure enough few hrs later I got a text message that he's staying any hostel nearby. We went for a dinner together and had a good time sharing our travel stories. He will be staying in town for two days to recover. He told me that he was so tired that he wanted to quit. It was the hardest day in his life on the bike.
There's a problem with high altitude. It will sneak up on you without knowing and at that point it is already pretty late. I have another riders I'm in contact with who have problems with altitude as well. It affects different people differently and it is hard to predict how your body is going to react. You just have to try it and be ready for it. It all worked out very well at the case today.