The other side....

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Cuesta de Lipan

so... we survived! The 2000m climb up the Cuesta de Lipan has to be one of the hardest things we`ve ever done. The photo above was taken at about 3,700m with 400m to go and the road dissapears down for 1500m. The whole climb took us about 5 hours with the effects of the altitude beginning to significantly affect us at about 3000m. The top, when we got there provided amazing views and chance to have our coronaries in peace.....

@ The top - 4170m.

Once we`d recovered sufficiently, we began the 600m, 70kph freewheel downhill to Salinas Grande where we proposed to camp the night.

Salinas Grande.

The wind was ferocious as we started to setup the tent in the desert just before the salar. Too ferocious. We backtracked about 1/2 a km to a mud habitation we`d passed and asked if we could put the tent up in the shelter of their dwelling.

Cooking dinner.

The night sky was absolutely stunning that night with a zillion stars blazing across your view from horizon to horizon. We passed a windy but cosy night before heading off early ìsh to pedal across the salar to the mountains we could see in the distance, heading for the adobe border town of Susques some 70km away. Normally not such a large distance to do however the effects of the altitude and another 600m or so of climbing to do put a whole different perspective on the day ahead. We were both suffering from the symptoms of mild AMS, altitude sickness - nausea, headaches, lethargy ( The advice given to AMS sufferers is to stay at the same altitude or lower until symptoms recede and to immediately descend several 100m if not and TO AVOID EXERTION! Ha, ha..) and the feeling that we`d lost half a lung each and just smoked 20 cigars didn`t help....! Fortunately it seemed that we`d find supplies en route.

A sign just for us!

Llamas, in case you weren`t sure....

As it turned out, the ride to Susques was the second hardest thing we`d ever done. By the end of the day we were completely knackered and looking forward to a largish town ( according to the map ) with good supplies, internet, etc. How wrong could we be!

The metropolis of Susques.

Susques`tiny adobe church.

The next day we discovered that we`d both overdone it quite significantly and Michelle especially had a very sore leg. Given that the route to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile after Susques, was going to be even harder, higher and more remote, we took the executive decision to hitch a lift with the bikes to the drop-off at the edge of the Andes where we`d get a 45km descent to San Pedro and hopefully hit at least 80kph. As Susques has the Argentinian customs post there, all trucks, etc have to stop to complete the necessary red tape so thought getting a lift would be pretty easy.

In the end, it took two days of waiting before we managed to get a lift on an empty, brand new 52 seater coach being delivered from Brazil to Peru. The driver however was excelent, and dropped us off just where the drop-off started. Disappointingly though, we had a very strong headwind to deal with and could only reach 66kph. Never mind, better luck next time! The road was really amazing though with the 6000m+ Volcan Licanabur shadowing us on our descent.

2500m downhill. Volcan Licanabur watching.

We`re now in the expensive, tourist mad town of San Pedro de Atacama and itching to get on a bus to Santiago and the South tomorrow. When we were last here in 1991 San Pedro only had about 500 people and 1 tour company offering trips up into Boliva. Now it has 5000 people and about 100 tour companies - aaarrggghhh!! can`t wait to get out of here. the only saving grace is that we`re camped under some trees at the back of a very quiet hostel garden.