Day 361 Tuesday 1st of April Calama to Susques 406km

We slept in our little Dog Box last night, and sadly, I lost to Peens in Ching Chong Cha and had to sleep in the Bunk Bed. All went well until 3h00 when I needed the toilet to tinkle, for the record, it is not easy to climb down the ladder backwards at that hour, and even worse, if you survive the ladder, you step into your pannier bag and trip, (as there is no landing space in the room to put any luggage etc. so the floor is strewn with obstacles.)

This morning the car park was full of mine vehicles;

The bow you see on the back of the Bakkies are their flags which they pop-up when they are driving on the mine so that they are more viable to the big heavy mine vehicles and also if they are on the other side of a dune or a blind spot on site.

Our budget hotel had no breakfast, se we walked over the road to their version of Walmart (Makro) and ate something at their food-court. Then we wanted to leave but Tex had lost his bike key, so we all were accused of hiding it until it was found at Reception, someone handed it in. Then Pie reported that he needed us all to ride past the Laundry to collect the laundry he handed in. Everybody was happy to do so as they had all given him a few items, except Peens and I who already, diligently did our washing a few days ago. So we rode to the Laundry and it did not look like a laundry, with a lovely Muriel on the wall, and the ladies inside were still ironing all the clothes. Tonight they sorted the washing and long lost underpants and socks were discovered when they found items they though they had lost, but actually it was worn by your friends in the meantime until today when they were re-united with their lost clothing since the last mutual Laundry Day.

Then we hit the desert, it was still ugly and straight and had constant reminders of all the people who died on the road, (it can only be due to overtaking in the Mist or Fog.) Some that died were couples and their family put up huge photos of the couple inside the Shrines. This young man below even had his favorite car next to his Shrine:

And then about 50km into the morning’s ride, the scenary started changing, it was no longer a straight and ugly road, but it started curving and we started passing Volcano’s and mountains and salt-pans. And then we found a dirt road and the Apple Lady from Apple Music played the most beautiful music into my helmet, even better than the Coldplay day I had yesterday. I was singing and tapping my feet to the beat, and the Deseret just kept on amazing me with its beauty. Like the Volcano below;

Wild Lima:

DadAss looking great in the Atacama Desert;

We had no other traffic apart form the odd truck every 15 minutes or so, there were lots of other Adventure Bikers coming from ahead, some very large groups, like one group we met at the border of 17 bikes leaving Argentina and entering Chile.

Ad the border was minute, a hand full of little buildings:

We were suppose to ask the Argentinian Custom Official to give us 180 Days on our TIPs, and we asked but a Grumpy Guy told us they can only give us 90 days before the bikes had to be out of Argentina. Our Rapper turned Translator and spoke to the official saying that he was aware of the border near Mendoza that gives 180 days when requested, but Grumpy Guy was un-changed, he suggested we take our bikes to a Bonded custom Storage (at huge costs, we did this in San Jose Costa Rica,) but he could not help us, sorry for us.

But our spirits were once again not broken as it took exactly 32 minutes to leave Chile and enter Argentina. We decided to spoil ourselves with a multi course lunch, at the Gas Station next to the border. We ordered several different dishes, well, I actually mean different flavors of Crisps, plus two types of Biscuits for dessert and even a coffee to wash it all down. While we were enjoying our Culinary Feast, the Grumpy Guy from the border arrived and said that he phoned his boss who told him that he was allowed to give 180 days should he be satisfied with the reason, and for South Africans to go back home for the winter and return in the summer to continue  their ride was reason enough, so he took our TIP’s back and returned 10 minutes later with new TIP’s valid for 180 days. He was showered with gifts, I gave him 2 wire and bead animals from Africa and we gave him our prized bottle of Chilean redwine we were planning on drinking tonight. HAPPYNESS

Our Gourmet Lunch:

The road was very interesting, we never had any switch-backs or even a mountain pass, it was just a steady climb up and up with many long sweeping curves and we climbed up to 4500m before we started decending in the same way as when we went up. But we stayed in the desert and never got into a green or wet area.

Our road kept on being beautiful :

Pie (below) was living his Best Life as his riding days with us is almost over, he always said he will stop riding, either when his axle breaks, or when he reaches 365 days, and his axles’s are still going, but we are now 4 days away from his 365 days Dead Line but today he was on top of the world:

Tonight’s little town:

We crossed the Tropic of Capricorn, (so we are in line with Polokwane, I was looking for a sign but there was none, but Tex found the spot when we reached the correct latitude on his Compass.

Our little desert town tonight is small and only has three little hotels, or Hostel’s,  everything is made mud-like in color and dilapidated, but our accommodation is a haven for Adventure Bikers, and each of them seem to have a Sticker, except us. We have matching shirts, we have a Website, we have matching caps and Beanie’s, we even have business cards with our Blog address, but we don’t have sticker, yet. There is a Snore Divider in our rooms, hope it works.

Our little hotel tonight reminds me of that little hotel at the top of Sani Pass, “you can check in but you can never leave” (until the morning. But we are actually on an island for the night, you can’t go into the desert at night. We plan to eat here in our little Back-Packers tonight.

Tomorrow we turn South again and plan to explore the famous Route 40.

Keep Well Ja All

XXX

Fleisch