We were on the road at about 7am, determined to complete our longest ride yet before it got dark.
Not only did we manage it but it was the most SPECTACULAR ride.
The first part was flat and windy, like our journey had been to Fiambala the previous day. However before long we entered the foothills of the Andes where huge, angular, red rocks rose up from the desert which, after driving along sparse flat plains for a few days, was quite a sight to behold. The photos don't do the colour justice!
Once we'd meandered through these and gained altitude, we were cruising along the altiplano, where it was even colder than we'd expected. We had to pull over and take shelter in one of the refugios/refuges, to layer up. Whilst it was extremely bare and dirty in there, it would've been a pretty cool spot to spend a night had we had the appropriate equipment!
From here we gradually ascended, until there was no life at all - no more vicunas, birds or eventually even vegetation.
By now we were the coldest we had been so far on our trip, but with the views that we had there was no way it could make us miserable. Rising out of the barren grey landscape came snow-capped mountain peaks, which really weren't very far away. Snow and ice started encroaching on the road and we realised that we really were riding at the top of one of the world's largest mountain ranges, and that was pretty amazing.
Three hours after leaving Fiambala we were approaching Argentina's border control. By this point we were so cold that we probably wouldn't have noticed if someone chopped one of our hands off, so when the guards invited us into their heated hut out of the freezing wind we were somewhat overwhelmed with gratitude.
Of course there was no one else up there so the exit process took no time at all. We were pointed towards a different hut where we had some horrible but oh-so-lovely-and-warm coffee before heading back off into the Baltic ice fields, where we had 165km to do before reaching the Chilean border control!
We came to the official border between the two countries not too long after the Argentine control. We knew it was an international boundary because the lovely tarmac abruptly stopped and turned to dirt! (And because of the massive sign of course).
From this point forward the scenery somehow continued to become more and more amazing. It literally felt like we were at the top of the world, and really we weren't far from it. While concentrating on not letting the bike slide in the gravel made this part a little more stressful, there was nothing that could really distract us from the epic beauty going on around us.
After a couple of hours we started to descend slightly and, after what had felt like a lifetime, we saw the Chilean border control come into view.
By this point the landscape had changed, becoming redder and more desert-like, and the wind had become so strong that it filled your helmet as you went along and roared in your ears, even making your eyes cold behind your visor and glasses which was a feeling that I didn't even know was possible.
Again alone in the large border building the process took little time, and Tom went through the usual motions as I sat on the floor of the man's office next to the tiny electric heater. He then asked us if we had any fruit or meat or cheese, of which we had all three, and told us we couldn't take them into Chile. So there on the floor of the border control building we had ourselves a little picnic - a whole salami, tub of cream cheese, pack of crackers, two apples and two oranges.
Now pretty full but sadly not much warmer, we set off on the last push to the first town in Chile. We continued to descend and as we did so the landscape continued to morph and change around us.
Eventually we were warm again as we found ourselves riding through desert - we later found out we had ridden through the tail-end of the Atacama, and were very happy to have unintentionally ticked that of our list! - happy to get the feeling back in our extremities and experiencing a growing sense of accomplishment for the long and amazing day we'd (almost) completed.
Sadly we could tell when we were approaching civilisation by the appearance of rubbish at the side of the road. It started as the odd plastic bottle here and there, but by the time we were back on tarmac and approaching the highway, there were overflowing plastic bags and piles of rubbish at the roadside. It was a sad sight after the beauty we'd seen that day and unfortunately the mining town of Copiapo was a fairly unpleasant place to end our wonderful day.
We visited over ten accommodations, eventually finding one for about $25 (all the rest were mainly $40-70) but as we lay in the sinking bed amidst stinking sheets and peeling mouldy walls we wished more than anything that we had forked out the extra twenty dollars on this occasion. It would seem that Chile too was a lot more expensive tan we were used to.
It's safe to say we were up and getting the hell out of there first thing in the morning, and were really hoping that Chile had some more pleasant places up its sleeve as we began to head South.