Travel

Over the Top

Ed and Janet Howle

December 5, 2016

©Ed and Janet Howle

Day 17. It’s been days since I’ve posted. Thanksgiving has come and gone while we crossed borders. We have crossed the border to Chile, back to Argentina and back again to Chile. Our days have been long and many of them hot. By the time we get into our hotel, there has been no time for anything except a shower, dinner and bed. However we have a day off and I hope to give you a flavor of our last days.

On day 16, we had a long hard drive, over 550 km from Salta, Argentina, crossing the Andes and the border at Paso Jama. This is the most northerly border between Argentina and Chile and reaches a height of 15,000 feet. The road still rises after that to 15,764 feet (according to my Garmin). Yes, this is a part of our ascent. We had concerns about ourselves and Stewball. We crossed here with a few other cars, but the rally route crossed at a lower altitude on a road that is partly gravel, our route was a longer and higher, but with better road conditions. Fuel was a problem, but fortunately we did locate a fuel station along the way. (Some of the rally cars did not make it and had to be towed to a station at the end of the day.)

Bottom line, Stewball did experience some vapor lock but never let us down. We did take some puffs of oxygen we had brought along and experienced a few symptoms of altitude sickness, namely, headaches and muscle weakness when we were out of the car at the border and had to exert ourselves walking into the border control. By the time we got to our hotel we had entered the desert, passed the famous salt flats descended to 9,700 feet. We were ready to collapse and give Stewball a much needed rest. This is the highest point on the rally and while we will be at 10,00 feet in Cusco, we are confident we will make that without difficulty.

Our hotel, Tierra Atacama is the best so far on the rally. We are in the Atacama Desert with volcanos in the distance. The views are spectacular as they were on most of the drive here. Nights get quite cold and days are hot. This morning I had the opportunity to walk into the dusty town of San Pedro de Atacama with Marian, a rally friend from Australia, to buy a few things. This is a popular tourist destination for serious hikers, photographers and adventure tourists. Tonight the hotel will put on a Chilean barbecue with lamb and live music. I’m looking forward to that. A great end to a wonderful break.

Tomorrow we are on the road again traveling along the coastline of Chile almost to the border of Peru.

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Crossing to Chile

Days 8-10
On our rest day in Bariloche most everyone worked on their cars in the morning. The parking lot looked like a picnic grounds until you realized all the colorful bags were car parts. Fellow participant, Brant Parson, a air-cooled Vdub guy, agreed to change Stewball's oil and adjust his valves. Jobs that would have taken Ed all day. We can't thank Brant enough!
We crossed the border to Chile. Trump hasn't been here so there is no wall, just beautiful mountains in the background. The Chilean border guards had been on strike the border closed much of each day so we were glad to hear all would be well for our crossing. It went smoothly, if not slowly because Chile is VERY invested in making sure nothing comes in that might corrupt their fruit and vegetable crops. That being said, after passing through immigrations and customs, every car had to unload everything in it and put it though a scanner. This was a very time-consuming process and perhaps since we were nearly at the end of the line, or perhaps because we are old, we only were required to take out one suitcase at the discretion of the guard. (by the way, everyone was warm and friendly on both sides of the border.) The suitcase contained our spare parts so was passed through quickly.
We figured out how to avoid the rough, fast gravel regularities and had planned to do so on day 9. Then we had a second reason to do so: friends, John and Marian had a serious car problem with their MG. The Universal joint was problematic. We offered to follow behind them along the Pan-American highway straight in so John could get to work on his car and have it on the road the next day. Turns out our GPS took us a different way than theirs did, so much of the time we really weren't behind them!
Some things I learned about Chile after two days of driving.

* The Chilean pesos is equal to $674.00. Very hard to work out the exchange rate.
* Chileans are less demonstrative than Argentinians. They do smile at our car but no whistles or shouts.
* Chile has great red wine. (Probably white as well, but no experience here.)
* Route 5 is the Pan-American highway and equal to any US interstate but with frequent tolls of 3,000 pesos.
* Farming is modern but we did see carts drawn with oxen and a farmer with two mules pulling a wooden plow.
We have now traveled from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific and in two countries. After this day off at the sea, we cross the Andes back to Argentina. We will climb to nearly 10,000 feet. Sort of a test for cars and participants before we do the really high one at 15,000. More on that after it is done.