Our last day in Chos Malal was yet another worthy farewell for our trip. Victor had once again picked Aaron and I up along with his friend Nelson, and from town we drove up into the mountains to see the area, check out this little salmon farm, and visit his grandfather. It was funny because I was able to squeeze out a bit of a political discussion about the left-leaning governments down here in South America. Apparently, they send the incompetent Argentinian president out of the country as much as possible so the government can do its work! She is the wife of the former president, there's something to be said about these spousal presidencies...
So anyway, the road down to Las Lajas from Chos Malal was difficult mentally and physically, for me. For the first time in a few days, the four of us rode together. Markus, however, had cousins in Los Angeles, Chile, and so he parted after only 30 minutes or so of riding, before my woes began. The late start out of Chos Malal meant I had just eaten lunch right before the ride. Probably a combination of physical demands with the winds and climb, eating too much, and eating tuna (protein in a can, good before, but I bought the cheaper stuff this time), I felt sick for much of the day. We ended up camping off the side of the road, I had been in mental distress because there was no way to make it to the planned stopping point before sunset, and of course it rained that night. It always seems to rain when we camp in the middle of the desert.
Continuing on, I was happy to reach Las Lajas the following day because this is where we were told things got interesting. Before, there isn't much to mention because it's just a desert. Past Las Lajas, we would reach the Lake District of Chile/Argentina. I didn't feel like pushing on, so Joe and I stayed the night while Aaron continued on. However, the story of Las Lajas wouldn't be complete without mentioning the town drunk. For the first time, I was actually afraid something bad would happen. The drunk, though I could barely understand his slurred and heavily accented Spanish, approached Aaron and I who were lounging around in a park near the center of town, wanting to intimidate or really pick a fight. He said he wanted to hit and fight with Aaron, try to provoke him with little smacks in the arm. Aaron, in the meantime said 'Am I going to have to kick this guy in the face?' I don't have a picture because I didn't want to show the guy we had cameras, but in the end he took a liking to me and gave me a little necklace with a bullet on the end. In return, I gave him my backup lighter, reluctantly. He was replaced with a bunch of curious kids who started talking to us. I bought Tomas an ice cream cone because he said it was his 11th birthday. I gave his friend a little tune-up of his bicycle, adjusted the spoke tension to true his wheel. Later, some other teens started talking to us about the region. All in all, it was a reversal of fortunes as we had also a brand new little hosteria complete with shower, toilet, bidet, three beds up stairs with a brand new TV, and a full kitchen! It was the first time I slept in a bed since Mendoza, what a treat.
The following day, I wanted to go into Chile to visit the Parque Nacional Conguillio. This, if you remember, contains the Volcano Llaima which was featured in my first post because of the eruption 3 weeks ago. I couldn't get any information on whether or not the park was closed, so I took my chances anyway. If the park was closed, we would head south and take the next pass back into Argentina. The climb to Pino Hachado was long, but picturesque and I thoroughly enjoyed myself the entire time. Toward the top, the valley was absolutely incredible. I keep using these words, but really this one takes the cake so far. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves, the funky looking tree I believe are called Arruancurias, though I think I have the Spanish spelling wrong, the English equivalent is monkey tree. From the border of Chile, or frontera in Espanol, it was possible to see the Volcano Llaima in the distance.
The border crossing into Chile was a bit of a hassle, comical too, though. Apparently, no plant or animal products are allowed from Argentina. I could say more, but it's not worth my time. Thankfully we had an hour before the border closed, which meant feast at customs! I had a monster sandwich of some salami-like meat, a huge block of cheese, a carrot, 2 or 3 bananas, 2 or 3 apples, and some raisins that Joe shared with me as he was doing the same thing. I threw some of the rest away, but not my jar of honey. Like hell if I was going to throw away the honey! (given to us by Victors grandfather) Everyone inside was ready to leave, so when they searched my bags and opened the jar of honey, the one doing the searching asks his colleague, 'is this honey?' No, he replied. Hah! I win, I keep my ARGENTINIAN honey. I'm sure he just didn't want to deal with the fine they would have slapped me with. Sorry, no pics of that, too busy eating...
We camped that night by a river just on the fringes of Liucura, Chile, by a river that had fish literally jumping out of it. It's much wetter in Chile, and so the region is like a world away with many deciduous trees and greener landscapes. That didn't matter much to us, rather as much as the ripio and grading of the road does matter. I forgot to mention, right before customs we had a huge 15km or so descent, a section of which (4km?) was under construction. They had stopped traffic on one side to let the other pass through. Unfortunately, they forgot about us two bikers coming down, so right at the end they sent up the line of cars and trucks in my direction with one lane to share!! I've got video of this, I'll post it sometime...
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