Mark On A Bike: Lima to Buenos Aires - Part Four

Hey, I'm in Tacna, Peru. I'm headed this way. This is down the Pan American Highway to the border. And so my plan is today to get across the border into Chile. Excuse me, I'm still a little bit sick. And then from there, I don't know how far I'll go. I'm pretty tired. I am approaching the border. According to my maps, it's just here anywhere. Okay, well, I made it through the border. It's 22 kilometers to Rica. I need to get some food. I'm starving. And you can see that it is just a lot of more dirt and sand here. So it was pretty simple. The hardest part was finding a pen, I think. It just took a little while to get through all the stuff, but extremely nice. They're really, really helpful there. So more desert riding, and we'll see how far we get today. I feel like I'm on the moon. This is quite the road. A lot of the roads here are actually just nothing more than dirt trails in the sand. It's pretty crazy. It's like the Grand Canyon down there. Up here in this valley is this little town called Cuya. I'm going to see if they have any kind of hostel. Based on the size of the town, I doubt it. The answer is no. Cuya has nothing. Hi. Hi there. You're very friendly. I know. Hi. Just two puppies came to say hi to me. Hi. Want to say hi to that? Come here. Come here, mama. What cool puppies. Hi. I'm in the little town of Cuya. It's really amazing here. The pass that I just went through. The sun's about to go down, so I need to outfit myself for dark driving. I've got to change this to a clear screen. I've got to get rid of the GoPro for my head. It's a little bit too windy right now. Then I'm going to try to make it into Iquique. There's just no way I'm going to keep going with the GoPro on. It's going to be dark here in a second. I'm leaving Iquique. I don't know how to say the name of the town. It's a really cool town. Coming into town, you have to come in on this gigantic cliff. It's almost like you're flying into town on an airplane, even though you're driving. All right. Up we go. This road's been pretty darn straight for the last, I don't know, 50 miles, 40 miles. It's straight as an arrow, so I'm making pretty good time. It's sort of weird here. Almost salt, rock. I'm not sure exactly what this is. It's like a dry lake bed. It just goes for hundreds of miles. I'm just going to walk down here. You can see, it's really this amazing dry lake stuff. I'm not sure what it is. But it's this hard clay that goes and goes for hundreds of miles. It's pretty crazy. I've been driving through it for the last hour or so. Okay, Iguana. Looks like a checkpoint. I might have to get out my paperwork and show them that I'm legal. Well, I was stopped at the Iguana. I had to show my paperwork and stuff. But there's this awesome little sandwich shop behind me, so I had a little break. I had some lunch. Well, just a friendly show-me-your-papers stop. Oh, come on. Do I have to show my papers again? Well, I thought I was done. Well, I'm out of that. I have another 100 miles to go. I almost had a collision with a buzzard. Flew right in front of me. A buzzard. Death by buzzard. I've climbed about 2,000 meters. Now I'm at just under 3,000 meters in elevation. And once again, I'm back into the curves. And there they are, the Andes Mountains, waiting for me. This town in the valley below me is called Calima. And that is where I'm staying tonight. Okay, it's freezing here. I'm leaving early in the morning. Trying to get to Salta. It's 7.43 a.m. 8.43 in Salta. Couldn't really leave any earlier because of the sunrise. It's cold. Well, it's 40 degrees. And now in the desert here, as soon as I left town, it's really windy. So with the wind chill, it's even colder than that. I'm just hoping that it heats up with the sun coming up. Man, it is brutal right now. And it's just getting going. And now it's dropped to 35 degrees. My black ice warning is flashing. Well, these are the Andes Mountains that I have to cross over. And they are a little bit imposing, knowing that I literally have to ride over those mountains today. You know, every single day, I think, not every day, but almost every day, I see something that is as spectacular as the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone or the Tetons. You know, I'm a photographer, but the truth is you just can't capture it. The amount of... I mean, hundreds of miles this spans here in front of me. And you can't capture that in a frame. You have to come see it. I'm just now approaching 4,000 meters. 3,995 meters. Boom, 4,000 meters. Now I'm at 4,260 meters. Still climbing. I might beat my personal record here. I just passed 4,500 meters. And now there's snow on the sides of the road. 4,590 meters. 95, 97, 4,603 meters. Wow. 4,603 meters at 5. 4,605 meters. Okay. Well, that's high. All right, now I am crawling along because it's a little snowy and cold, but I am at 4,670 meters. I think that's about 16,000 feet. Something like that, close to it. Wow. I might even be going higher, it looks like. All right, I'm starting to go down, but it looks like I peaked at 4,760 meters. That was the top. Let's see if I beat that. 4,794. 4,798. 4,799. 4,800. 4,805. Oh, my God. 4,810. This has to be the high. 4,815. 4,816. 4,818. 4,819. 4,821. 4,822. 4,824. 4,825. Snow. 4,800 meters right now. All right, it's very, very cold and very, very windy. I'm still traveling between 4,600 and 4,700 meters. It's really high. Well, I'm still heading over this mountain pass here. It's pretty spectacular. It is cold, and there is some snow and ice that I've seen. I'm at about 4,650 meters, so it's really high in altitude, hard to breathe, etc. But I'm still making pretty good time, and the bike's doing really well, even in the high altitude. I hope to be over this pass, at least past the summit in the next hour, I hope. And then I need to get some gas. But, wow, this is the roof of South America is where I am right now. It's really amazing. Oh, hard to breathe. I believe I am now entering into Argentina. And, yes, I am. Well, I'm on some twisty, twisty roads, and the roads have gravel all over them, so I have to be really careful. One of the dangers of this road are these guys right here, alpacas. They run across the road, and they can hurt you. Hey, Mr. Alpaca. Like, what's up? I'm an alpaca. I'm driving on soft mud. Very dangerous for the bike to slip out from underneath me. Right now I'm at 4,200 meters, and if memory serves me right, I'm about to go down a very steep, switchback-y cliff road soon. Well, I have a couple more hairpin turns, and then I will officially be on the other side of the Andes. Some foothills to go through all the way through Salta, but it looks like this is it, these last few hairpins here, and then I will officially have crossed back over the Andes, and I'll be on the eastern side, and I think this is it. I think this is officially the last hairpin turn of the path.