Lago colorado - San Pedro de Atacama (Chile) - Troy

Our schedule required us to wake at 4 am the next day to enable the group to hit the tour spots before 10 am when the last bus leaves Bolivia into Chile. I awoke earlier because I had suspected I may have starting problems with the Dingo. We had put the bike indoors since due to the altitude the cold could freeze the engine, I wheeled her out and hit the starter... she turned but no kick, i felt that the turnover was weak but presumed it was the cold, so I kept turning her but still nothing. The great driver then told me to hold my horses and returned with a gas bottle and burner, he then placed burner under the engine and turned on the flame in an attempt to heat the engine. I thought this was probably going to be futile though I prayed it might work, we then "cooked" the engine for the next half an hour (a very funny sight if you weren't the one out there in the extreme cold) and turned her over intermitantly... with no results...

I felt sure that my spark plug was fouled and not allowing a strong enough spark or that the alternator system was bung and wasn't charging the battery, though we kept cooking until it was time to leave. At that point I decided that it wasn't the cold but a spark problem since i could hear the battery dying, I asked our driver if anyone had jumper leads, he asked around and suprisingly no one did!

I was almost out of options when I remembered that The Legend Tim had left me with his extension chord in Cusco, I grabbed it stripped the connections then we hooked the dingo up to the 4wd battery, I turned her over and eventually she fired. The driver and I jumped around hugging, while the rest of the tour group looked on wondering why the hell they had been delayed 15 minutes at 4 am in the cold (except my Tutu and a really nice South African couple who celebrated with us).

The group left for the rest of the tour while I hobbled back to the hotel and spent the next hour trying to get some feeling back into my frozen body. It was well below zero and despite my good riding gear, I did not want to ride before the sun rose; eventually I left and rode on to catch up with the group. I can easily say that I have never been so cold in my life, the roads weren't as bad as the day before yet still required lots of concentration, which was hard for me since I had no feeling in my finger and was shivering violently.

I eventually caught up with them at the hot springs near the border, I was reassured that the hot springs weren't that hot by Tutu and had no desire to take off my gear, so I had hot coffee and cake and sat in the sun watching other sensible tourists who had taken a heated 4wd frolic in the hot springs. Eventually I could feel my fingers again so I rode on into the MOST spectacular mountains I have ever seen, and by then I had seen a lot.

I felt like I was in a grander scene from "charlie and the chocolate factory", candy coloured hills, with creamery butter "homer simpson" style swished through, the whole scene rounded off like icecream. I was near death from cold yet in true awe. I topped a mountain and saw the next laguna, yet I had been over freaked by landscape then and just wanted to make the border.

I eventually reached the border and felt vindicated, I had beat the tour group, and was alive!!! Eventually they arrived and we did the amazingly easy paper work and I was free to ride on to San Pedro de Atacama and Chile. I had hoped to do this stretch with my beautiful navigator Tutu, yet due to the minor complication of losing my panniers due to a botched Bolivian weld job, I rode on ahead while she rode a bus with the panniers.

I rode across the border from Bolivia's crappy unpaved un-cared-for track onto a beautiful stretch of perfectly smooth sign-posted, painted and asphalted road. I had forgotten what an actual freeway looked like, and this as a perfect example, I began to ride down the hill, feeling relaxed, and was shocked when I passed a road crew on the side of the road, who actually stopped their work to look at me and wave a friendly hello!!!! I hadn't had some random person on the side of the road wave in a friendly manner since I left Peru (the most recognition I had had in Bolivia was a kid who gave me the finger and kicked rocks at me), I was so shocked I couldn't wave back, though it bought a smile to my face. As I rode down from the border to San Pedro the temperature increased until my Australian body began to relax into a familiarity, by the time I got to town I could strip down to a t-shirt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I rode into San Pedro, had an easy and friendly paperwork session then I was into the town, which is really cool, dusty streets like a western film, yet knowingly so. It is a tourist town yet has a casual feel, lots of nice restaurants and nice hotels with friendly and hospitable locals. I tried a couple of hotels and was shocked by the price, so rode on until I noticed one with a guy in the courtyard, in front of a stripped motorbike, up to his armpits in grease. I asked the price but didn't care, he was friendly, a biker, had a nice family and wasn't Bolivian. I booked in and within 2 hours Tutu and our luggage arrived the bus.

Tutu and I had a hot shower, a long one where the water didn't run out and was actually hot; then found a restaurant and had an amazing meal and a glass of really good wine. I don't mean to sound like a luxury nut, I have been to some of the least luxurious places in the world, but I had had an awful experience in Bolivia, they showed me no respite, and finally I felt like I could relax...

...and that's what we did.