The fragility of our minds had caught up with us. I remember being truly exhausted but embarrassed to say so, at a crossroads leading to Volcan Illucano. Above the wind Toby asked, Should we just continue down to this water source and have lunch there? Whats wrong with this spot i asked? Theres a sign and a place for us to lean our bikes (and eat unforeseeable amounts of dust afternoon). Embarrassingly, that was the pinnacle of Toby and I’s disagreements over 4 months. If he was a girl, I would have bent the knee already.
The thought of bypassing our final climb toyed on our minds for hours. Extending north, a fresh new dirt road, with a very mellow gradient. Instead, we opted for the experience of the original route.
Our afternoon only got harder as the wind became more brutal. We were faced with our final decent pass on the door step of 6500m, Volcan Illucano. At the bottom of the pass, was a perfect sheltered camp spot on the edge of the salaar, but it was only 3 o’clock, and our desires were to blast up the barren slope of this mountain as far as possible. Another two hours we pushed along, another hour we spent compiling rock bivvies to hide from the wind. Efforts all worth their expenditure for double track in the day to come.
It was late afternoon when we reached the doors of another abandoned church in the abandoned town of Socompa. I spent the last afternoon light walking through the abandoned eeire town. Ancient relics were scattered everywhere, cookware, 30L cast iron pots, tools and even machinery. Surprisingly I found a new lid for my pot amongst a mess of tea pots.
We saw remnants a fallen train carriage off the mountain, indicating potential rideable train track leading from this small town all the way to the border station of Socompa. I somehow twisted Toby’s arm to accompany me, so off we pushed up another loose slope, to meet the ancient overgrown railroad of Socompa.
The railroad was in all states of existence, predominantly muy malo (Very bad). After the first 100 metres the challenge of dodging spike bushes became too much, so I just ploughed through them, a problem to deal with later.
Border complications of Socompa were a joke. The Argentinian side took a minute, and the Chilean side, left us stranded for half a day as they couldn’t get through to the PDI immigration office. With our diminished food rations our prospects of reaching a store tomorrow seemed bleak.
They came out to give us the quarantine check, frustrated, I opened my framebag, pulling out some oats, pasta, spice bag and some honey lollies. Indicating this was the total sum of my food. I went back to fixing my destroyed rear innertube. A few minutes later the guard came out with a large plate of mashed potato. He couldn’t take his eyes off us eating, if such was the cost for food, it was a worthy trade.
We slept in an abandoned train carriage that night, whilst a Chilean family cooked up an asado merely 10 metres away. They kept looking over, probably wondering what would ever compel anyone to sleep in such a place. The smells wafted through the carriage long after they drove away, while Toby and I dreamed up what contents would fill our bellies in a day or two.
Our first taste of civilisation in 10 days was a mining camp. Generously, the miners donated us a ridiculous amount of food. Whilst toby and I took turns answering questions, I scoffed down 6 packets of noodles, 2 packets of soup, a tub of yoghurt, two oranges two huge biscuits and two nectarine juices. Toby tried to do the same, but his shrunken belly shattered the dreams of his greatest potential.
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