Bikepacking Cusco to Santiago

All I had wished for our stay in Jama was to get a good night's sleep...
Unfortunately, the centrally regulated ceiling fan/heating system had other plans, turning itself on and off in 10min intervals the whole night and hitting the most annoying frequency imaginable while running. Long story short, I slept maybe 2 hours and poor Matt got to meet grumpy-Laura in the morning 😶

This time we had set our alarms for 5.30, hoping to get at least a few hours without winds. But when we set off to cycle southwards into the dark and cold (1°C) morning it took no more than 10min for the head- and cross wind to pick up and have us cycle at a snails pace, while quite literally freezing our butts off.

After maybe 20km the wind slightly changed directions, transforming into a cross-/tail wind, pushing us forward. While this meant easy cycling, the constant cold made both of us turn into quite miserable popsicles.

Our goal for the day was to reach Susques, the next small town after Jama. Between those two villages lay 100km of...nothing. Absolutely nothing.
When after 55km our road made a sharp bend and it became apparent that we would not only have to endure another who-knows-how-many hours of cold windiness, but now also had to cycle against a headwind, both of us gave in...

We got off our bikes, stood at the side of the road, held out our thumbs and put on our best please-don't-let-us-freeze-to-death-in-the-wind-we-are-tired faces on and hoped for the best.

Due to the remoteness of this route traffic was scarce, with maybe 1 car passing every 20min. However, it seemed that today was our lucky day!

Only 3 cars and 45 min later a pickup truck passed us...and tourned around minutes later to come back and collect us! In the truck were Nick and his mother Nancy, who both live in San Pedro de Atacama (Chile) and were on their way to visit family in Salta (Argentina).

After some reorganising we were able to fit all our luggage and the bikes on the back of the pick up and were beyond happy to hide from the wind on the warm and comfy passenger seats ☺️

Knowing that the wind was supposed to become even worse over the next days, we gladly accepted Nicks offer to take us to San Salvador de Jujuy, far enough to be off the Altiplano.
So, we fast forwarded 200 km, passing through an immense variety of landscapes, from tundra, to cactus covered rockies, to salt desert (another Salar!) to grand-canyonesque sceeneries and multicolours mountains.
And boy was I happy when we spotted the first trees!

Nick was even so nice to make some stops at especially pittoresken spots on the way so we could admire them and take some pictures 📸

In the end we asked to be dropped off in Purmamarca, know for its impressive multi coloured mountains, hoping to easily roll down the continuous 50km descent into Jujuy by bike.
After a short lunch break in Purmamarca including a quick change of clothes as we had now gone from 1°C ar 4500m to 26°C at 2200m, we set off to our fast descent. Or so we thought.

But once again the wind was not in our favour. The moment we turned southward onto the Ruta 9, we were faced with headwinds strong enough to have us battle to go any faster than 14kph even on the downhill...
After 20 km we gave up and found shelter in the small village of Tumaya.

Even though this village was tiny, it felt so modern compared to everything we experienced the last couple of months and had everything we needed.
We got 2 individual rooms with private bathrooms in the only Hosteria in town for the same price of a hostel bed in Peru or Bolivia (thank you blue dollar rate) and treated ourselves to the first bottle of Argentinian wine, to celebrate our return to a more Oxigen rich elevation level.
Hopefully the wind gods will be gracious tomorrow 🙏

🚴‍♀️Distance cycled: 75 km
🌬 Distance with cross/head wind: 50 km
🥶 Morning temperature at departure: 1°C
🌡Temperature at arrival: 26 °C
🚗 Distance hitchhiked: 200 km
⛰️ Elevation start of day: 4200 m
🌵 Elevation at end of day: 2200 mLeer más