It had been 5 weeks since my last ride. Work, trip to Argentina for my wife's birthday and our trip to Panama to start immigration process and figure out where we will live, cars & bikes we will get, etc. Finally, I am back in Chile and I get a chance to ride up to the old border crossing between Chile and Argentina before they built the tunnel. Here's the map: 170 Km through some boring highways, thrilling mountain roads and exciting dirt roads. This is the way we took out of Santiago. Instead of taking Interstate 5 North we took the Andes foot mountain road which has the most amazing twisties that force you to pick up your feet after scraping the tip of your boots on the road: That road left us at Chicureo where we got on the Libertadores freeway for about 20 Km. As soon as we could we got of the slab and headed up the Chacabuco mount, which is where the battle for the independence of Chile was fought and won in 1817. You can see at the bottom left how we got of the freeway and headed up the mountain: On our way up Chacabuco: And at the top: Coming down the dirt road connects with the freeway again and it leads to the Andean Road, that heads east through the valleys in the Andes: Now, here is where the climbing up the Andes starts: Shortly after passing the Portillo Ski resort is the tunnel that crosses the Andes mountains and leads to Argentina. But before this tunnel was built there was a road that climbed up to the top and back down again into Argentina. This is what we came for: You can see on the bottom end of the red track the tunnel entrance. We got there, turned back and started up the dirt road to the Christ Redeemer: And finally at the top: Fooling around at the top: It was cold at 5 C and we reached 12750 ft:
The roads in the valley were all paved. The initial climb traced on Map # 5 is all paved too, and you could get to Argentina on a paved road through the tunnel. Map # 6, where the serious climb starts is all unpaved.
Unfortunately my play area won't last me much longer We are moving from Chile to Panama in mid June, so I'll have to sell the bike and see what I can get in Panama that fits the riding in Central America. I'm thinking of getting a KTM 450 thumper again for the track and the muddy jungle rides that await me in Panama. It's supposed to rain 300 days of the year :eek1
wow what a ride love the maps and the photography would love to see 1,000 more pictures... thank you for sharing with us
Next weekend we'll give it another shot and have more pics to share. You can see on the bottom left corner of Map #5 there seems to be a dirttrail that leads into the valley. We saw that when we were on our way to the Christ Redeemer and we will go back and take that trail to see where it goes.
