20-26/3/12 Crossing the Andes by Agua Negra Pass

La Serena - Vicuña - Juntas del Toro - Paso Agua Negra - Guardia Vieja

link to the map

Dear All,

So after Ilaria recovers from her stomach-ache we take the road toward east in the direction of Agua Negra Pass.

We are now at the sea level and we have to reach, in about 250km, the Chile-Argentina border at basically the hight of Mont Blanc...

As information: the spelling and altitude of the pass changed very often on the panel we encoutered along the road... but the official version is Paso Agua Negra, 4770 msm.

Let's go for the new adventure!

The valley going toward the pass is called Elqui Valley and is famous for two things quite far from each other: agriculture and astronomy...

The agriculture is really efficient because of the sun, which shines nearly every day at the bottom of the valley, and the river Elqui which originates, at the top of the valley,  from the glaciars and intense precipitations in the Andeas during the "Invierno Andino".

The resulting scenery is quiet strange: green in the centre and dry on the sides.

The principal culture is grapes to do the famous Pisco... 

Grape culture in the center....

and cactus culture on the borders! 

...but we can also find al kind of vegetables and fruits. 

The delicious Papayas....

Many people come from all over chile to work there during the harvest period.  

Grapes driying for producing Pisco

At the beginning the road is quiet flat and only far away we can observe hight mountains. We wonder what is expecting us.... 

Where are we going???

Km after km it becomes more and more dry and steep. It's really warm, but hopefully we have some shadow zones...

When a tunnel becomes a pleasant fresh place where to be....

...and ride with a strong backwind and can go with an average speed of 20km.  

We now arrive in the zone of the famous observatories...

...which most belong to US or Europe...

Many abservatories lies at the top the mountains...

like observatory Gemini.

But we are not really motivated to climb there by bike. Hopefully from Vicuña, the first city of the valley, we can visit a touristic observatory, Mamalluca, where a very passionated astronomist shows us planets and stars with the telescop and explains us rudiments of astronomy.

Welcome to Mamalluca observatory

With the head in the stars...

If you want you can download a software called stellarium there:  link and observe from your desk the same sky we saw in the night of the 22nd of March 2012 in Vicuña...

In Vicuña we met Katia, a russian photographer which loves to use not exactly the most modern equipment...

We are curious to see the result...

The bird will come out from the camera?

  After Vicuña the contrast between the center and the border of the valley is really strong:

Green islands in the middle of the desert

The rio Elqui near the road remembers us how this life miracle is possible.

Water: the spring of life!

In some places, parcels are waiting for irrigation and culture.

Are you thirsty???

After a while the valley turn right and from here it's only stones and few cactus. We ride surrouding by steep and lofty mountains.

We feel very small.

We are now about 150km from thr coast and 100km from the pass. How the landscape will change next?

The plan for today is to sleep at the border office Juntas del Toro.

20km left for today....

After 90 km riding with a pleasant back wind, we reach the control point. Between Chile and Argentina, the border is simbolyze by the cordillera and very often the passport control offices are far from the real border and separates by a kind of no man's land.

Will the customs be kind us??

Yes, like very often customs was very kind with us. They offer us a real room to sleep with warm showers. We could also cook good meal in their kitchen to recover energy for the last part of the road.

In front of our last customs hotel at 2000m on the sea level.

We now enter in the no mans land. To resume it's 174km of ripio road until the next custom office. In between lives nobody, just the Andeas and the pass at the 4770m... For sure we won't do it in a single day: two, perhaps three days will be necessary to cross. Right now we don't really know because we have to deal with cold, wind, altitude as we haven't done till now.

Nevertheless we are optimists and definitely curious to discover how is to ride at altitude of the Mont Blanc....

Let's go!!!

Have a good trip!!!

 Since the first km, the atmosphere completely change...

The famous coloured mountains of the Andes....

Lights and shadow in the morning....

The road hopefully is really good and not so steep.

Happy rider nº1

Happy rider nº2

And happy rider nº 3....Alias mini Lum on the Lama

On the road we are not completely alone: jeeps and cars sometimes offer us a nice cloud of dust... but hopefully , in this season, we meet no more than 4 our 5 vehicules per day.

Nowdays jeep pulls horses... those are the the modern time...

Still the most of the time we are alone on this road who winds in the mountain.

Like in a dream....

In the middle of nowhere.

After a bit of effort we reach the place called La Laguna at 3150m on the sea level.

A lake here???

And an amazing scenary is waiting for us:

No comment....

And large smiles...

From here to the summits at each corner offer different colours and shapes...

  Just to give an idea:

So  much beautines... too much to go fast! We decide that we will do the pass in three days, taking our time and appreciating the surrounding nature.Therefore after 35km we stop at 3190m in La Colorada....

Here we are!

Our luxurious hotel...

Here is the double room...

...here is the american kitchen....

...and here the view from the terrace!!!

During the night an unknown creature visit us...We hear it all the nights walking with only to feets around the tent, but noway to observe it.

Ilaria thinks it's a ghost and Arthur supposes is a gooze...we will never know.

At the morning nothing around and we continue our road.

More cloudy today....but let's go the same...remember that we are on an international road...

3270m....

3550m....

4 000m!!!

After 25km riding, we are now 20km from the summit...ops I should say from the pass...

Like yesterday we decide that it's enough for today, agood night at 4000m to acclimatize and tomorrow the pass will be for us.

But where is the hotel??

Here it is! A perfect place with soft grass, river just closeby and nice view....

Have a good night...

And the night was good...but cold. At the morning the river is frozen and water in the bottles is ice. Nevertheless our warm sleeping bag were perfect with there -8ºC confort.

Was it cold during the night???

Today is THE day...and we couldn't expect more: blue sky and no wind.

 Even if it will climb steep we will manage!!!

EVVIVA!!!!!!!

Mmmmm...the right altitud seems to be 4753m...not sure...

Good by Chile....

Welcome to Argentina !!!!

And in this high and remote place who could we meet???

Two not exactly young really gentle men from Calabria (southern region of Italy) which remember us that, still, we are not so far from the civilization...

...and we will reach it just after this beautiful downhill in the middle of the cerros...

Are your breaks OK?

Be carefull !!!

THE END