Paso San Francisco. I spent the night at Copiapo. I was tired from the exorbinate prices in Chili and ran out of money. This forced me to a level of two options: cross the into Argentinia at the most immediate border crossing on gravel road or go two days south to traverse an all paved crossing into Argentinia.
At the end of the day, money won over and I crossed the gravel road. Let me tell you. When Chili and Argentinia have problems with their borders, they situate their border offices quite a distance from each other since the border is questionable. It was 100 km distance between the two countries' offices.
The Chiliean side is a compact gravel/salt road in fair condition. The Argentinian side is a paved road in excellent condition...the section in the middle does not belong to any country. It was not in that great of shape. That 100 km slowed me down dramatically. I had five near misses. One of them resulted in me hitting my balls really hard while I manuvered between two sandbars. I was going so slow and scared that the section took me almost two hours to complete.
By the time I arrived at the Argentinian border it was 7;15 p.m. They made an effort to complete my paperwork as the office closed at 7:00 p.m. When I finished my papers, another BMW stopped at the border, going in the same direction. He had left 4 hours later than me and he caught up with me - that's how slow I was travelling.
By the time all the papers were all finalized it was almost night. The next town was 240 km away. I rode at night with my new friend "Raul". It took 3 1/2 hours of riding before we stopped. I had almost a miss in the road. In 250 km about 50 km was unpaved...I did not see it coming at the speed we were riding in the dark.
I took a few amazing photos of the sunset in the mountains. As soon as the sun set, it became very cold about 3 to 7 C. After an hour of riding it became 30 C making it uncomfortable to ride. It was a funny experience.
