The definition of an “itinerary” is “a planned route or journey that’s hopelessly optimistic and will need changing almost immediately”. It’s therefore most surprising that we’ve arrived in San Pedro de Atacama on time, five weeks after leaving La Paz. Less surprising is the fact that the wheels fall off the itinerary almost as soon as we’ve entered Chile.
Once upon a time (pre-Covid), the Chilean immigration authorities would give you an exit stamp in San Pedro, not caring very much if you chose to leave Chile via the Paso Sico, Paso Socompa or Paso the Salsa 
, so long as there was a friendly Argentinian border guard to welcome you on the other side. That was a good arrangement for cyclists, as the Paso Socompa is only open to non-motorised transport and the occasional train. It takes you on a relatively painless six-day hike/bike trip to Llullaillaco basecamp (my next destination) on some halfway decent roads on the Chilean side. That arrangement’s all changed now, as the authorities have started building dedicated border posts at each of the borders (well, I ask you!). They have the temerity to insist bikes now go to Argentina via the Paso Jama (way north!) or the Paso San Francisco (way south!). What was previously a six-day journey has morphed into a two-week trek on 11 sides of a dodecahedron.
I could, of course, take my chances by heading for Paso Socompa to see if I can nip over the border unnoticed. But as I intend to come back to Chile later, I need that exit stamp and could have a bit of a “problemo” later if I don’t have one. Even the receptionist at the hotel agrees with the Chilean border official I spoke with; if this is a conspiracy against cycle-tourists, the conspiracy runs deep.
So now I’m resigned to getting the bus to Salta as cycling there could take me a week, with another week (and a following wind) to get me to Tolar Grande. Tolar Grande’s the jumping-off point for all things salty in the Puna region, including climbing Llullaillaco, the continent’s seventh highest mountain. No matter how many times I stare into the tea leaves, all I can see is the outline of a bus. And for all my protestations, the woman at the bus station insists there’s no bus leaving San Pedro for another three days, so I’ll have to wait: drat and double drat!
On the plus side, I’m going to need an Argentinian SIM card, some pesos and (ideally) new pedals for my bike. Salta will be a good place to get those. Note to any cycle-tourists reading this, make sure you have double-flat-sided pedals rather than ones which are flat on one side with cleats on the other. If you’re not wearing cleats (which I wasn’t) the pedals are guaranteed to be cleat-side up at the wrong time. It is, seemingly, these little details that can drive you nuts, especially when you’re cycling through sand!
Come Monday morning and I’m off to the bus station. The two drivers eye my bike with suspicion, insisting the bike be dismantled into pieces no bigger than a medium-sized washer before being stowed. After some negotiation, I remove the wheels and turn the handlebars. My bags are then tossed into a different part of the bus somewhere between a baling machine and a contraption with rotating knives. Four hours later we’re at the border, where everything has to be reassembled (outside in high winds) and wheeled through customs. It’s here I produce the pointless “bike certificate” the Chilean authorities pointlessly gave me when I arrived from Bolivia. I wait for a pointless period of time while the certificate is pointlessly processed before being pointlessly tossed into the bin where it belonged in the first place. I’m miffed, not just because of the bureaucracy (Argentina doesn’t ask for one), but because they described my bike as “copper” coloured when they should have known it was Madagascar orange!
Safely through customs and back on the bus (minus a water bottle lost in transit), it’s an 8-hour drag past some “Bolivia-lite” salt pans, colourful but dusty-looking mountains, plentiful roadworks and endless (not to say pointless) police checkpoints. I arrive late but the mysteries of booking.com ensure I find suitable (ie cheap) accommodation when I arrive.
Salta is a city of around 600,000 people. At any point of time, I’d guess, 300,000 of them are queuing to get money out of an ATM while the other 300,000 are in another queue buying or topping up their SIM cards. The first group are doomed to fail because the ATMs are (i) empty, (ii) broken or (iii) programmed by an evil villain to generate an error message just when you think you’re about to get some money. The message will say you can’t have the amount requested, offering you two further guesses as to what the right amount might be. If you go for a suitably small number, the machine cheerfully informs you the bank charges will be 90% of the amount you’re withdrawing. But the prospect of spending the rest of your life queuing at another ATM means you’ll take what you can get, even when you know it’s a shake down.
Meanwhile, in the other queue, everyone in Argentina (except me) knows that a company called “Personal” offers the best mobile services. But their SIM cards are only available to people with a local DNI number (whatever that is). They only tell you this after you’ve spent two hours queuing outside their shop. Fortunately, being British, I welcome the opportunity to queue when the alternative is to spend a happy couple of hours looking around the city and enjoying the sunshine.
Eventually I persuade Claro to give me a data-SIM without having to offer them any limbs. It’s taken the better part of a day on two rather straightforward tasks that would’ve taken me 30 minutes in Chile. Moan, moan, grumble. It may all be part of the cultural experience, but unless the locals enjoy the prospect of spending 45 minutes a day in a queue for an ATM, perhaps there’s a better way.
Buying bike pedals and a bus ticket out of Salta is a lot more straightforward, as there are a few good bike shops selling pedals that would fit nicely on Ben Hur’s chariot. The bus station is also hard to miss. As there’s only one bus going west, a morning ticket to San Antonio de los Cobres (four hours away) is booked in fairly short order. It’s a fun fact that the people of San Antonio drink water with arsenic levels 10x the WHO recommended limit. Over the generations, they’ve built up a natural immunity to what would be poisonous for the rest of us. But I’m not intending to spend much time In San Antonio looking for strange arsenic-related behaviour, as I’ll be looking to catch a lift or ride the remaining 180km from there to Tolar Grande before anyone gets thirsty…