Our ride out of Belen was fairly spectacular as we headed off into the mountains following the course of a river bed. It’s amazing how the scenery knows to change after every time and we wound our way through a spectacular Valley for at least an hour. We then seem to appear on a high plane Where we had a dead straight road for at least 15 km running through a high desert landscape. The temperature is beginning to climb now and we are constantly seeing 27 or 28° every day. We

The day started with the usual wake up of hearing Tim getting ready for the day. This usually involves the bathroom, a fair amount of coughing, and the wrestling of putting his gear together. It then moves on to going outside and taking the cover off his bike. This morning was slightly different. He came back into announce that his rear tire was completely flat and that he was going to have to change the innertube. I took the opportunity to stay in bed longer. However, after

23 November 2025 I woke up fairly early, and went to take the cover off my bike. At the higher altitude it is fairly fresh in the morning, even though we know by experience it will warm up very quickly. We had decided last night to try to alter the itinerary to enable us to get onto a better schedule having lost days in Mendoza. We decided not to go over the pass into Chile but to head back to Route to 40 by a different route through the mountains and then head north to Chile