Right now I am sitting at the airport gate on my way out of Chile. Just getting ready for a long flight to Sydney. Everything goes so quick and in a few hours you enter another world. I had a good time here in south America and I am sure I will miss it. The Spanish language, the noise and chaos on the road, the people and the Argentinean food. I entered Argentina far north, crossing the Atacama desert and cycling over Paso Sico, which was one of the most beautiful stretches of my whole trip so far. After a few days of cold and isolation I entered the Argentinean city of Salta and for me this was like coming into Italy. By the way I love Italy.

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My route continued on the far west of Argentina and most of it I cycled on the famous “Routa 40”, after “Route 66” and the “Pan Americana”, another world famous road. I expected heavy traffic and bad road conditions, but everything turned out in the nicest way. After cycling in the heat of the Peruvian coast, climbing the Andes, crossing salt flats and cycling on high elevation this was the first time of easy and enjoyable cycling in South America.

I was out alone for a while. Having brief meetings with locals or travellers of course, but mostly it was me and the bike only. You have a lot of time sitting, pedalling and reflecting about pretty much everything. I cycled long distances and coming from a country where every inch of land is micromanaged the remoteness and dimensions were overwhelming. On a distance of 600km, which is crossing Austria on the longest possible stretch, you will maybe encounter 2 small towns and a few houses in the mountains of Argentina. You start thinking about persons you met a long time ago, about your time at school or after that, basically about everything. Where would I emigrate if I had to leave Europe, has everyone else listened to this particular song while cycling Routa 40, or is there an ant religion be funded while crumbs of my bread fall to the ground and get carried away by these little creatures?

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It got cold also, very cold. Once I left Uspallata for the fourth and last crossing of the Andes I cycle alongside with ski resorts and some hotels. I absolutely didn’t wanted to camp outside, so the ski resort workers invited me in to stay in a heated room for a good price. In ten days they will open the skiing season they said. The next day I crossed over to Chile and met an American motorcyclist. He tried to ride over to Argentina, but everything was already closed because of the suddenly upcoming snow. I double-checked if he tried to cross at the same pass I did, because I cycled there with no problems. It turned out that at noon everything was still fine and once he tried to cross the mountains in the afternoon the border was already closed due to snowfalls.

Lucky me made it save through Santiago city traffic and found a nice hostel close to the centre for a few days of relaxing, exploring and hanging out with other travellers. I enjoyed the last days in South America with a mixture of British, Albanian, German and Belgium humour.