The way to Argentina

After the exciting visit to the Salar, roughly 270 km remained to reach La Quiaca in Argentinia. This would take us 4 days. Leaving Uyuni mid-day the first day is a pretty easy ride, all flat until we get to a speedy descent into the mining town of Atocha at about 82 km.

On the way - rather rare birds,  we saw 2 of them on the road side 

Creative decoration of the bus stop in Atocha town center

We stayed at the "Copacabana Hostal" and

after fixing a flat tire on my bike the best morning we are on our way south.

The second day proves to be one of the most challenging of the trip with lots of hills and we camp on a windy hilltop after realizing that our planned goal to reach Tupiza can not be met because nightfall is faster than our advances. Putting up camp/tent and all in windy conditions and dark is not pleasant but we manage to get it done and we crawl into our warm sleeping bags without eating any substancial dinner.

The next morning it is cold but the sun is out

On the road to Tupiza 

On day 3 of our way to Argentina, we get the nice reward of a long descent  into Tupiza and reach the town around mid-day. We go for supposedly  the best pizza restaurant in town and get our lunch there.

Main Plaza at Tupiza

We head again south after lunch and cycle  for another 20 km and into a winding valley with lots of cactus and 🌵-like vegetation.

We set camp at a nice area off the road were we enjoyed he rest of the evening well into dark and admired an amazing sky full of stars we never knew even existed.

The last day on our route to reach Argentina is not especially long (72km or so), but before we can reach our goal we will have to climb a mountain aka 500m of elevation gain. This initially seems like a daunting task, but the climb turns out not to be as bad as we thought and we make it up there much faster than anticipated. After the climb the road us mostly flat and we can enjoy a decent into Villazon the last city in Bolivia, directly at the border. We decide to head directly to the border control right after arrival in town at around 17:00. The border control procedures take a little bit and after we are through we head into La Quiaca at around dusk at 18:30 or rather 19:30 (Argentinan time is one hour ahead ). We settle at Hotel Munay where we stay for the night.