Finally, our last trip report from our last trip (only 3 months later)!
We crossed into Chile near Arica and headed the next day to Iquique (the duty free city in the north of Chile) There were no bargains to be had, so we drove south on the stunning coast road to Tocopilla, then inland to a small mud brick village on the Western edge of the Andes mountain range called San Pedro de Atacama. Its charm has attracted tourists from around the world and the place was packed! It is a great base for visiting nearby geysers, Bolivia and crossing the high mountain pass- Paso de Jama into our beloved Argentina. We were watching the weather closer than normal as the pass was 4750m high and we didnt have any winter clothing! The day was perfect, crystal clear with amazing views and not TOO cold!

We took the whole day to cover 400km including the high altitude border crossing to arrive at the gorgeous mountain town of Purmamarca which seemed to be entirely run by the native people in native dress. This area is also known for its multi coloured mountains with stripes of green, red, yellow, purple and orange giving the hills a rainbow appearance which was even more spectacular at sunset and sunrise!

We discovered a little used, windy, single lane asphalt back road running through the mountains south of Jujuy leading to Salta. It was a fantastic find, sometimes short cuts are, sometimes not!! hehe Everyone was going slow and it was so narrow and scenic, it took us 3 times longer to get there than the highway, but it was the coolest scenic drive one could hope for!

Our timing was perfect for reaching Salta as our long time Austrian friend Axel Papst was leading a motorcycle tour of 12 Russians for Ron Ayers Motorcycle Adventures into Bolivia and was arriving that night very late! We caught up with him for a few hours the next day before his group headed north into Bolivia on their BMWGS's. We love it when the stars align like that!

Salta has its share of old Spanish style buildings sitting huddled around the main square with many restaurants advertising Menu Del Dia which is a complete meal including wine for US$7 each! A big part of the reason it was so cheap was the black market for US dollars in cash is currently 50% better than the official rate of exchange.

Cafayate, a couple of hours south was another beautiful town in the middle of a wine area with plenty of outdoor restaurants and cozy guesthouses and stunning riding!

We passed a weigh scale and rode onto it... total weight of bike and us fully loaded was.. 450kg! Wow, strong spokes!

Mendoza is a lovely, well laid out pretty wine town with many parks, plazas and wide streets. Our first task after finding a Hotel with secure parking was to see if our old friend Sergio still lived and worked in the same place as when we last met him 14 years ago. He still had the same sporting good shop and gymnasium and recognised us as we walked in and greeted us like old friends! He still has the same old Super Tenere and now has a 10 year old son Facundo who loved playing guitar and singing with his Papa!

Pat and Sergio have the same height, build and colouring so we refer to him as Pat's Argentinian brother!

We knew Argentina has inexpensive and skilful Dentists, so Sergio referred us to his family Dentist to put crowns on our 3 implants... 3 for the price of 1 in Australia.
While waiting for a week for our crowns to be fabricated we made a dash south to San Rafael where our old friends John and Annette have purchased a large finca (orchard) 8 years ago. This was another reunion like we had never left, so we enjoyed a bit of country life for a few days.

The beautiful new crowns were inserted, so we then headed towards the Chile border and stayed in a town on the edge of the Andes called Uspallata.

Again, we had glorious weather to make the pass in pure sunshine, but were halted by a 2 hour lineup to get through the border as there were hundreds of other bikers due to a Harley Davidson Rally that weekend!

While having lunch on the Chile side we met up with a Harley rider who we befriended in the line up who offered to escort us through Santiago's 9 million people to Hostal Casa Matte as he lived reasonably close and we had sold our GPS in Mendoza. Argentina has high import restrictions and taxes so our used gear was in high demand.

Hostal Casa Matte is run by a friendly bikermad Father and Son team- Popero and Christian with every client being a travelling biker! Another old friend Roberto Thomson told us about this Hostal and we highly recommend it, Roberto popped in whenever he was passing to show us his fancy Super tenere... not bad at 75 years old hey!

Chris Brown, an American who had purchased our Vstrom from the HU Blog was arriving the following day at the Santiago International Airport. We needed to transfer the TIP (temporary import permit) into his name and thought it may be possible at the airport on his arrival. We met him at the airport and after a few hours running all over the airport we finally got the right person at Aduana and the ammended TIP was issued so Chris could take the bike out of Chile and we could leave the country without the bike.

We then got Chris settled into the Hostal and Pat spent the next 6 days showing Chris the bike, going through the maintenance that we had done and suggesting an upcoming maintenance schedule. Chris was really happy with the bike, we sold the rest of our motorcycling gear and headed for home!

An awesome trip, we did and saw all the things we planned to and met some wonderful people. Buying and selling the bike in country was very easy and we think definitely the way to go for the future. The only people that benefit by shipping bikes are the shipping companies.

We are now well and truly settled back into our apartment in Cairns and very happy here. We are doing "airbnb.com.au" with our 2 spare rooms and now have travellers coming to us! We are paradise seekers with very high social needs, this seems like a perfect match for us for awhile!! Lets see how long that lasts!??