Great God!

So I'm not really sure where to start on this one but I suppose I'll just get right into the meat of it.  I celebrated New Years in style in San Pedro then had one of the best new years on record the following day.  Hung over and feeling it I still managed to get a great mountain shred in and take in some more of the stunning beauty that makes up the Atacama.

After a good nights rest I set sail for Argentina and the town of San Salvador de Jujuy.  I was told that by car it takes about 7 hours and by bus it takes 10 so I figured I was somewhere behind the bus at about 12 or so. I was sorely mistaken.  18 hours later I arrived in Jujuy thoroughly "Kombi'd" out.  I knew going into this day(s) it was going to be the most difficult we'd faced thus far and possibly the toughest of the entire trip.  I was not, however prepared for the fact that Kombi simply will not run above 15,000 feet and the fact that the majority of our route was above 12,000.  This made for an incredibly slow pace and frequent, very frequent stops due to over heating.  Over all we cover about 400km in about 18 hours(just over 20km/hr average).  That doesn't include the night I spent on a mountain pass after Kombi said "enough already".  We woke up to sub-30 degree temps at about 6 am this morning and there again she didn't want to start.  All in all she really knew what she was doing.  If she hadn't have stopped I would have missed argueably the most beautiful sunrise I've seen in my life and definitely the most amazing auto decent I've ever bared witness to.  Highlights from this leg of the trip included being towed up the Paso de Jama by a semi, seeing wild lamas and flamingos, and the feeling of triumph and relief as we descended to something resembling sea level.  Kombi is happy and running great now that we're back in her element and my O my has the scenery changed.  I'll post a bunch of pics on facebook and a few here(again facebook is much faster).  When I see all of you I'll have to relay more detail.  There is something about the last two days that stands out and is really difficult to put into "post" form.   Maybe I'm just a shitty writer... got it

We did it, Kombi and I conqured the Andes for round one.  It wasn't easy and we certainly didn't do it alone, but we did it.  Time to relax and get the Stoke up for the Dakar Rally tomorrow and the next day.  Cheers!

Role

Here's some pics of being towed, the beauty of the Andes, how different the terrain is, and just how slow Kombi and I were going at times.