Day 4 – Friday, January 30, 2026

Wow, wow, wow! That could be the motto of the day. Hard to describe in detail, let us just say I started at 7 am from Bertha´s Hostel and the following hours were probably the toughest riding of my recent years. It led me deep into (up...) the Andes, offering truly amazing views the entire day.

Sunrise in the Andres

Looking up

Traffic was interesting - huge, oversized trucks, lorries, buses - but at times no one would come from either direction. Weird. A funny detail: I was allowed to overtake a line of cars about 2 kilometers long - they had to wait for road works to pause, I had green light.

A wonderful gorge

Looks like a castle on top, but it is a rock

Even though I was carrying a lot of water, it ran out twice, first, a road worker gave me some of his, then I had to signal to the traffic, a lady lorry driver from Argentina stopped. I also saw trucks from Bolivia, Uruguay and Brazil.

A funny scene came next. A small car with 3 young beuties swirled in front of me and asked if I needed anything. Now my water supply was full and it was probably pride speaking from me - I said, no, thank you, I have everything. They were quite disappointed with my reply, asked if I really did not need anything, but I again declined. Hmmm, maybe I should have complained about lack of oxygen and that I need mouth-to-mouth breathing - but these thoughts came too little, too late....so they drove off. But still, how very nice of them.

Extreme mountain...

Look at those switchbacks

That container did not make it to its destination...

I started at around 850 meters and pushed up to 2,880m - my watch tells me I made just 50 km in distance, but 2,000m in altitude gain...it felt pretty good. Some of the incline was relatively easy, but there were other parts where I really had to push.

I finally arrived in the tiny village Portillo near the Argentine border and there is a wonderful lake called Laguna del Incas.

Laguna del Incas

Last rays of the sun

Pretty much the only building there is a 5-star hotel there, a single room costs $132, a bit steep for my budget (note: from the outside, it looks like a budget hotel). While they did not offer me a discount, they let me camp near the hotel, after all, I am carrying camping gear. Nice of them! To thank them, I ordered a nice piece of chicken in the restaurant and got sandwiches to go for the following day - as there are no grocery storea anywhere around here...