Day 5 – Saturday, January 31, 2026

I woke up next to the Lake of the Incas at the middle of the night, got out of my tent and was greeted by a wonderful view...The lake gleaming in the almost-full moon,

Amazing view, one of my favorite pics on this entire trip!

The morning smiled at me, I was excited about the crossing into Argentina, at 3,800 meters and just about 14 kilometets away..There were, however, some worrying signs. The sky, blue at first, turned more and more hazy. The weirdest thing, though, was that not a single car (bus, truck, etc) could be seen. I first thought that the South Americans are late risers, but having not seen anyone for quite a while was strange.

Wonderful morning #1

Wonderful morning #2

Wonderful morning #3

Wonderful morning #4

Suddenly, after about an hour of riding, having covered some 5 km and 300 meters of altitude (with 9 km and 700m elevation gain to go - and a long section with steep switchbakcs), the pieces started falling together (and things inside me falling apart). The voice of the hotel employee saying something about a closure in Spanish, it was then that I realized, DARN, I was in a no-go zone! The entire road for closed!

It was at this tunnel that I realized, I had to turn around

Very long-term parking

I hesitated for a while, stopped the only car (of some construction workers) I met, they confirmed my fear and advised sternly to turn around - for fear of a thunderstorm.

Only then did I check my phone and even though the signal was weak, I indeed did see bad weather forecasted for the latter part of the day. There was nothing else to do then to turn around.

After a few minutes, rolling downhill, I met a couple of people walking their with dogs. "People" is correct, more precisely, they were customs offiders. They stopped me, they were not unfriendly, but in an official tone they inquired from where the heck was I was coming from. I tried to explain that I started in Portillo just down the road, they did not quite buy my story and sent me up a gigantic ramp into a vast immigration area (I had seen this building from Portillo and mistakenly thought it was a tourist facility). However, not a single of the 16 control booths were manned (as the road was closed), they were only some cleaners loitering around. They sent me from one empty booth to another. I got fed up and just left. To be on the safe side and not to commit a crime, I did enter a police station, where an officer looked at me quite bored and told me to continue downhill.

Wonderful morning #4

I thought I might as well wait a day and slowly accepted the fact that I would pay €130 for the night (I did not want to camp in a thunderstorm). I went to the reception and tried to aks if they had something less expensive.

Then came another mega-surprise - the receptionist lady told me to wait and made a few calls. She then told me if I was OK in sleeping in employee room with bunk beds - that would cost $0 - yes, it would be free! Wow, you people of Chile!

I got a room with 4 bunk beds and a bathroom to myself, laid down and was thinking why on earth they closed the pass, it was still a bit of sunshine outside. The answer came around 3 pm in form of heavy rain, strong winds, hail and thunder. I was really thankful for having a roof above my head. I spent the rest of the day tucked in the bed, reading a copy of National Geographic about WWII spies - interesting topic!

Not proud to tell that my watch showed me biking twelve kilometers that day...So ended the month of January, down in South America...