We had an early start with a phone call to family after a fairly cold night. We had cereal for breakfast and packed up and left by 10:30am. It was a beautiful sunny day and the road up to Paso Pehuenche is the next level of scenic – the dimensions of the mountains and the colours and rock formations were just out of this world – the entire day we did not get to close our mouth going from one jaw-dropping view to the next – just incredible and the pictures can’t capture the scale or the many shades of every colour- absolutely awesome. Our first stop was before the Chilean border at the hiking trail to the Cascada Invertida (the inverted waterfall) and we had just parked the bikes and locked everything up when two motorcycles arrived from the other direction and pulled up next to us – they were Brazilians on BMW GS1200 and after a short conversation, we walked the short pathway to the Cascada Invertada. The name of the waterfall comes from the fact that the water gets blown upwards by the strong winds. I sat right at the edge and took pictures of the waterfall and some fine spray was blown upwards but there was very little wind. As I was leaning over the edge to get a picture of the waterfall and the views of the valley below, a condor soared right over our heads – farewelling us from Chile. We walked back to the bikes and I placed one of our stickers on the food stall that sells food in the carpark in the tourist season. We then took pictures of several very curious and not at all shy birds that hopped around in the car park with beautiful colours – they were Gray-hooded Sierra Finches (Phrygilus gayi), also known in the region as the Cometocino de Gay or Comesebo Andino. We continued to the Chilean border where we got stamped out and our TIP (temporary import permit) for our bikes was taken off us. We continued riding along Laguna del Maule – the water level was low, but the water was a very deep blue colour and a stark contrast to the mountains and a much darker blue than the sky. We stopped at a lookout and ate our apples which we could not bring across into Argentina and enjoyed the incredible view. We then continued and reached the highest point at 2560m. The road was just one of the best, if not the best we had ridden so far – and we descended again until we reached the Argentinian border. It was quite warm and I took two layers off. There was a very friendly customs officer who talked to us and we proceeded to the counters for passport checks and then for the import of the bikes and the friendly officer then checked our luggage and food items and we were all good to go – probably the best border crossing so far and a very nice welcome into Argentina. 👍 We lost an hour as Chile recently turned their clocks back one hour but Argentina did not. We continued riding until we reached Ruta 40 and of course there was a stretch of gravel road but it was a very short stretch compared to what we had ridden further South. It was only another hour and a bit before we reached Malargüe where we filled up and then crossed the town and turned onto the gravel road that led to our hotel. There was a motorcycle (Suzuki V-Strom 800) parked outside and we said hello to the guy named Gerry, who was originally from Glasgow. We checked in and asked about dinner as we were quite hungry but we were told that the chef had quit but they were trying to get a new chef and would let us know by 8:30pm if they were able to find a chef – that was quite late and we had decided to walk into town to get dinner. After we had unpacked and went past reception to meet up with Gerry, we were told they found a chef and would open the restaurant by 8:30pm but the bar was open – so the three of us headed to the bar and had a bottle of Malbec and shared travel stories and then shared dinner and another bottle of Malbec and we had a very nice evening – thanks Gerry for your company and shouting us dinner – very generous 🤗- we then ordered dessert to finish the evening off and called it a night much later than anticipated after booking a place to stay for the next night. This was certainly a day and ride to remember 😍🏍🏍 Sit back and watch the videos and join us for the ride 🤗🏍🏍