We had breakfast and started packing the bikes which took a lot longer than normal as we had taken all the straps and luggage off the bikes for the service. We finally left after 11:00am on a quite cloudy day where we could not see the top of the mountain ranges. We took Ruta 9 to San Salvador de Jujuy which was under 100km but it took us 2.5 hours. It was the most winding and narrow road through semi-tropical forests. We passed many police controls which all waved us through. We encountered horses, cows, pigs, and goats on and near the road. Then there were cars on our side of the road around blind corners trying to avoid potholes and subsiding bitumen – it was a beautiful road but required all our concentration and attention. We fuelled up in San Salvador de Jujuy and continued North on Ruta 9. By now there were dark clouds that threatened to rain and we wondered how cold and bleak and wet our ascent would be 😳. We stopped in Volcán as my maps indicated there was a petrol station. It was an industrial town and there was nothing where my phone said should be a petrol station, but we stopped to put another layer of clothes on and our wet weather gear as it looked like we would ride into the clouds going up the mountain. I also put my thin liner gloves under my summer gloves and my balaclava on. I actually needed to pee but decided to hold it until the next stop. We continued another 20km on Ruta 9 before turning left on Ruta 52 towards Purmamarca. As soon as we had turned west the skies cleared and it was sunny. We rode past the seven coloured hills of Purmamarca without stopping as it was getting late in the day and we still had to cover 134km and gain ~1500m height to Susques. The road was used by mining utes, large car transporters and trucks as well as tourist coaches, tourists in rented cars and motorcycles. There were lots of hairpin bends, many of them had very badly deteriorated asphalt with huge potholes and some were completely gravel through the hairpin bends. Early in this section we passed a head on crash between two vehicles that were pulled off to the side of the road with shattered glass all over the road. We often encountered trucks going so slow we were stuck behind them in first gear until we could safely overtake. We then were passed by a Volvo prime mover in a dangerous manner but just a few kilometres ahead he got stuck between a low loader carrying earthmoving equipment and the pilot vehicle which pulled over to let him and and us pass. We pulled over at a lookout where we could see the road snd hairpins below snd took some pictures of the stunning mountain views. We climbed to a height of 4170m and stopped at the gravel turn out and the sign with the altitude written on to take pictures – the highest point we and the bikes had ever ridden to😉🤗🏍🏍. The hairpins continued and with the sun low in the sky it made it very hard to see the deteriorating road around the corners. We came up to a queue of trucks that had stopped in order to let a large number of heavily loaded trucks come uphill around a very steep hairpin bend with gravel and very deep potholes. The last truck did not make it up and around the hairpin bend and got stuck on the steep hairpin. So we decided to go around the waiting trucks and rode around the stuck truck carefully picking our line through the deep potholes. The advantage of being on an off-road capable motorcycle👍😉🏍. The views of the mountains as we gained altitude were stunning in the golden light of the late afternoon sun. We crossed the salt flats of Salinas Grande which are a huge expanse of salt which are commercially utilised for sodium, potassium and lithium.

We finally got through the town of Susques with my phone having run out of charge and we did not see any signs for the petrol station that was supposed to be in town. We continued to the other end of town and found our hotel Pastos Chicos just on sunset. I checked in and the lady showed us the room and as we brought everything in she told us we were in a different room so we had to move everything – by that stage I am not sure how I had managed to hold my bladder for 3.5 hours and I also had a sinus headache all day from when we left Salta and I was absolutely spent when we arrived. We then decided to ride next door to the petrol station and fuel up before parking the motorcycles under cover in the dedicated motorcycle parking spot. I went out to put one of our stickers on the inside glass door of the hotel and then tried to take some pictures but I had missed the last of the sunlight on the mountains.

Meanwhile a group of riders on Royal Enfields had arrived and German speaking tourists were in the room next door and the low loader with the earth moving equipment and the pilot car we had passed earlier also had made it to Susques and they stayed there over night too.

We had great dinner- Andrew ate Schnitzel with mushrooms and I had pasta with egg and cream. We then had an early night – Andrew took some neurofen before going to sleep for his headache and we watched a Winnetou movie (the landscape we rode through with cacti and the most amazing rock formations had reminded me of the Karl May movies I watched as a child 😉😂 and Andrew had never heard or seen Winnetou movies. What a day – we went from lush green tropical rainforest to the high altitude and through incredible valleys and up mountains on roads made for motorcycles and experienced the effects of high altitude for the first time 🤗🏍🏍.