Time for our last border crossing of the trip! We woke up in time to catch the first wave of breakky at the hostel, packed our things, bought snacks and water for the day, and got on the road. First stop was to swing by Robin's place, both to say hi and to give the bikes a good cleaning. Salt flats salt is nasty stuff on vehicles so we wanted to keep them nice.
Robin welcomed us in again and gave the bikes a thorough wash. Never looked so good in their lives! We then sat around, had some coffee, and traded stories until lunch time. Then we all piled into Robin's land rover and headed to a lunch spot nearby, along with Dave, a pedal bike traveller staying with Robin. Lunch was good and cheap, and we traded more stories again. Good fun.
Much later than we wanted, we finally left Uyuni. The road to the border was about 220km, and there was no promise of gas on the other side... Halfway there, a town called San Cristobal had a gas station which was unreliable at best. Apparently only 1/5 times they actually have gas. Well, today was our lucky day! No problems filling up there.
After San Cristobal, the road got worse and worse. Why am I still surprised that the main trucking route between Chile and Bolivia is sand? Anyway, in one particularly deep patch, Trev dropped the bike going about 10 km/h. No harm done, just a big frustration.
After another hour or two of riding crappy roads, we arrived at the border. The customs offices and immigration etc were so much in the middle of nowhere... All you could see in all directions was dirt and sand and dry, dead mountains. It was super bizarre.
Leaving Bolivia was easy. Stamp in the passport, revoke the import permit, and we were on our way. No problem! Entering Chile was also pretty easy. We found a guy at the immigration building (next to the foosball and ping pong tables) to stamp the passport, and then it was on to customs. Paperwork was easy and straightforward, and we even got their advice on how to sell the motorbikes. Super helpful! Trevor got his turnip beans confiscated (that he had found in Peru) so we can't send them back to Wisconsin. Sorry Alex!
The border town in Chile is called Ollogüe, and is less than a 2 minute drive from the border. After a bit of messing around, we found a weird hostel thing with no WiFi, but it had English TV. Neat. They fed us dinner and we had a low key evening after a big day. There was a beautiful sunset, and that's about the most exciting thing about the entire town. On southward tomorrow!
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