Bienvenidos, Chile

Thankfully, the switchbacks went downhill for me. All 70 of them. I felt sorry for the two Germans pushing their bikes uphill, but I couldn't slow my momentum enough to express my sympathy. Tears flying horizontally from my temples, I gave them a heartfelt salute. But they probably only heard the "yee" part, faintly catching the Dopplerizing "haw" over the screaming friction of speeding tires.

Headwinds and traffic made the incline toward the border gruesome, but once on the road to see Jesus, the wind died and traffic slowed. It was Easter, coincidentally, and since Someone had just woken up for the 1985th time, blessings were plentiful. Favorable weather, the result of a tumultuous microclimate or a miraculous resurrection, is always welcome. From the Redentor, the route wound down 40 tight gravel turns leading to the 30 asphalt hairpins that crippled the Germans. One can imagine the hoots and hollers.

Once windward, only a few hundred kilometers separated me from Santiago. Most of those passed through the sprawling suburban fabric of Chile´s capital, gradually densifying into the vertically stacked glass piles that disappeared into the thick, brown smog that hovered over the city like Pigpen from Peanuts. Blankets could be seen dragging in the gutters. Charlie was depressed upon seeing this, but handfulls of kind people favorably offset any ill feelings induced by the polluted basin, recharging my batteries for the gruesomely trafficked superhighway to the south.