Paso de Jama

The plan was actually the same as the last pass, to sleep at 2,500 - 3,000 meters and drive the pass with its 4,100 meters in one day.

A little better preparation would have helped us: at the beginning you drive 50km flat and then there are serpentines up to 4,100 meters, that's 2,000 meters in altitude in 40km, there's no acclimatizing there. And after that you drive the rest of the pass road continuously at 3,500 - 4,000 meters in altitude. Well, that was nothing!

Our Egon was already struggling at 4,000 meters.

There's more going on at Paso Jama, it's also used by trucks (from Bolivia, Paraguay, Argentina and Chile) and buses. However, it wasn't as beautiful and interesting as Paso San Francisco, but that was okay, at least we made progress.

There were a few cool stops though. At the beginning the road goes through a salt lake, which looks like a salt lake from the textbook. Then through a village that is at about 3,500 meters.

Arriving at the border station, we had to wake up the border police officer. After the usual long border formalities, we drove down to San Pedro de Atacama in the sunset. As it was getting dark, we found the next place to sleep. At night it became freezing cold, our windows were even frozen from the inside, combined with the high altitude air (we were still at 4,000 meters), it led to a rather restless night.

After I got pretty bad headaches in the morning, we wanted to drive down. However, the cold and thin air at high altitude were not suitable for Egon. We tried to start for 3 hours, then the battery was empty. Alright, no cell phone reception, what do we do? Obviously, we stop the next car. In this car were 3 nice construction workers who helped us. Normal starting didn't work even with the jump start. Then the colleague was summoned, who had a starting spray. After 1.5 hours of trying, it finally worked. We were so happy, and thank God there are such helpful people living here.