At least you could count on El Niño. Every few years around Christmas time the trade winds would slacken and the cool Humboldt Current would warm up, destroying the feed and scattering the hungry mackerel, bonito and sardines. Ucañan’s forefathers had called it El Niño – the Christ child. Sometimes it was content just to shake things up, but every fourth or fifth year it would wreak God’s vengeance on the people as though it was trying to wipe them from the Earth. Whirlwinds, thirty-times the normal rainfall and murderous mudslides – on each occasion hundreds were killed. El Niño came and went, as it always had done. No one welcomed it, but they managed to get by. (free translated from „the Swarm“, Frank Schätzing)

For some time, El Niño had not taken his job seriously and no big climat gifts were given to South America. But just this year the „Christ child“ is awoken to haunt the Pacific Coast with a ferocity as he had not done it for fifteen years. At first we enjoy it. A few exceptional rainy days have brought the Atacama Desert to life. From one day to the other the cactus burst and we cycle through a pink sea of flowers. "El Desierto Florido", the phenomenon is called. Gone is the hot, dusty and desolate landscape that we have in memory. Thanks for the surprise. Why should you not welcome El Niño?

But El Niño brings not only joyful surprises. When we arrive in La Serena, the border guards tweet: All Andean passes closed. The warm desert rain had fallen in the high Andes as a meter high snow. And further to the north, a volcano started to spit. We have no choice. We put the bikes in a corner, rent us a cozy room and spend the next time sleeping, watching movies and eating. "Andean Training" we call this week, pretending that everything would have been planned this way and soon we hope, after each new supermarket visit, that the „Christ child“ remains some time more in the terrible twos.

But after a week our "training subscription" has expired. We swing back on the bike saddle to ride north. The Paso San Francisco, over which we want to cross to Argentina is still closed, but at least it is written already "obras en Ejecucion" on the road conditions website. Until we get there, another week will be passed. That should be enough time for both Chileans and Argentines to drive through with the snow plow.

The plan works. When we arrive in Copiapo, the pass is open. The 'Christ child' has lost his fun on snow and wants a new toy. As we slowly pedal up to 4000 meters, he sends the wind. Perfectly in west-east direction. We sail downright through the first pass. High and getting higher. At Salar the Maricunga we get the exit stamp and then we fly out into the vastness of the Argentine Puna. Would El Niño have a fan page, we would put the like button sin hesitation.

But even the best gift does not last forever. After the Paso San Francisco it goes north from Tinogasta. At the latest when we saw after googling that our 'Christ child' just borrowed the name and unlike the original (depending on the source and language between 36'951 and 1'058'097 likes) does not care in the least about social contacts, we know that there is no point to submit our gift list. El Niño has outgrown the terrible twos and now knows quite well what he likes. A bit more north into the west-east and definitely steps it up a notch. In the future, it means headwind for us. Friendship feelings for El Niño? How could we...

For ten years we have carried with us the Puna high route from Antofagasta de la Sierra to the almost forgotten Paso Socompa. And now we are in the middle of it. A vast high mountain desert of stone, sand and dust. Light and shadow, solitude. Is this still the earth? Or is it the moon?

She looked into the distance. […] Large parts of the area could be overlook from here. A Highland. Hills and ridges, a paper cut of long shadows. Ponds full of black ink [...] like a backdrop the landscape emerged from the space. Everything appeared close enough to touch, with sharp contours, regardless of its actual distance [...] Now she felt no other desire than to admire this strange, untouched landscape, the brutal archaic of its cliffs and ridges, the velvety silence of the dust-filled valleys and plains, the total absence of color. Cold, the sun shone on the edges of the craters, in its glow faded the time away. (free translated from "Limit", Frank Schätzing)

In Antofagasta de la Sierra we meet Anibal Vasquez to obtain route information. He is a teacher, mountain guide, cyclists and extreme sportsman. Hardly a volcano or mountain peak, he has not climbed in the area or a corner of the Puna, he does not know. His next project: An altitude record with his seven year old daughter on the Ojos del Salado. She grew up here at 3300 meters, 6893 meters is for her the same as for us a hike to the Wildstrubel... But Anibal can not go off. El Niño brought in for the next week day and night winds of 160km/h. Sure, it is Advent. It's out of question that the 'Christ child' runs away right now. Outgrown the childhood it now savours his adolescent phase.

Getting out of Antofagasta on the direct track to Antofalla, we are fortunately still fairly well protected from the wind. We ride through a high 'vega', a valley with water, a living island in the Puna. Llamas graze, vicunas quench their thirst and it also has some 'puestos', stone-built shepherds' huts. Then it goes steeply down to the Salar de Antofalla. The browns are absorbed by the salt-saturated soil, the wind has free rein again. The ascent to the next pass is the showdown. Storm strenghts of 100km/h. We need three hours for ten kilometers. Neither our water nor provisions stock are enough for such a pace. When the wind does not decrease, we must turn back tomorrow.

At 4:00 the alarm clock rings. With the first dawn we start riding. The wind has had an all-night party and is not ready for the Early Bird program. When it wakes up at 11.00 clock, we are through the day's program and have already reached the Mina Mansfield on the edge of the Salar de Arizora, the largest salt lake in Argentina. Now we get the hang of how to cope with the teenagers El Niño.

The Lunar Express meandered into the Mare Imbrium, the adjacent desert plain. On the horizon, new mountains were piled on, the lunar Alps, brightly illuminated, veined by shadows. Daring, the tracks swung in the mountains, the pillar of the maglev clutched in steep rock. The higher they got, the more stunning the panorama became, rugged summits, cubist-shaped overhangs, sharp jagged ridges. A last look at the dust carpet of Mare Imbrium, then it went winding inland, between peaks and plateaus through the edge of a lunar Grand Canyon. (free translated from "Limit", Frank Schätzing)

1921 the US engineer Ricardo Fontaine Maury was commissioned to build a railway line from Salta through the Andes to the Chilean coast. For 27 years the sleepers and rails were laid to heights of 4,000 meters through the inhospitable landscape. When the masterpiece was finished, it comprised 31 bridges, 21 tunnels, 13 viaducts, 2 reversing loops, 2 switchbacks and 21 stations on 900km railway. Had Chile and Argentina not slept, also a tourist highlight à la Frank Schätzing's Lunar Express might rattle through the lunar landscape of the Puna today. But probably this train has left the station. 200km are still pasable in some junked cars of the Swiss Zentralbahn as "Tren a las Nubes" and the press reports a reopening of the entire cargo line. But somehow it does not look like up here.

For five days we follow the sand and gravel road from Tolar Grande up to the Socompa Pass and over to San Pedro de Atacama. The border crossing is only open for pedestrians and cyclists. From time to time we cross the railway line, cover a few kilometers on it to avoid steep climbs or to save altitude.

The abandoned train stations at Chuculaqui and Monturaqui provide us, together with the border station, with water. Otherwise, we are placed in the vast, uncompromising landscape on ourselves. OK, not quite. Because the 'Christ child' has not left us. He's still bitchy and whether it makes friends or not, is him a damn. It comes and goes, as it has always have done. You would not welcome him, but you can manage to get by. And over time, you even can count on him. The north-west wind will remain his favorite gift in the Puna. That's why we're heading south again after a long break in San Pedro. With tailwind.