We started out the day waking up at the Cono de Arita after a very cold night. We met a German couple and Swiss couple around our age that were overlanding together and chatted with them in the morning for about an hour or so. It was really fun to meet other overlanders around our age!

Before we met them though, we met an Italian couple and a local Argentine guide. The guide mentioned to us that Mina Julia was his #1 most favorite thing in this whole area. That peaked our interest quite a bit so we started to look into going to Mina Julia. Austin saw that there is a cut through road from where we were to the mine on an overlanding app so we figured we would try to cut through the mountains to get to the mine instead of going back through a tiny town and entering the mine from a different road.

When we started on the cut through, a truck driver mentioned that we couldn’t go to the active mine (not the mine we were planning to go to) so we kept on our track and took our turn to head towards Mina Julia..little did we know it would be an insane journey to get there. We were so remote and didn’t see anybody for a couple of hours, that is always an odd feeling. On our dirt road, we drove by a natural spring so that was reassuring in case we needed more water. Once we were at the top of the mountain range, we noticed that our road headed down the mountains (and it looked rather sandy) towards a massive salt flat.

As we headed down the mountain in the sand, we realized it was definitely a one-way street for us (since we don't do too well in the sand). Once we got to the salt flat, we drove straight over the salt flat (on a salty/dirt road) towards what we thought was an abandoned mine. Once we crossed the salt flat, nearly 25 minutes later, we stumbled upon a few modern buildings and a small workforce there! We suspected they were starting to build more mining facilities. The people we met were so kind and gave us extra water and fruit for a snack.

After we chatted with them, we knew that we had a big hill before us to get back up on the other side of the mountain range. We saw a warning message on the overlanding app we use that the road was steep and we prayed for no sand. We made it about a third way up the hill and then got completely stuck in.....sand. Ugh! I quickly jumped out of the sidecar and tried to push the bike while Austin throttled, but we got nowhere. Austin started to shovel the sand around the back tire to dig us out and that helped us move forward about a meter. We tried digging and pushing again, but this time the bike descended deeper into the sand.

After about 25 minutes of digging and trying to push, we put the bike 2WD. We didn’t want to use 2WD because we just noticed one of the parts is potentially broken on it but we decided we are very stuck so we needed to use it. Our 2WD worked for a little bit with both of us pushing and we are able to go about 100 m. We got stuck again and decided that we would both push, and if the bike gripped the ground, we would both try to jump on the bike to keep going.

So..we both started pushing the bike once it started to grip, Austin jumped on the bike. I jumped on the fender of the sidecar and we would ride until we got stuck. Once we got stuck, we both jumped off and pushed some more and then jumped back on once we got some grip. And with the final push, we were pushing and Austin and I jumped on rode the bike to the top where we couldn’t see anymore sand: Austin riding seated sideways and me not in the sidecar but perched on the sidecar fender to keep a lot of weight on the sidecar wheel. All of this was at 13,500 feet elevation so both of us were completely gassed from pushing and running with the bike. We felt very accomplished afterwards! 

Approaching the massive salt flat:

Riding over the salt flat, piles of crisp white salt in the background:

Lunch spot at an abandoned building:

New facilities who gave us water and snacks:

The sandy hill (opposite perspective of the hill though):