As we rolled out of the tent the next morning, our environment appeared unchanged. Nothing had uprooted; nothing had cracked. The stallion edged in close to us, curiously monitoring our first stirrings of the day and sniffing our helmets, which hung on the handlebars. The night before appeared to have earned us his trust. We packed up after instant coffee, hopeful of reaching the border of Argentina and crossing within a few hours. The hillsides around us were gradated in color, from dark slate to bright red to soft green to sand. We curved around them on a wide mining road of deep sand. Then the engine died abruptly. I shut my eyes and exhaled away my frustration as I slid off the back to begin pulling. Once out of the deeper sand, Nathan was able to turn around and coast downhill until the ground flattened out. I walked behind, refusing the offer of a ride and trying to walk off the bad attitude I could feel creeping over me. The morning was already blazing hot, and I covered my face with my handkerchief and bucket hat and tied a shirt around my shoulders. I caught up with Nathan and we silently began unloading everything onto the side of the road.

As we sat on the hillside allowing the engine to cool, a sun-baked Australian man in reflective sport sunglasses pulled up in a pickup truck. We chatted; he offered moral support and mentioned the shepherd’s hut down the road, which we had passed earlier, where we could pass the night and ask for water if we needed to. He then turned his head to rummage a bit in his glove compartment. In a moment, he proffered a floral-printed aluminum tin to us from the window.

What’s that? Nathan asked, eyeing it. I knew what he was thinking—that is, that any number of palliatives could be nestled inside it and that any of which, frankly, would have been greatly appreciated. The Australian snorted with laughter.

Bonbones! he said, in Spanish, and pulled the tin back inside the window to pry it open. Candies, man. Just innocent little sweets. Nothing like a bit of sugar to lift the spirits. He shifted in his seat and held the candy further out the window, not taking no for an answer and peering at us above the lenses of his glasses.

I grinned and plucked one crystallized, violet orb from the tissue wrapping. His engine revved. All part of the adventure, right? He chided.

We nodded and stood in the lingering cloud of dust as the truck rounded the hillside.

We found that we did indeed have spark. Having waited about an hour or so, shaken out the air filter, and checked all the electrical connections, we were able to start Horace up again and ride back to Copiapo, a large, rather industrial city. We checked into a hostel, interrupting the proprietor’s Sunday cazuela preparations—a stew of squash, corn, meat, and potatoes—and then promptly set out for ice cream. The young man scooping our gelato asked us if we had felt the quake the night before. I recounted our tale, adding how unnerving it was to be out in the middle of nowhere. He laughed and nodded, owing his own coolness during the temblor while on the thirteenth floor of his apartment building, to his ongoing study of the Chileno way of life. As a Venezolano, he explained, he figured that only a veritable End of Times quake could cause a Chileno to panic. Until he could see hoards of Chilenos suddenly descending into the streets, he’d play it cool too.

After some tests, we were able to determine that our ignition control unit, or ICU—which had failed upon our entry into Chile—had failed again. Fortunately, we were able to locate a new ICU the next morning from a shop right across the street from our hostel. Now Monday, the doors and windows of the shops open for business, it became apparent that we had chosen the auto and electrical parts district for our overnight stay.

With some empanadas de pino, ground beef with olive, in tow, we set off again. We didn’t learn the names of the greenish, antique-gold of mountains that we were climbing. We were leaving and felt the tug of newness on our minds. We would see Chile again, but Argentina would be our last “new” country, and we were anxious to feel that newness. We looped higher and higher, past zinc mines and an abandoned red sports car being licked away by the gritty wind, towards the Aduana office.

It was after 5pm by the time we arrived, and we were fairly sure that the office would be closed. Sure enough, in the wake of our rumbling, a jolly-looking, senior officer emerged from within and promptly asked us if we were prepared to spend the night there or return to Copiapo. We glanced around us at the finely pebbled, red-and-grey mottled mountains stitched together with the stiff, golden coiron grass, against which the Aduana building stood out like a monopoly house. The night wind would be relentless, we knew, and the officer kindly offered us the protection of the building's covered entryway.

Do you have a little bit to eat and drink? he wanted to know.

We came prepared, I answered. But we made no advances toward the bundles of our home strapped to Horace’s back, and our eyes flicked between the beckoning hills around us and the map on Nathan’s phone. The scaffoldings of our last evening lay sharply defined against the sky. It promised to be beautiful. And it was still early yet; surely, a few hours remained for wandering. The landscape around us looked as it does in dreams; too stark to be realistic and accompanied by the distinct feeling that all was slinking away just as I was becoming aware of it. We had grown so used to consequences that we no longer questioned choices made on a whim. The open iOverlander app on Nathan’s phone showed us the tantalizing coordinates of an azure-colored waterfall in the middle of this high elevation desert. The officer nodded, observing us amusedly.

Bueno. Just make sure you sleep on the Chilean side. Chuckling, he clomped back indoors.

The dirt roads had proven very manageable thus far. And we certainly could make it in the light we had left.

About 15 minutes of light remained, and the waterfall that supposedly awaited us was 1 mile away. But the road, which followed a clear river whose course steadily grew stronger the longer we followed it and which carried us away from industry and border control, quickly became deeply rutted. The surface, however, had been smoothed over with a layer of fine sand, so that by the time we discovered the ruts, we were already sunken into them. In fact, we had spent the rest of the evening simply trying to avoid sinking into the earth. I walked the last mile while Nathan cursed and spun Horace’s wheels in the loose sand.

Deep darkness was immanent, and we selected the nearest outcropping of rock to nestle among for shelter from the elements. Our campsite was disappointingly not in view of a waterfall. But burying ourselves in this “road” in the dark was not an option. As I set forth to select a flat spot to pitch our tent and for Nathan to park the bike, and to select a separate spot to quickly pee, my boot suddenly cracked through the crusty top layer of soil and sunk fully into the earth up to my ankle. Caught by surprise, I yanked my buried foot out of the ground and promptly lost sight of my other foot. Umm, I called out to Nathan. I think this is quicksand.

We passed the evening uneventfully enough and spent the next morning packing up in the company of a little fox who was immensely curious about the inside of our tent. In disbelief that we were barring him entrance, however, he finally made do with surveying our activities from the middle of the road. He had probably been adopted by the watershed maintenance crew, whose unoccupied shelter we had passed a few miles before giving up on the waterfall. The fox followed closely behind us for several miles back toward Aduana.

The gringo looks worried, the jolly Customs officer remarked, upon canceling our Chilean vehicle importation permit. He had just informed us that 75 miles of Chilean territory lay ahead of the office and that a further 19 miles of no man’s land lay beyond that. We would later learn that a total of 376 miles lay between the gas station where we last filled up in Copiapo, Chile, and the nearest gas station of Fiambalá, Argentina. I’m sure you can buy gas from someone if you run out, he assured us. Of course, it was nothing we hadn’t done before.