The next day began with a breakfast dilemma: do we wait for a passing truck to take us to our next destination (Tupiza) or do we tow and push Jasco behind Dreagle. Sod it... towing it is. What stood between us and the other side of the Andes was 60km and two further mountain ranges. This seemed like a Herculean task... it was. An exhausting day was spent pushing the bikes up thousands of feet of mountains and, every time we reached the gale beaten peak of a hill, Paddy would have to mount Dreagle whilst Gareth took the reigns of the lifeless Jasco. The two were tied together and a high speed suicide drive ensued to build up as much momentum as possible for the next climb. The road of death had nothing on this. At one point Charlie was blown over by the wind on Moira. Gaz and Paddy nearly followed suit on the next peak, not much fun when your tires are inches away from a 2000' tumble! Finally, the shattered team had the last climb in sight and attacked it with great gusto. At the edge of the Andes Jasco was cut loose and Gareth went screaming downhill faster than most, riding it like he's stolen it. Paddy followed behind on Dreagle having a cracking time whilst the other - more heavily-laden bikes did their best to keep up. 101 things to do that might just kill you a little bit. For the first time in ages the temperature began to creep up and we dropped out of the mountains into the lower approaches to the town of Tupiza. There was more pushing to be done but it paled in comparison with the earlier efforts of the day. We were deep in to Butch and Sundance territory now. We rolled into Tupiza in a state of apprehensive exhaustion. We were seriously short on fuel, time and bike parts but things began to look up. New clutch plates were sourced and Paddy, Gareth and Jen headed off on a now much better Moira to find fuel and supplies, whilst the others stayed behind to change the clutch and give Dreagle a new drive tyre - something he could have used earlier that day whilst towing. Jasco, was a different story. He was leaking Oil at a furious rate and a fix was not going to be simple.
Paddy and Gareth dropped Jenny off at a pizza shop to get the evening meal in whilst they went off to look for fuel. That's when things began to look bad. Driving around town brought the realisation that this was a popular stop on the tourist trail and the locals weren't that poor. The corollary being that, no matter how much money we offered them for their minimal fuel stocks, they weren't willing to give them up. They would rather keep their shiny new 4x4s running for as long as possible. Bad news.
We tucked in to hot pizzas then found the Hotel Mitru, as recommended by Lonely Planet, parked the bikes in the secure courtyard and jumped in to warm showers. We wandered town for a short time, checked e-mails and then collapsed in to bed wandering how we would overcome the fuel and time issues.