'It's not a holiday ... it's an adventure.' Driving through the vast, empty Atacama desertPhotograph: Mike Carter/Julia SandersA picturesque church in the Altiplano, ChilePhotograph: Julia Sanders/Mike CarterEnormous sculptures add to the surreal quality of the landscape near the Peru/Chile borderPhotograph: Julia Sanders/Mike CarterWatch out! Vicuñas crossingPhotograph: Mike Carter/Julia SandersAdd windchill from the speed of the bike to already freezing temperatures and you're hitting minus 30°C - but the ground is white with salt, not snowPhotograph: Mike Carter/Julia SandersFellow travellers on the road - the llamas are a regular feature of the landscapePhotograph: Mike Carter/Julia SandersEl Tatio geysers. They pop their boiling spumes at exactly the moment the sun rises over the mountainsPhotograph: Mike Carter/Julia SandersHigh-altitude lakes in the Chilean Altiplano attract flocks of flamingos Photograph: Mike Carter/Julia SandersMike Carter and Kevin Sanders (in the foreground) taking time outPhotograph: Mike Carter/Julia SandersRiding in formation across the blazing white expanses of the salt flatsPhotograph: Mike Carter/Julia SandersCrossing the border from Chile into ArgentinaPhotograph: Mike Carter/Julia SandersThe road descends in graceful curves into north-west ArgentinaPhotograph: Mike Carter/Julia Sanders'In the middle of nowhere, we passed processions of devotees, walking who knows where ... 'Photograph: Mike Carter/Julia SandersA fellow biker takes a closer look at the drying tobacco leaves in ArgentinaPhotograph: Mike Carter/Julia SandersThe team line up outside the childhood house of Argentina's most famous biker, Che Guevara, in Alta Gracia near CórdobaPhotograph: Mike Carter/Julia Sanders
