Pedaling Panther : Chilean Sandpit

Chile!! Before more closely inspecting the atlas, I would have thought that crossing the border to Chile meant I was almost there...yet this skinny bean of a country with an average width of 110 miles occupies more than half of South Americas total length at 4270 KM long! Yet it was still great to arrive. Unfortunately crossing the border did not all of a sudden change the desert to a lush green paradise or stop the head on winds, but things definitely did change. Only 12 Miles from the Peruvian border I arrived at Chiles most northern city, Arica. It was a far cry from Peru with its 3 Casino’s and modern shops, as were the prices! Though my chances of getting another dose of the runs also diminished greatly. I checked into the “Sunny Days” hostel where the owners wife, a Kiwi in his 70’s who once imported Llamas into New Zealand, sat me down and gave me a juice and some cookies. I thought I was getting special treatment for cycling there though later saw this protocol was repeated for every customer! The owner could often be seen in his pyjamas after 10pm and it felt more like a retirement home than a hostel, which was just what I needed.

Hitting the road after some much needed R and R I headed south on the number 5. The road would follow Gulley’s in the dry desert rock and zigzag at 45 degrees from left to ride. This often shielded the road from the wind and I made much better progress than in Peru. Sometimes there would be 30km climbs up the sides of these compact valleys followed by huge descents. On one occasion the valley opened right out to the ocean causing a huge head-on wind before cutting back on itself to head south east where the Ocean wind would be funnelled into the gulley causing the bike to lunge forward as if someone was repeatedly ripping the accelerator open on a motorbike. Although Chile was way more first world than Peru, I was heading towards the Atacama desert and food and water stops were few and far between at 60 + mile intervals.

Becoming bored of the arid number 5 I decided to head west for Iquique on the coast and take the number 1 south. Arriving in Iquique was dramatic, out of nowhere the desert road plunged down the edge of a sheer mountainside and this gem of a city with its high rise buildings, green palm trees and pumping blue waves burst into view. Many of the old wooden buildings remained in tact and the place had a good feel to it.

Iquique

South from Iquique huge arid mountains dropped dramatically into the Pacific as the coast road ran right along the waters edge, with small primitive fishing villages every 50 miles or so. In one of the little eateries were some stickers from various motorcyclists who had ridden across the continent, one of which simply had the name, “Charlie Boorman”. Who, if you don’t know is a British Celebrity famous for the TV program, “The long way down” where he and a friend rode motorbikes the length of the America’s. People always used to ask me if I’d seen the program and comment how great he was. I know I’m about to sound very bitter here....but bore off Boorman! The essence of the program was what an incredible adventure they did, yet they had enough support vehicle’s to cook them a Michelin star meal every night and fix any problem they could possibly come across...plus...riding over a mountain range on a motorbike simply means twisting the accelerator a little further back and using a little more gas! ... I’ll respect Charlie Boorman when he repeats his adventure alone on his bicycle!

Anyway, I got as far south as Tocopilla, 2 days ride from Iquique when I had what I thought was a brain wave. The scenery had changed little since northern Peru, and neither had the head on winds. It was time to chuck a left and head east in land towards the Atacama Desert. My idea was to “pop over” the mighty Andes and then ride South on the Argentine side of the mountain range, and in doing so escape both the desert and head-on winds! I could re-join Chile further south by crossing back over the Andes from Mendoza to Santiago, and ride through southern Chile where the scenery is supposedly legendary. My alarm rang way before the sun had chance to rise and I left Tocopilla in high spirits with my torch strapped to the front of my bike as the road lurched uphill before it had even left the town and twisted up the coastal mountain range, the wind now on my back for the first time in weeks as I looked back down at the ships sitting on the Pacific. After climbing the coastal mountain range the road plateaued out before crossing the number 5 I had ridden earlier. A beat up Caravan at the intersection my one and only chance to get food and water for the steep road ahead. The further I headed inland the drier the air became until it literally felt as though I was eating the desert, I wasn’t surprised to later read that “rain has not been recorded here since records began!” The road also became increasingly steep like a squared function on a graph made worse by the fact it refused to meander to lessen the gradient. Finally I reached the top of the pass, signified by a yellow sign with a car appearing to drive down the side of cliff. I descended to the first civilisation I had come across, some 60 miles uphill after the caravan at the cross roads, the little town of Chuquicamata. I approached gasping for water, only to find a guard sitting in a box with a barrier across the road, it was purely a mining community with not a shop in sight! Luckily I could just about roll the remaining 20 Km to the city of Calama. The second I arrived I bought copious amounts of sugary drinks and poured them down my down neck like an alcoholic at a free bar. 100 miles into the Atacama, the driest desert on the planet and a climb of 2500 metres starting literally at sea level, it had been a hard day!

An easy flat 100km later I happily arrived at the small, somewhat hippified touristic town of San Pedro de Atacama. The place had no roads, buildings made from mud and was covered in dust with a hundred tour agencies, but was still a cool place. Although obviously as the name suggests still desert, the area surrounding San Pedro was stunning, salt lakes where you can swim, flamingos, snow capped mountains, red coloured rock formation’s that look like the planet Mars and the most stars at night you’ve seen in your life. Not wanting to cycle another mile on my off day I did what I would usually hate and took a tour to see some of the local sights..which included a swim...or float in one of the salt lakes. The buoyance of the salty water not only made for a relaxing dip but made the bikini clad Latin women swimming in it have even more perky bums and boobs than normal, without the need of a dose of Silicon.

I hit the hay early and got ready for the big climb over the Andes, deciding to nick a book from the hostel as I left (wrong I know, but I couldn't seem to buy one anywhere and this copy of, "As the crow flies" by Jeffrey Archer was the size of the yellow pages and would keep me going for days!) I started well making the most of the cool morning air, though 50 miles into the ride I heard a big crack from the rear of the bike. I flipped it upside down and on turning the pedals watched the rear cogs rotate in an orbital drunken fashion. Something was majorly wrong. I guess there’s only so many 1000s of miles you can neglect a bike and expect the wheels to keep turning! I forced the pedals over and after hearing another pop the rear wheel began to rotate freely again.

Seriously broken bike!

I foolishly pressed on up the mountain hoping I would miraculously find a bike shop in the next remote mountain village..... I had barely ridden 10 miles when my bike stated making Kellogs "snap" "crackle" and "pop" noises, when, on a downhill section, the wheel completely jammed causing a huge skid, taking a huge chunk out of the tyre and nearly sending me flying! Gods punishment for stealing "as the crow flies!" was my immediate reaction! Among other components, the quick release bolt which goes through the centre of the wheel had snapped clean through and the wheel was completely wedged at an angle, I couldn’t even push the thing! Hopelessly I threw my bike to the ground and stood there in the middle of the desert with my thumb up hoping that one of the few cars passing by would take me back to San Pedro.

An hour or so later I found myself in the back of a pickup after a kind indigenous looking couple had stopped to help me out. We had barely been travelling for 10 minutes when a police officer flagged us down and the driver was taken into the station and charged a hefty fine for having no papers. I felt bad for him and throw him some money as he dropped me off on the edge of San Pedro and waved goodbye. I slang my bike over my shoulder and with a pannier in each hand very uncomfortably walked into town to find the only bike shop. There was a whole pile of bikes in need of repair and had I not looked in such a state it probably would have been a few days wait, though they kindly prioritised me. With the bike not due back till 8pm I booked a night in a hostel and spent the whole day getting drunk on a cheap but surprisingly good red wine with a very attractive 28 year old Brazilian lawyer............. and a nice but incredibly overly chatty older expat from Santiago, who we eventually managed to lose after hearing his 1000th heroic story, from being a race car driver to trekking across the amazon to being a village chief for issuing Iowaska, we couldn’t get a word in edge ways!

Attempt 2. With new bearings and a number of other new components I was back in the saddle. I thought about getting a lift to where I had broke down but that didn’t seem right and was against my only rule, even if I’d cycled that bit already. I left a pile of rocks and wrote my name in the sand where I’d broken down, though couldn’t seem to find them as I climbed higher into the Andes for the second time. The bike, although completely haggard in every other way imaginable kept going and eventually I reached the last town in Chile, Socaire. This was the final chance to stock up on grub and water for the high pass over the Andes which lay ahead. For the next few miles I still passed little tourists buses doing day trips from San Pedro to the last far out sights, until it all of a sudden became extremely lonely and isolated. The other big change that I couldnt help but noticing, was that the road stopped! A bright yellow metal sign spelt the words, "Fin Camino Pavimentado a 1000m", and a kilometre later the tarmac came to an abrupt end. I was about to be in for a lot tougher journey than I had bargained for! To call the new road a track would have been very kind. What lay ahead of me would vary from sand so deep that my wheel would spin 360 degrees without propelling the bike forward to a series of speed bumps a foot apart formed from the wheels of lorries. I still havent decided which was worse, pooing myself as my bike crashed out after hitting the Chilean sandpit and having to walk or my brain being smashed around in its skull as if I was tring to ride my bike down a never ending flight of stairs! The fact my rear tyre, which I replaced on arrival in Colombia, was now completely slick and gave no purchase whatsoever did not help matters! On the positive, the scenery was unlike anything I have ever seen, crossing past snow capped 6000 metre peaks, dried out salt lakes where Flamingos lived (as well as stunning lakes with water in) past wild horses and llamas and bizarre looking geography I dont have the vocabulary to decsribe and can only say looked like the moon!

Losing the plot once again!

Progress was extremely slow and just as I was questioning whether I had enough water to get me over the pass, I looked down to see my water bottle had dissappeared, no doubt shaken out of its bottle cage. I was to pass a handful of vehicles that day, and then absolutlely nothing for the next 24 hours. Luckily, an eccentric Hungarian man miles from anyway in a hire car stopped to give me a bottle of water and a Hungarian chocolate bar, probably sensing how ill prepared I looked for the road ahead! The altitude had been increasing since leaving the Chilean coast, I knew I was getting high when I started blowing my nose and clumps of clotted blood came out, and breathing became hard, though I still couldnt work out if the headache was due to hitting a million tiny speed bumps in the jutted road or the altitude, probably a bit of both. The mad Hungarian had informed me that we were at 4050 metres when I passed him, I set up camp shortly after that, waking up frozen at 3am and putting on every piece of clothing I possessed to keep warm! I took a pee in my used lemonade bottle which was frozen solid by the time the sun rose the next morning!

A very cold and windy camp - using the bicycle as an anchor point for the guide ropes and the firemans "round turn and 2 half hitches" knot finally proving useful!

Later the next day I bumped into 4 Argentine men on bicycles, brand new titanium and aluminium shiny things with RockShox suspension that would have been adequate for a motorbike. My 350 pound used blue bullet looking like the Jamaican Boblsed from the film "Cool Runnings" in comparison! Still, It had been half way around the world or more and was still going! I had been told the pass was at 4000 metres so was suprisded to find the road still climbing.....and getting worse! It appeared the Chileans were attempting to complete the road to the border, and concrete was freshly laid in places zig zagging around the orignal road, for those brief moments it felt like the turbo had been switched on and my speed increased 5 fold, though it was more of a tease than anything else.

When I eventually crossed what I thought was the top of the pass the concrete returned and I blasted downhill with a huge tailwind again hitting my record speed of 49mph, but still not being able to break it. At that point 2 lizards ran out infront of me, one just managed to scrape past my front tyre and the other stopped an inch before it as I darted through the middle, their senses obviously better than the Panama cat! 20 km after passing the most deserted stand alone police station imaginable, which would have made the airport fire service look busy, I came across a rusty old sign which seemed to be once decorated in Argentine colours and a further sign with the names of Argentine towns....I then turned around to see the reverse of one sign being that to mark the Chilean border. The road also returned to the brutal sand and gravel track. This was worrying, although my memory is on par with that of a fish, I was certain I hadnt passed immigration! I hoped it wasnt going to be another episode of what happended when I illegally entered Mexico.

With not enough supplies or any desire to go back I kept pedalling. The sandy rode I had come upon would often split (worrying to say the least considering how remote and far from anything I was) and I had feared I had missed the immigration building all together. Though, sure enough, an hour or so later I saw a big green building that resembled a military bunker standing alone on the sandy road......in the middle of nowhere!! I entered to find a table football table and a grumpy Chilean official emerged (no doubt awaken from his daily snooze). The chap was not the most pleasant, thought he stamped my passport and handed it to the Argentine lady (who he was no doubt shagging) to stamp my entry stamp. The 3rd and final member of staff was a very pleasant argentine security officer who took my photo by the wind beaten flag and manualy raised the metal gate to allow me to pass into Argentina! He told me that since the border was stationed so far from anywhere they would remain in the building for 3 weeks at a time.....it looked like a prison sentence to me! Whatever happened to me now I could say that I had ridden my bicycle from Alaska to Argentina, and on checking the Calendar I was massively satisfied to realise I had reached Argentina in less than 6 months after leaving Anchorage, Alaska! All be it by one day! Some going if I don't mind saying so myself! :-)

A very lonely Argentine border!

.........it was hardly the white cliffs of Dover letting you know youd arrived in Great Britain!

Shorty after I had cycled under the metal gate the road split into 2 sandy tracks and I eventually arrived in the first civilisation for a few days, the town of Catua. I say civilisation, it seemed more like Bolivia than Argentina as I passed by the few mudden huts entering the village/ town. It did thankfully have one small shop, which was enough. I bought whatever vegs she had left and a stick of bread that would have been stale a week ago and went in search for a place to camp. On the edge of the town I found a football pitch and pitched my tent next to the dig out, which provided me with good shelter from the wind as well as a structure to tie my guide ropes too as I hadnt a hope in hell of getting the pegs into the arrid ground. The sheltered underground dug out proved a great place to cook my dinner as it was sunken below ground level (I had earlier stuggled to light my stove in the high winds).

Leaving Catua the following morning I was about to begin one of the hardest days of my journey so far. I rose at sunrise and after cycling for the whole entire day I pitched my tent as night fell having covered a total distance of just 40 miles! The road became so bad that at one point I was forced to walk for about 5 miles. It was literally a sandpit. Everytime I tried to get the pedals turing the wheel would just spin on the spot. It would have been far more productive to dump the bike and walk! I did however manage to arrive at one of my favourtite camps so far, dropping down a steep bank from the track to find flat ground and a small stream (ideal for cooking / washing my pot) and perfect skies.

A perfect camp

I rose early the next morning, more because I was completely frozen and couldnt sleep than anything else and began by pushing my bike uphill in an effort to warm up. As I looked up at the path ahead of me, I thought I was hallucinating, either smoke or steam was coming from the side of the road. At first I thought someone was having a bbq, though after considering where I was that idea was just ridiculous. I know this sounds like something from a farfetched story where everything falls neatly into place....... but there infront of me was a hot spring! I ran over to it and dunked my hands and feet in the scortching hot water.....I only wished I had cycled another 2 miles the previous day and camped next to it.

Hot Spring!

Top of the Pass

The gruelling road continued to rise sharply up into the cloud layer...whoever told me the top of the pass was at 4000 metres had given me some duff information! Eventually I came to the top of the Paso Sico, as the road finally platueaued a sign marked the elevation at a dizzy 4560 metres.

The road down the other side of the mountain was as bad as the one going up, though the important word being “down!” I bumped, slipped and slid my way until I finally reached the first major town since leaving San Pedro a few days earlier, San Antonio de las Cobres, which felt like something from the wild west. My plan had been to take the route 40 south from San Antonio (the National highway which runs the entire length of Argentina) though was amazed to discover that the route 40 at this point was a continuation of the bone shaking sand and gravel track I had just come from, but with an even higher pass of 4800 metres. I’m always up for a challenge, but on my rudimentary battered up old touring bike without suspension....I didn’t want to set myself up for another 12 rounds of getting my brain bashed around the ring. I was told if I took a zig zag route towards Salta then cut back to Cafayate the roads would be good. They weren’t wrong! Just before leaving dusty San Antonio de las Cobres the gravel road blended into a brand new piece of perfectly smooth tarmac, and after a small climb, I had 100 miles of flying downhill at rocket speed... Covering the same distance I had done the previous day in a little over an hour!

Cafayate

On the flat heading towards Cordoba with a huge tail wind!

Salta was a busy city with a beautiful central plaza and Cafayate a quiet sleepy place surrounded by lush vineyards and apparently (according to Argentines) the best white wine in the world. Since I had come this far into Argentina, I decided I’d make my detour from Chile bigger still and go and visit my friend Celeste (Shekels) who lived in Cordoba, central Argentina. After cutting through lush vineyards with a mostly tail breeze, (everything I’d hoped for when deciding to take the huge detour across the Andes from the Atacama desert!) across a 3000 metres pass to Taffi del Valle (where I stayed in a very friendly lesbian owned hostel with a pet Llama) I managed to find a road (The 157) which took a b-line like a Roman road straight for Cordoba, with just a few tiny towns dotted along it and no cites to navigate around.

The 157 to Cordoba (the map shows this dry piece of salty land to be a lake!)

The highlights from the 157 road were 2 fold; one, stopping at a small kiosk on a Sunday where in the space of 30 minutes 3 groups of blokes turned up to buy beer, one in car and 2 on mopeds, all 3 completely hammered and offering friendly chat which was no doubt mocking the Lycra clad gringo on a bicycle. Two, doing a big 125 mile day and pulling off to camp at the roadside, not realising that the dry looking vegetation I had pedalled over consisted almost entirely of sharp prickly bushes giving immediate punctures to both tyres. When my torch battery died I decided to crawl into my sleeping bag and worry about it in the morning. The veges I had cooked that night had not sat well and I ran out of my tent in the pitch black early hours of the morning to cover the ground near my tent and half my PJ bottoms in shite. I throw the Pjs outside and went back to bed until the sun rose, when I arose to start repairing the punctures. In one tyre alone I pulled out 8 razer like thorns which had breeched right through the tyre, luckily I had just 2 spare tubes, I didn’t fancy my luck a 8 patches! Anyway, during my 1.5 hour thorn search along came a huge dog out of nowhere, who started barging me around the place like I didn't exist before proceeding to eat my poo! It had been an interesting night!

Arriving in Cordova, after knocking out multiple 100+ mile days on the trot, Shekels had covered her house in balloons to welcome me (I had lived with Shekels in Brixton a couple of years before, she had worked at the Argentine embassy before deciding to return home to Argentina). Shekels tiny one bed house was amazing. It was build illegally from her own 2D drawings on a piece of land next to her brothers house with the water t'd off from her brother's and nobody none the wiser! Whilst Shekels and her brother drove around mopeds without any insurance (my kind of style) a few miles away was shekels sisters house, in stark contrast to her own, a concierge opened a private gate to a private estate where her enormous house sat complete with a good size swimming pool and a shiny new SUV on the drive. Though Shekels house was definetly numero uno! After several Asados (Argentine BBQs) and a fantastic overdue catch up it was time to head for Mendoza and westwards back over the Andes to Chile.

Shekels and her Brother

Four big days and one 2300 metre pass over the Altas Cumbres range saw me through to Mendoza, a beautiful tree lined city standing at the eastern edge of the Andes, whos snow capped mountains are clearly visible. Mendoza is wine country, its cheap and tastes great. I checked into a hostel, drank a box of the stuff (a box of wine in Argentina is no nasty Mighty Murray from Asda!) and a couple of days later, after pinching a knife from the hostel to replace my lost one, began the climb up into the Andes, Chile bound. There seems to be a recurrent theme here with be pinching things and things going wrong.....and I clearly havent learnt my lesson from stealing Jefrey Archers book!....

but, 50 KMs into the mountains the back wheel off my bike started to make the same horrific sound it had made leaving San Pedro a couple of weeks earlier. The same sound that moments later resulted in my rear wheel snapping and pernamently jamming up. I made it as far as the tiny town of Poterillos and knew something had to be done. Santiago, Chile was 300KM away over the other side of the Andes and I hadnt a hope in hell of getting there. I grabbed some food and explained to a couple of blokes on motorbikes what had happened to my bike, who immediately set about taking my wheel apart with the tools from there motorbike and insisted I eat my dinner, later joined by 5 drunken football supporters who were next to useless but wanted to help anyway!

Basically what had happened, without boring you with too many technical details, was that the inside of my hub had become cracked from all the off-road abuse. The bloke who had reparied it in San Pedro had replaced all the bearings and internal parts, but the fact the wheel was still cracked inside meant there was too much space for the bearings, which over time had been alowed to move around and consequently cracked inside. It couldnt be repaired, the hub had to be replaced......and since the rim was also split in 3 places had to be changed too. The owner of the restaurant allowed me to leave my bike inside while I went back to Mendoza with the broken wheel to get it fixed. I was just about to leave for the bus stop when a tall Spanish bloke offered me a lift back to Mendoza. Albert, was a ladykiller. He was a tall good looking bloke who was a pilot for Emirates, correction, he was the big cheese, at 36 he was the Captain, and the pilot of the worlds biggest passenger plane, the huge airbus double decker A380. It suddenly made my firefighter proffesion seem medioca at best! Albert had been driving around in his hire car checking out vineyards in search of good wines to import and sell from his wine company, and was now heading to Mendoza with me insisting that we hit the town in search of women!

In the end, the broken down bike was a bit of a blessing and I had a top weekend in Mendoza. Albert had booked a 4 star hotel though ended up spending 95% of his time at my run-down hostel, where he ended up banging the receptionist. He told me openly about the pilots lifestyle, and, being the good looking captain of a plane with 36 air hostesses, it was every bit as glamerous as you can imagine with more women than ive had hot dinners. For some reason every single person who stayed at the hostel that weekend was compleltey mental. One of the characters being a 22 year long haired half swedish half american kid with a tattoo of a treasure map on his body. He worked half the year in a bar in Boston and the other half travelling the world getting rat-arsed and high on every illegal substance known to man. One of his stories from this trip was about being invited from a girl of the street to one of those seedy little alley way bars where they give you a free drink and you wake up the next day in the middle of nowhere with all your possessions stolen. He knew exactly what it was but told his mate they should "see what its all about" anyway.

Albert aattending to the Asado

When offered a glass of non alcoholic orange juice he decided to, "roofy himself!?!"... his words. This meant drinking enough of this poisionous juice to feel its effects yet not so much he passed out and was robbed! Shortly after his mate had to drag him out the bar and he explained how he didnt feel normal again until the next day! Definetly living dangerously!!! That evening we did an asado, the boys from the hostel went to the supermarket and ordered a whole cows worth of meat, by copying the orders of all the locals infront of us and quadrupling the quantities. Argentine red meat is heavenily and cheap as chips, though they seem to eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner and im sure the whole nation is destined for a massive heart attack! Everyone ended up getting rat arsed on the 14 bottles of red wine we bought and eating the meat like cavemen before heading out.

I had to wait until Monday before the bike shops were open to replace my wheel. I had originally chosen a very perculiar 2nd hand touring bike with 26 inch wheels as the last time I was in South America it was the most commonly used size. However, they now seemed to have caught up with the rest of the world and use 29 inch rims, 26 proving next to impossible to find. After treking around the whole city with a wheel and 2 paniers I eventually found a shop with a 26 inch rim, spokes, and a hub, though they were unable to build the wheel for 3 days! I found a back street bike shop who could get it done for that evening, just in time to grab the last 19:30 bus back to Poterillos, where I found a cheap room for the night. I waited till 10am the next morning but there was still no sign of the restaurant opening up. I enquired with the owners neighbours who explained he could be back today, possibly tomorrow....they didnt really seem to know. I can be impacient at the best of times and decided to try and find a way in, my bike was clearly visible through the window. After circling the property I discovered that the back door was locked from the inside using a slide-across shed style lock, withouth a padlock.

Literally a few feet from the door were too bits of wire, I used one to lift the lock bolt of the latch and the other to slide it across. I was amazed how easy it had been and began considering a future career as a professional burglar...when...just as I walked out of the front door with my bike in one hand.....the owner arrived!!! "MAL MAL MAL!!!" He kept shouting! He was not a happy bunny, which was fair enough, I had just broken into his restaurant! I was carefull not to break anything and left him a thank you note inside with a smily face, but still felt a bit bad about the whole thing!

On my freshly stolen bike I headed up towards the cloud layer, high into the Andes. That evening I camped in the ski resort of Los Penitentes (approx 3000 metres) outside a hotel which was closed for the season before continuing to the summit. The winds were insanely strong and nearly blew me off my bike several times with the last 10 miles being incredibly steep. The rocky snowcapped mountains being far more impressive than the Paso Sico pass I had made in northern Chile. This was the Andes at there most impressive, the road passing right by the enormous Aconcagua, the highest moutain in Latin America at a whopping 6962 metes. When I finally reached the summit there were 2 cyclists waiting next to the road, one Chilean and the other Colombian, If Bob Marley had a bicycle this is how he would have travelled. They were the cool guys, the hippies of the bicycle touring community, with ingenious panniers from plastic jerry cans with the top sawn off to make a lid, and probably far more waterproof than mine! At the top of the pass there was a mile long tunnel that cut right through the middle of the mountain which we were not allowed to cycle through. An hour later a truck picked is up and dropped us on the other side, the Chilean border just a couple of miles ahead of us, downhill. The border crossing was simply enough for me, though as always, the Colombian guy was having a nightmare, despite having traveled to Chile several times before. They insisted he had to show enough money to be able to support himself in Chile and, since he did not have an penny in his bank, there was no way he could prove this. I searched through my panniers to find whatever Chilean cash I could lend him to prove he had funds, and 10 minutes later they had a change of heart and let him through. They invited me to have a bottle of wine at a disused hotel further down the moutain, though I had drunk a years supply a couple of days earlier and wanted to arrive in Santiago that evening (still over 100 miles away) so passed up the generous offer.

Following the decent I eventually ran out of downhill gradient when the land platead out at the town of Los Andes, where I joined the 57 autopista to Santiago. The motorway was littered with "No Cycling" signs but was the only road into the capital. I managed to successfully cycle the 85 KM to the outskirts of Santiago without being pulled over by the Police. My destination was the suburb of Las Condes, north east of the centre. I had been invited to stay at the house of one of the 3 crazy Chilean girls I had met early in the year cycling through Burma. With virtually no battery left on my phone and it getting dark I pulled into a supermarket by the road where I asked a couple of lads how to get there. "Its over the othere side of the moutain!" they explained, one hour in car! I cracked on and after cycling over the mountain in pitch black, reserving my limited torch battery for the decent, I turned up unannounced at Sofias house in the pitch black night at around 11pm . The area was literally the Beverly Hills of Chile....or better!!!

Tunnel through the top of the pass

Sofias house was massive with a private pool on a secure gated comminity where the private roads were littered with concierges and immaculated maintained flowerbeds, there was even a blimen Ferrari dealership just down the road. Which, in Latin America, is saying something! My friend Sophia is equally as bonkers, despite my late night mid-week arrival, we drove straight downtown to meet her friends in a club...Sophia with a bottle of beer in one hand and glass pipe to smoke her home grown weed in the other! It was going to be a mad few days. To be continued......