I already like Chile. It´s a sort of Spain with attitude. Smoking is compulsory, and a bottle of very decent Cabernet Sauvignon can cost as much as, ooh, thirty bob.

I think I´m now GMT -4 hours. The confusion has occurred because when telling us local time on landing yesterday lunchtime they omitted to mention that the clocks went back last night, so I was an hour early for breakfast this morning.

The Andes are rather spectacular, even from here, and I´m really looking forward to riding around on them. It´s still T-shirt weather here, but it´ll cool down as I go south and upwards into the mountains.

So, it´s the fourth continent and the 19th country. I´ve ridden around 17,000 miles and actually travelled around 32,500 miles if you include the sea and air interludes.

The next challenge is bike retrieval and reassembly. I´ve yet to establish whether the bike really is here - can´t do that till tomorrow morning. But I think I´ve managed to arrange a battery from the BMW dealer, who claims to have four of them in stock. Very helpful people, and the general manager´s PA speaks excellent English. The bike person didn´t, so I showed him a pic of the bike, and a pic of the bike crated in Sydney, then drew a pic of a battery, and he understood immediately what I was on about. Just like the Cambodian lady at the little chef on the way to Phnom Penh - I pointed at two eggs, mimed whisking them, then mimed frying with appropriate sound effects. Five minutes later I was served an excellent omelette. Anyway, it´s another use for a digital camera.