Rode the 10 miles from Arica to the border yesterday morning. On the way I passed one of those "must have" road signs - "Bolivia: turn right, Peru: straight on".I thought things were looking rather deserted, and there was no queue at the border; it's the only one between Chile and Peru and is on the PanAmericana, so one would expect there to be at least some traffic.

I parked up and approached the Immigration Control window.

"Buen' dia"
"Buen' dia"
"Ah, you are English. There is a problem."
"¿Que?"
"The border is closed today"
"¿QUE?"
"There is trouble on the Peruvian side - rioting, rock-throwing, that sort of thing, and the border is closed"
"Why? Political or what?"
"No se"
"OK, so what do I do now?"
"Just go back to Arica and wait"
"Er, I know my entry permit is OK but there is a problem with my motorcycle papers and I need to extend them if I'm to stay as they expire tomorrow"
"OK, no problem, come with me"

So we went to see the nice Customs man and explained the situation. The solution was pretty simple, really. Customs and Immigration signed and stamped me out of Chile; I then did a U-turn from the "Out" side to the "In" side through the indicated narrow gap in the barrier while the nice young man telephoned to the other side, where it took all of 10 minutes for me to be signed and stamped in again for a further 90 days, and new temporary import documents issued for the bike. Job done. It then took another half hour to get out of the border because I was surrounded by officials wanting to know all about my trip. Well, they had nothing else to do.

They reckoned the border might be open again tomorrow, and have given me their phone number so I can ring and check.

Meanwhile, I'm sitting on a beach beside a pool, under palm and rubber trees, sipping pisco sour and wondering whether there's a conspiracy to stop me from leaving Chile. Fabiola says the temperature is -17 in Coyhaique (worst winter they've had in five years, and my plane was more or less the last out for a week), so I won't be going there again for a while, but I've suggested she come up here instead.