Horacio was wonderful (such a nice young man).He came over to Porvenir on his bike and having stayed the night helped me reconstruct the bike and did quite a lot of heaving to straighten pannier frames and panniers; then we beetled off back to the ferry and had a horrible 3-hour crossing back to Punta Arenas. It was only a 1-metre swell, but it's a small boat and although the bikes were roped to the side mine was threatening to over-centre on the sidestand. I found a baulk of timber, and while being soaked with seawater managed to insert it between the side of the topbox and the bulkhead so that the rope was preventing the bike falling to the right and the timber prevented it overcentering and smashing against the bulkhead. Nightmare.

Anyway, we arrived around 10pm, Horacio found me a decent hotel and we had well-earned G&Ts and dinner. I was knackered.

This morning Horacio turned up again as I was checking out and insisted on making sure the bike was still OK, and seeing me off. I think he felt really sorry for me having to stay in Porvenir for so long; either that or he wanted to make sure I really was leaving Punta Arenas and Chile.

So I'm back in Argentina (can't remember how many times that makes) and will be retracing my route back up Ruta 3 (on the east coast) to Viedma, where I'll see Oscar, do a service and get new tyres fitted.