Two Pegs to Patagonia, The 3 Americas

We left Buenos Aires in the autumn and 12,000k later arrived in Madrid in the spring. It took us 12 hours in the air to travel half of what took 7 months on the ground.

The steak in Argentina is as good as its renowned to be. We shared a slab with Cindy and Geert at a parilla (BBQ restaurant) in Buenos Aires.

My first impression of Bueno Aires was that it was quite similar to Madrid. But now I've had a good look at Madrid again I don't think this is true

We managed to leave Buenos Aires without any (more) mishaps, and arrived in Madrid at 05:30. As it was dark we could see straight away the moon was back the right way up, and waning in the correct direction. The bikes flew to London before joining us by Sunday.

In Argentina drivers would look at us as they failed to hit us, back in Europe they are looking at their mobiles.

When we crossed from Spain into France two things became immediately apparent.

The first was that we had finally entered a country where the road signs made logical sense (to us) with the same towns consistently listed, in the same order, and fair warning of a junction appearing. Spain had been little different from the Central and South American system of randomly changing what towns are signposted, with the added attraction of telling you you had just missed your turn off.

Not since the USA, with the exception of some parts of Chile, had navigating been so easy.

We've spent the last week drifting across the country visiting friends and relatives , from Plymouth to Surrey and then Sheffield, before turning west across the Pennines with one last stop at Rawtenstall where I was presented with a solution to the coke bottle/straw issue.

We're heading back to South America, this November.

Since finishing the Two Pegs trip I've definitely had a sense of something missing. A need to hit the road again. We had plans for spending a large chunk of the winter in Spain and only taking time to come home if any work came up.

It is different this time, packing, and feels all wrong. Normally when we go away we get the bikes out, fill the panniers and then either ride away on them or have them crated and join them a week later on some far flung continent.

Instead we found our selves presented with a pile of clothes and motorbike accessories on the lounge floor like this.

The clothes were easy, they fit into 2 small "canoe" bags each (the small green thing under the piano leg).

When planning to do some bureaucratic activity, like trying to obtain an official "tax" number and have vehicle documents put in your name, it is best not to arrive in the capital city on a national holiday. Especially one that occurs on a Thursday, so everything shuts down for 4 days.

Our friend Juan, who we are buying the bike off, picked us up from the airport and took us to our apartment.
The apartment is situated in the centre of Santiago and is very secure. To our right we have the city police station (Carabineros de Chile). With riot wagon.

"Sometimes you just have to go with the flow." (TM @ bdp 2010-)

Over the last week we have not really felt in control of anything going on with the bike. We just had to put our faith and trust in those that were helping us.

Fortunately it was not the bike, it was a friends van. We had been into La Ligua on an errand of mercy with Lorraine, who we have been staying with. As we left La Ligua I commented on the smell of oil and water coming from the van. Lorraine comfirmed it always smelt that way, so I stopped being nosey.

10k later on Ruta 5, the PanAmerican, the van spluttered and died.

I went up into the Chilean Andes at the youthful age of 49, and came back down the other side into Argentina at the start of my next half century. Crossing the Andes was significant for us, back in 2011 we stayed on the Pacific side all the way down, with jaunts up onto the Altiplano, but never actually crossed them.

That is one itch scratched.

At the top of the pass, with snowy Aconcagua peeping in the background.

Bo-pengy (cousin of Pengy) awoke from suspended animation in the bike pannier in Argentina, and started the search for potential Bolivian relatives. As Bolivia ceded its coastline to Chile in 1904 after the War of the Pacific and became a land-locked country, this is likely to be an ultimately fruitless search.

Note to Gibbo: yes I have brought another b****y penguin! Hay uno problemo?

Shortly after arriving at our hostel in San Agustin, and after filling the bike with fuel from the much needed gas station, we were told about the local football match that was about to kick off.

With nothing else to do that evening, we wandered down to the "stadium".
In a natural rock bowl the "crowd" ( a few hundred, but this was probably most of the town) was gathering. Cars and motorbikes were parked right next to the perimeter fence for a really close feel.

And this time it was the bike.

With perfect timing the bike died outside an hotel. I didn't know that it had until I came to move it to the car park an hour later. The ignition didn't even give a whimper. The man who I was meant to be following to the garage re-appeared as I was stripping the fairing to check the wiring.

It took longer to take the fairing off and replace it than i did to find and fix 2 loose wires. This may have been a record diagnose and fix time for me.

Why is it that you can spend ages choosing a good spot to get "that picture". The one that shows what a rufty tufty overland adventuring biker you are. Some nice gravel, rutted road, rocks and plenty of colour.

And then a little old lady comes round the corner on her scooter.

While sitting out the altitude sickness in Potosi we mulled over what to do and where to go next.

Which was a bit daft really, as we both knew where we wanted to go. The Salar De Uyuni.

Nearly 2 years ago we visited it in the wet season and were mesmerised by its beauty, surrealism, and tranquility.

The fuel can (OK, orange juice container) has finally been used.

Not because we are short of fuel, nor because there are no gas stations.

While we were having dinner with our friend Jorges back in Tarija, we talked about football as well as bikes.

I was interested to know how good Bolivian football was and how their leagues compared to the the rest of South American and the world.

Jorge explained the size of the leagues and how the team names did not always reflect the city. For example "The Strongest" is a team from La Paz and "Universitario" is from Sucre.

All the wings seem to have fallen off, maybe we should start praying....

The day started so well.

The sun was shining, the sky was a deep blue dotted with white fluffy clouds and lake Titicaca shimmered.

On Christmas eve we watched our bike fork seal being repaired on the roadside by the only bike 'mechanic' in town, with the aid of a hammer and screwdriver. General opinion was not to attempt the job ourselves, as we did not have the proper tools or workshop environment. We have plenty of screwdrivers, but obviously the big hammer was our missing specialist tool.

Then we saw Father Christmas ride past on his sledge while doing the samba (he speaks Spanish as well).On Christmas morning one guest cooked pancakes for everyone at breakfast and Santa left a goodie bag for each of us.