Time. Before Christmas the Argentine Govenment decided that there was not enough electrcity to go round and so decide to step out of the time zone here and set up their own.
So... Many people in Argentina have not bothered to make the change, public clocks have not yet been altered. Chile just could not be less interested, some think it is plus an hour some minus. Result is that I really do not know what the time is and whats more important is that no one seems to care!!!
Christine´s French is really coming on well. What use to us that is I do not know but it keeps her happy.
Yesterday, the 13th. We had a rest day at San Martine and made the climb on the bike up to the nearby ski resort of Chapelco. We went straight up, right to 7000 feet ( to think that later we will be twice this height) and on the way came across a new feature on the unmade roads here. Up until now regardless of the surface the bridges have been okay but that stops here. We now have a new type of bridge which consist of three sets of planks, the two outer ones are for the trucks with one inner one for cars. These planks must be some six inches thick, eight inches wide and as long as they need to be.
Now in a vehicle with four wheels these present no problem but on a bike....... oh dear. Sometimes they are ten or perhaps fifteen feet long and placed end to end until they reach the other side but only too often they leave gaps in the middle, anything form two inches to a foot long. Now if the front wheel of the bike drops into these holes it could stop the bike or knock the steering to one side.
Normally you would then be brought to a stop and have to put a foot down but of course out there in nowhere but fresh air on which to place a foot it would be into the river one goes. So the method is to be brisk ( go for it ) and as a result not give the front wheel time to drop into the hole.
Now to do this kind of thing man has to be at one with his machine but this does not take into account the woman on the back!!!!
On the approach I can feel her tighten up, clenched buttocks, gritted teeth...... but over we go.
I tell her about man and machine,
She tells me that she is in fact a woman,
Whats the difference I ask.
She tells me it means that she has not got a willy and that means she does not like it.
But as time goes on she relaxes back into her normal mode and no more problems.
Still up to the top. This a really commercial ski resort and instead of communing with nature up in the wilds over coffee we have Roy Orbison crashing out ´Pretty Woman´ over the tannoy no doubt to keep the cool dudes who wear their trousers halfway down their backsides happy while they ski board down the slopes. Problem is there is no snow and no boarders.
We take a chairlift to the very top and under us there are cattle grazing on the green ski runs and then a herd of wild horses come rushing out from the trees, really silly like kids playing. There must be twenty in all, tails up across the slope and into the trees the other side, round and round the trees out again whoosh back to the other side. Wonderful to watch.
On the very top it is crystal clear, howling cold wind and sheer drops. It often puzzles me that I would happily ski down a slope that I would never in a thousand years walk down because the slope is too steep. Two sticks and two planks of wood surely cannot make that much difference.
Looking into the next valley is wonderous. The side are so steep and it is clear that there is no way in or out, these places must be fantastic sancturies for wildlife, man cannot set foot here for year after year. Whats more there are hundreds of these valleys, tree lined with small lakes surrounded by their protective walls.
We start down back into the commercial world, Christine wants to go down on the tobbogan, we have a yes/no conversation, she wins and down on the tobboggan for about a kilometre. Well it was not so bad, great in fact. We whizzz down like kids, mad as hatters. Back to town and bed.
14th St. Valentines. This is going to be a long day. Off at eight still dark, we fuel up and the sun eases up over the mountains. Its cold, very cold. Gale force winds are swooping down from the snow line. A few K and off the tarmac onto the dirt. We have a ferry to catch and two custom posts to get through first. One advantage of the wind is that it clears the dust fast. We climb into the rain forest which are damp and smell glorious, miles and miles we travel along lake sides up and down. The road surface is dire.
Many years ago the famous Inca king Ata Whatever must have given some of his lads a shovel and sent them out to keep the roads level. Well they must have got bored, they started to make various lines into the designs we now think must have been messages to spacemen, they drew on the roads spiders, monkeys, teddies, whatever took their fancy.
Today the decendants of these men still level the roads but now with industrial planers but they still make designs. Sometimes they produce deep ruts much like corrogated roofing, perhaps at right angles here, not so bad, or in stright lines, murder, or really bad at forty five degrees, a near death expirience on any bike. They then slake their boredom by watching us two going all over the place on our bike!!!! Still it keeps them happy I suppose and it must be better than just talking to the pack of dogs thast normally hang around with them.
And the spacemen? Well they must think that 'Its not like the old days'.
At last, customs, much as before. Paper paper paper. Stamp stamp stamp. Almost an hour, then we are to be searched by the drugs dog, a black Labrador.
Huh, he is useless.
He rolls over at our feet has his stomach tickled, nose rubbbed. The handler not so willing to role over and checks our papers, tells us we are not up to date and back in they go for more stamps. Bombomty bom.
You do not cheek the Custom guys and get away with it!!!!
Just some thoughts on leaving Argrentina. We have not seen much of this massive country and it clear that the east side is ordinary but the west against the Andes has been good, the people are very kind and the standards are good regards accommodation, food etc. We have liked what we have seen.
I have just slept for eight hours so...
Into the Chilean customs, there are some forty people here, all a bit edgy and the problem is simple, WHAT IS THE TIME?? The ferry goes at eleven, but is it now ten, eleven, or twelve? No one really knows.
Papers again as we re-import our bike into to Chile, we are told to relaxe as the ferry is only one K down the road, on the bike and off.
Oh those wicked wicked liars! It is in fact ten K. We arrive at the terminal, the terminal is where the landing craft type boat has run up onto the beach, cars have loaded on across the beach in reverse, can you see it, most people cannot reverse anyway but down hill over sand.... Wonderous chaos ha ha.
The ferry is sounding its hooter and we scramble on last, there are cars, bikes, boats, people, all laughing and perhaps some crying it cannot be described.
Two hours trip here there are no roads round this is the only way, coffee and buns were promised but the bar is closed. With this kind of scenery you do not need caffine.
We get talking to a Chilean guy here who went to an English school in Italy, university in the States, married a Belgium and who now works for an Argentinian Fuel company! International or what? He give us a good route out via thermal spas, tells us to look out for a hotel for lunch which is built in the form of an inverted pyramid, weird, and generally fills us in on Chile. A comment he made in a conversation not instigated by me was that Chile under Pinochet was not such a bad place. If you were not into politics!! He said that he thought the regime Chile was a much safer place than the States. He lived in the States and said the most scary thing there were the police!! Not the robbers. A thought.
One of the things we have noticed so far are no beggers and no graffitti. He tells us that in the big cities we will see some but it is not allowed, but more important the people themselves will not allow it. They do not want it, they would be mortified for their children to be involved and this social pressure works to date. Its what we allow not the rules that matter. Another thought.
Whoosh and the ferry rams itself up onto the beach. We decide to lunch in the shack nearby. Inside there are several versions of my mum cooking and serving. A menu on the wall, we will have please, no no, the menu is off!
So coffee served the Chilean way, big jugs of hot water a jar of coffee and a jar of sugar, this with jam rolly polly goes down really well.
As we sit here a park ranger joins us at the table, he is Malcolm Guyats brother, pipe an all!!
He is served with beef stew, hey the menu is off, oh no not if your a park ranger.
Back on the machine and off into an afternoon of incident.
We turn to the mountain pass, pretty rough this. It gets narrow and we climb and climb. In first gear now picking our way between the boulders, narrower still. The rain forest now encroaches on the road, we have cliff faces to our right and the road is some twelve feet wide. To our left a sheer drop, I want to say thousands of feet but it is merely two or three hundred down to the river bed below. I am really glad to be on the right hand side of the road here!!
There are mountains all around in the shape of sugar loafs, several thousand feet high and covered in trees.
Now I am growing concerned. This is the main road over but we have not seen a car for some forty minutes I am sure that we are lost.
Into a sharp right hander really narrow and rough, crawling, old clenched buttocks on the back is there again. Then towards us a taxi cab!!
'Senor, this way to Pucon?'
' Si Si.'
Down and down and then all of a sudden the river and the biggest bridge in the world. I reckon this one was built by Brunel himself. But it is in the middle of nowhere and approached on both sides by dirt tracks.
You can see it now.
'Hey we have a spare bridge here what do we do with it?'.
'That's okay I have just the place.'
A lot of Indian types here. They watch us pass, we wave but no response. All these people are really very pleasant but have the most deadpan faces ever. They make Bustert Keaton look animated!!
If you work on the kids hard you normally end up with a shy wave, buts that all.
T junction and we turn left onto a really very busy track. These are all holiday makers on their way to the thermal spas that are dotted around this area.
We come to a very steep down slope, one in three, we follow the car in front and we are now into the planer man again, half the road is closed and so we are now on eight foot of surface, the car in front clears the roadworks and a white 4x4 starts up towards us. Its not agression but it is reckess as there is only room for one vehicle. Christine waves him to stop but he keeps on until we are nose to nose. He then falls in. AH.
We are now forced into the the dirt bank and he squeezes by. All this at a dramatic one mph but on a one in three hard work. We now start off again and under my bottom I now have a large stone wedged, its fallen from the bank. I tell Christine and with me standing on the footrests she brushes the stone out. By the way, how long should that take, she seems to spend a long time down there!!
Twenty minutes down the track.
'Have you seen the camera?'
'No'
'I'm sure it was there, just under your...........'
That stone was the camera. We stop, Christine hops of and we now also find the back pack on the rear of the bike has also fallen. Across the exhaust!!! Dam dam dam.
The bag has melted as has much of the gear inside, including a large pot of very expensive cream. Its chaos in that bag!!
Sort out and back for the camera which we find intact. Amazing.
We need mental break and so into a spa for coffee.
I am also going to take a mental break at this point. We are having problems putting photos on at the moment. Many of these computers are locking us out so I will publish this with out and we will catch up soon.
