Yesterday morning begun at somewhat of a frantic pace. Dad’s phone was still set on Chilean time and apparently we learnt the hard way that Chilean daylight savings ended on saturday night, but here in the depths of Argentina it does not. So we wake up at our agreed time of 6:30 to be in the road well and truly by 7:30, and I look out the window and it seems brighter than usual.

I look at my watch and it is already 7:30. “ummm, Dad? Did you put our alarm an hour later, Because it is 7:30.” Needless to say we were in a flurry of packing and throwing down some croissants for a speedy breakky. Sculling hot coffee is not ideal, hear it from someone who learnt the hard way. It took us 33 minutes from when the alarm went off to when we drove past our hotel even AFTER going 2k’s down the road to fuel up. It is strange knowing that we were the last car on the road. Being at the back is not something I am use to 😛

Alas, we made it into Mendoza and to all the tests in plenty of time for our rest day today. Our distributor has been playing up today but Dad has diagnosed the problem and fixed everything in a few hours work.

More stunning canyons and exposed rock driving, everything is slowing getting greener as well which is nice. I’m going to have a mid-afternoon nap to try and recuperate and prepare for 11 days driving on the trot. Next stop, Ushuaia.

James

It is a bit embarrassing running out of fuel. Considering we can carry just over 200 liters for 1000km’s of range. We were light on fuel with 80k’s of range as we left thismorning and had instructions that fuel was at 60k’s and 30k’s after that. Well, the first gas station was non existent and Penny didn’t particularly like breathing on fumes and spat the dummy and decided not to drive any further. Good thing Traecy and Hayden in Lola, came to our rescue for our two beautiful cars had some roadside coitus. The Porsche dangling his fuel line into Penny’s receiving rear tank.

I am so sick of the desert. God damn it just won’t end. Seriously, hot and dry. I need a bit of cold or tropical rainforest to mix things up a bit. We had a slight break in Salta for a hundred k’s or so as we drove through a valley that regularly got thunderstorms, it was even green enough for grazing cattle.

We had slipped back to equal first position after not going quite fast enough on the track yesterday. Not to worry, in Patagonia we have lots of regularity sections and Dad and I are getting the hang of it, watch out, big gold trophy here we come!

I was walking out through the car park just before and heard Stanley (car 12) mumbling and grumbling from severe disappointment. His number 1 navigator had ruthlessly hacked his beard off at day 24 in a fit of rage. Paddy says that he can’t believe he lasted this long without shaving, everyone else suspects his better half Tania had something to do with it 🙂

Only Adrian and I are still in comp for the infamous beard-off.

More stunning driving today (albeit only for a short quirt) on graded gravel roads through some canyons with sheer drop offs on the river side. The cliff edges were thankfully on my side of the car so dad did have what he describes as ‘heart flutters’

when he deems my speed be in excess of what should be driven so close to a precarious precipice. We are now on day 24 and Dad’s midday nap count is at least to 30 something. Classic Dad.

Another solid day drive through the endless silly desert tomorrow and a rest day at Mendoza. Bulk piccies will ensue from there. Catchya then amigos!

James

I know I said I wouldn’t lapse in updates but internet was harder to find last night than rocking horse poop. Today will be an amalgamation of 2 days.

You would call me a liar if I told you more stuff fell from a truck we were following. I am many things, but I am not a liar. Yes, we were following a scrap metal truck and the basket from inside a washing machine fell from it and seemed to take a bee line for our only remaining headlight….. No, we didn’t collect it and I managed to do the 5 D’s – Dodge, dip, duck, dive and dodge – the washing machine innards.

How many people does it take to fix a broken Bentley? About 7 apparently! Hahaha just kidding, it wasn’t broken, but just running badly with fuel pump issues. Word on the street is the problem is somewhat fixed. Good stuff.

We left San Pedro de Atacama A.K.A San Ped-nowhere de desert, for the border at zero dark hundred and watched the sun rise over the Andes while we waited. Fairly speccy. New highest height recorded yesterday for Dad, Penny and I – 4834meters. There were 2 stops on the way up to that altitude yesterday to simply dig out more clothes to put on. Small lakes and puddles of water on the high plateau had ice at the edges. Coming down the other side of the range was pretty much the greatest drive of my life. It could have been better in a car with slightly more efficient brakes but it was still utterly spectacular. It was literally just switchback upon switchback for 1.5 vertical kilometers. Stats, 28 switchbacks in 23k’s of road to drop just under 2km’s of altitude. Second gear and heavy brake usage the ENTIRE way day. Kinda glad we didn’t have to slog our way up.

This morning was the opposite side of the scale in terms of driving. We got a special police escort from the Sheraton, Salta, to an unknown surprise location. And it was an unused racetrack!!!!! Yaaaaaayyyyy. Never driven a racetrack before so I was more than a little excited. 3 timed laps with 2 stop-go passage control things before high speed corners to prevent serious crashes. Each progressive lap I did I reduced lap time by about 5 seconds. Very happy with how it turned out and I’m not sure I could have asked more from Penny for the 2minutes 56 seconds she was shining.

Tonight our dinner is traditional Argentinean meat for dinner. And lots of it. Maybe I won’t need as much breakfast as per usual.

2 fairly big days to come, then a rest day in Mendoza. A wine region of something. Talk soon. Mucho gracias.

James

Right. Well. Update time. I’m not sure how to properly start or introduce this update apart from how stupidly lucky we are. Dad and I made it through by the skin of our teeth. Setting of the scene: Driving from one town in the middle of nothingness to a smaller town out near bum -(insert explicit word)-ville. Going up a steady hill about to overtake a truck on a straight portion of road (travelling a a sturdy 95kph) and then all of a sudden something fell off the back of the truck and bounced along the road. I instantly thought it was a stick of timber than just rolled off. This U.F.O. seemed a little bit under 1meter in length and had a very solid look about it. Turns out, it was the light bar that housed all the rear lights on a truck, and it was made out of 5mm plate steel and weighed just under 15 kilograms. Falls off the truck and bounces on the road, instantly going in any random direction after contact. I swerve and brake in every direction it WASN’T going and after bouncing 3 or 4 times I was on the other side of the road and still managed to hit it. Smashes into the front of us in a shower of glass and our windshield was getting sprayed with coolant. Ohhhhhhh shit….. This is not ideal. This is much much much less than ideal. This is actually the complete OPPOSITE of ideal. The truck driver was 100% unaware of what happened and kept driving, regardless of my single finger salute and symphony of horn blasting. The instant investigation of damage went from ‘catastrohpic terminal damage’ (from inside the car) to ‘by the ears of a llama this could have been much worse’ (pondering our predicament from the front).

The flying monstrosity of steel with the help of some devine sand-desert-gods managed to simply impale our CAV headlight (demolishing it more than standing on a coke can) and just flip up and sit in the well between our bonnet and front right mud guard. Only just dinting our radiator on the way over. The force on the radiator only pushed apart a lead solder join in the german

silver at the top and we lost less than 500mls of fluid. The hole was nothing a dab of Sika-flex Silicone couldn’t fix in an instant and after a bit of an ugly gooking job we were back in business. And now Penny just looks like she is winking at you, all the time. The saucy girl that she is.

So, dodged that bullet pretty well I suppose. Laminated glass would have done nothing to stop the flying javelin of steel tumbling into our pretty faces.

Tomorrow we dip into Argentina across the continental divide of the Andes. We leave the Chilean customs border control and then instead of a 100meter or so gap of no-mans-land to enter the next country, we actually drive 150km’s up and over the Andes before even entering Argentina. 150km’s of un-ruled and lawless driving. Huzzah! Can’t wait.

James