Concepcion

We had some discussion about whether we should alter our route in the light of recent events, namely the earthquake, and the potential dangers and difficulties it still presented. We were also very keen not to become disaster-tourists or whatever the phrase might be; voyeurs of others' misfortune. We decided that we would be in little danger and therefore not present a liability to ourselves or others (any more than normal, that is) and that since Concepcion and Santiago were on our original route and that the earthquake is perhaps the most significant event to have occurred along the Panamerican in recent years, and that the Panamerican was open again, it would be quite acceptable to go and see the aftermath for ourselves. We also had friends in Concepcion's neighbouring town of San Pedro who warmly welcomed us.


Prior to heading on to Concepcion we spent 2 nights in the university town of Valdivia. This gave us time for a routine service on the car and to have a bit of a break from the road. Valdivia felt the earthquake and still suffered aftershocks along with powercuts and phone and internet outages. We stayed in hostels in Valdivia and unhappy with the first stumbled upon a second hostel which although full was blessed with the most hospitable and helpful owner, Eliana Solis. Eliana arranged accommodation for us at a friend's equally agreeable hostel across town. She then treated us to a pot of tea as she explained some of the background of the town as well telling us about the recent earthquake; she had been in Valdivia at the time of the 1960 earthquake.

We moved on to Concepcion after our second night in Valdiva and arrived late in the evening. I guess it hasn't escaped your attention that a rather large earthquake hit Chile at 0334 on 27 Feb. It measured 8.8 on the Richter Scale, making it the third largest earthquake ever recorded. It also lasted around 3 minutes, making it the longest-lasting major quake recorded to date. Pretty powerful stuff. Especially when you remember that the Richter Scale is logarithmic, meaning a 2 is ten times more sever than a 1. Haiti was hit with a 7, meaning this ground-shaker was almost 20 times more powerful. What is amazing is how the country has coped with such a disaster. They learned their lessons after the 1960 hit and the majority of the infrastructure has not been badly damaged. Of course there were buildings and bridges that did collapse with the tragic loss of more than 400 lives. Some of the smaller towns along the coast from the epicentre (which was around 5km out to sea from Conception), including the surf mecca of Pichilemu were totaled by tsunamis; we gave it a miss so our surf boards remain untouched by the sea.

I think the most depressing and tragic aspect of this disaster is how people responded to what happened. Power was knocked out for quite some time and obviously the emergency services were stretched to capacity. Rather than coming together and uniting in an effort to sort things out and help the needy (of course there were many who did just this), people took to the streets and within 48 hours of the quake looting was widespread and lawlessness prevailed. And before you say well of course people will loot, they need food and water, those basic supplies were left untouched. As I said, Chile is used to earthquakes. It sits on a major fault line where the Pacific plate is being pushed down under the South American/Atlantic plate which gives rise to the Andes mountain range (see, there was a need to remember all about plate tectonics in GCSE Geography after all!) and thus can get its people emergency supplies when called upon. What was being looted were things like TVs, computers, microwaves. One guy was seen running down the street with a bacon slicer he'd nicked from a supermarket. To me this really exemplified the ugly side to humanity. The upshot of this woeful behaviour was that the emergency services had to be diverted from dealing with the quake to looting and riot control. The military had to be called in, which was a very difficult decision for the outgoing president Michelle Barchalette: think back to the '70s and 80's and a certain chap called Pinochet to get an idea of the average Chilean's perception of watching men in uniform carrying automatic rifles patrolling the streets again. See what I mean?


That said, by the time we pitched up to San Pedro (which lies the other side of the river to Conception) to be hosted by Ben and Kez, things were pretty much back to normal. Ben is a friend of Tim's who had only moved to San Pedro with his girlfriend Kez a couple of weeks before the earthquake. Some welcome! Ben and Kez are both teachers at the nearby English school, although the quake has delayed the kids in returning to class after their summer holls. For the past couple of weeks aftershocks have rippled through the region. They only last a few seconds, but some have been up on around the 6 and 7 mark. Aftershocks?? Not in my book! They’re bloomin’ proper quakes! Ben was quick to tell me to stop being such a wuss. Which is fine if you’re now quake-proofed, but I can tell you that in a 9th floor apartment a little tremor (this one was around a 4.5) feels rather scary. Especially when one is in the bathroom perched upon the porcelain throne at the time!


While Ben and Kez attended staff meetings at the school, we took the opportunity to drive across the bridge to Conception to see for ourselves what happened. The main road bridge has collapsed where it meets the Conception bank, so we found ourselves exiting over a military Bailey bridge. To be honest, the majority of the town looked pretty normal. There were a few cracks in the road here and there, some diversions in place, rendering and tiles fallen away from buildings and the odd small pile of rubble dotted about the place. One building, however, did catch our attention. It was a 15-story apartment block that has just been finished, fallen on its side and snapped in two. A classic example of construction firms cutting corners? Ummm, what do you think?? We stopped off to take a closer look (come on, it's not often you get to see a building snapped in two is it?). 'Hey, is that an English car? Where you guys from?' came a North-American-accented voice from over my shoulder as I was framing up a shot to film. Turning round I saw a guy with a hard-hat and hi-viz vest on, clutching boom-mic and sound recording gear. 'Umm, yeah, hi,' I said, 'we're from England too. On a roadtrip. Where are you from?' 'I'm Canadian, my name's Dave," he beamed extending a hand to shake, 'from the Discovery Channel. We're filming a program on why some buildings fall over in earthquakes and other don't.' With a wry smile he nodded over to the apartment block next door, twice the size and twice the age as the one lying before us, with not a crack to be seen. 'Think you've found yourselves a pretty good location, then?' "Right on!"

Volcanoes, Condors & Why Barry Is Not A Rally Car

What the road from Chile Chico to Chaiten lacks in asphalt it more than makes up for in scenery. It's twisting gravel surface both meanders and thrusts its way through by far the most breathtaking landscapes we've seen so far. When its steep it's steep and when it turns it provides little purchase and vertiginous drops. Barry, Barry White or The Baroness Eugene White if you're not into brevity, was made for this. Three blokes, two fuel tanks, and more kit than is strictly necessary is not a problem for our faithful friend. It's quite clear that we are the weak link in this chain but more on that later.


Meanwhile, join us as we leave windblown Chile Chico, refreshed by our morning shower (courtesy of a mountain waterfall) and bouyed by our latest successful border crossing as we skirt round the shores of Lake Argentina. The choppy waters lapped the severe shores as we covered the rocky ground and wound our way past its parched but hardy vegetation. The road climbed away from the lake and into the folds of snow-toppped mountains before bringing us back down to the azure waters of a glacial lake and a place to sleep. The following day we continued along the Carrera Austral around its tight hairpins and up its steep climbs; The Baroness always a match for the conditions. A tyre blow out, caused by a mixture of conditions and tyre age and wear (driver error has been ruled out because I'm writing this blog post), slightly delayed our progress and precipitated the purchase of 2 brand new tyres in Coyhaique; a charming centre of civilisation and off-road vehicles in Chilean Patagonia. We then headed on into almost subtropical forests where snowcapped peaks stood incongruously in the distance.

Barry Doesn't Rhyme With Rally

This is where we come to the part about weak links. Now, a 20 year old Toyota Landcruiser is not a rally car. It has a large and powerful 4 litre diesel engine which sings with a deep throaty purr, a large, robust chassis suspended on equally sturdy suspension and an 80s style paint job. She currently weighs about 3.5 tons. The alabaster beast is the vehicular equivalent of Barry White and whilst no doubt Barry White was never a big cross country runner I'm sure he had staying power of one sort or another. And so it is with the Baroness. Off-road she's a cut above the rest. In 4WD in low gears she'll eat up most things you find out there in the way the real Mr White probably literally did. But could you imagine the late great Mr White take a corner at top speed on an uneven and gravel strewn surface without things getting a little out-of-shape? Well, apparently Tim could. I'll give you this: she will perform a neutral 4-wheel slide on a loose surface but such things require a driver with far more than 5 minutes' driving experience. Young Fossey has about 6 minutes. Young Fossey is lucky he's still allowed to drive. Barry isn't going Rally driving again.

Chaiten

With all happy and relieved to be alive, we took 10 minutes out to watch Condors soar on the wind seemingly just out of reach - seriously they were very close. That night, as dusk was falling, we rolled into what can only be described as a ghost-town. Chaiten sits on Chile's Pacific coast in the shadow of an active volcano. The ash of that volcano lines the streets and the inhabitants of those streets are gone. The eruption occured 2 years ago and whilst the town was not hit by the lava and thankfully no-one was killed, subsequent rains inundated the town with copious amounts of the ash produced in the form of a highly viscous mud. The towns-folk fled and have largely remained away. This entire episode was unbeknownst to us and as we entered this erie town in the near dark it was with a certain trepidation. Our chief concern however was to find the ferry port and to establish when the ferry would leave and how we could get on it. This was our link with the north and the next stretch of the Panamerican. We found the ferry ramp but typically no timetable or indeed any information about the ferry or how to get a ticket to get on it. We hoped the morning would provide answers so we set up camp on a nearby beach and warmed ourselves around a campfire.

In the morning, as we struck camp, dolphins swam past us along the shore. They couldn't appreciate our land-locked dilemma. Fortunately we found the ticket office and bought tickets for the following evening's ferry since that morning's was full. We then watched a half-empty ferry leave; funny and frustrating in equal measure. We had tried to persuade various parties to let us on the boat but in this part of the world the document is king and we had tickets for the next day.

Very Cross Borders

It is an art, we’ve discovered, moving from one country into the next. This may not at first be obvious, particularly as back in the UK driving over to the continent is as simple and easy as pie due to the ever-so co-operative nature that exists between EU member states. Not so out here. And in particular not so when you are three Englishmen driving an English car. It is at national borders where the enormity of South American bureaucracy is realised and the unprepared can be left high and dry. Unprepared we were not, and the first three times we moved from Argentina into Chile and vice versa proved to be relatively painless (except when we tried to bluff the Chilean customs bloke at San Sebastian on Tierra Del Fuego than we had no food – see previous blog post for full, embarrassing details). We intended to cross for the final time into Chile at Paso Rodolfo Raballos which is about 70km south of Lagos Argentina.

It was going to be a cunning hop across the border as we would have been able to shortcut a massive loop round the Lago Jeinimeni National Reserve while taking in some awesome roads. By the time we arrived at the Argentinean border post it was dark. We had been driving for the past few hours on twisty singletrack, through mountain passes with not a yard of tarmac in sight, let alone any buildings. The small wooden collection of huts that greeted us really did look like some outpost to the final frontier in a western movie. We exchanged all paperwork with the one somewhat bored looking Argentinean officer before the gate was lifted and off we set into no-man’s-land.

A kilometre or so later the lights of the Chilean control post began to twinkle up ahead and soon we were standing in another wooden cabin scribbling out now familiar bits of seemingly unnecessary paperwork. “Where is your car from?” asks the officer. “England,” we reply. “The steering wheel. Is it on the right?” he enquires, to which we nod in conformation. We then hear those four horribly frustrating words. “There is a problem”. What problem? How could there possibly be a problem? We’ve crossed into Chile three times before with no problem. What now? The officer sighs and tells us that it is illegal to drive a right-hand-drive vehicle in Chile. Eh??? To prove his point he prints off some scanned memo dated 2005 with something to that effect. This guy ain’t budging. So we’re stuck, 10.30 at night in the middle of nowhere, with exit stamps from Argentina in our passports and being refused entry into Chile. Great. The officer leans back in his chair. “There is nothing I can do. You have to go away.” Sh*@±ar*et?tsb^l%cks!!! Despondently we turn the car about and pick our war back to the Argentine border. The same Argentine officer as before, looking somewhat confused, greeted us. He called for his Capitan and soon there were five officials and the three of us crammed into the office. The senior offer, an amiable chap in his uniform but with his boots off, padding around in his socks and ok with the fact we’d clearly disturbed his TV-time, took charge he even got on the radio to the Chilean jobsworth to ask what was going on, but to no avail. What he did suggest was to take the road north, hand-railing the border and try the crossing into Chile Chico. “There are more tourists crossing there,” he said, “so they will probably be more busy and not bothered to check!” Sweet! We waved them all goodbye, pointed our car north, drove a couple of k’s and camped down for the night on a dried-up mountain lake-bed. The next day we zipped into Chile unhindered. If you’re reading this, Mr Chilean-spotter-anal-border-guard, HA! IN YOUR FACE!!!!

Ferries, Penguins and Border Crossings – Ushuaia to Chilean Patagonia

Apologies for leaving you all stranded at the end of the world but intermittent internet access is to blame...honest.

We spent a couple of nights in Ushuaia and then turned the Baroness north to begin our long hike to Alaska. We left Ushuaia a little later than planned having decided to get the ball rolling on filming the initial scenes of "ThisRoad the movie". ( The video will be blog-bound as soon as we come to an unlikely agreement on the backing track) Having knocked up some impressive distances cruising down the painfully straight Argentinian Ruta 3 "motorway", we felt we could cover the relatively short distance to the eastern coast of Tierra del Fuego pretty quickly, but the combination of a delayed start, filming, roads with actual bends and a slight run in with Chilean immigration meant we arrived long after dark (Tierra del Fuego is split into the Chilean west and Argentinian east so you cross into Chile before catching a ferry to the mainland). As the ferry was not until the next day (we assumed as we haven't seen a timetable since Heathrow) we camped down by the bay a little out of town.

Anyway, what run in with the Chilean immigration I hear you ask.... Particularly Chile, but also Argentina, have decided to combat the spread of dangerous bacteria by operating a zero tolerance policy against, fruit, meat and lettuce. All the previous checkpoints and borders we had passed through had never bothered to search our car and had indeed okayed various meat, fruit and veg so we assumed we'd get the same treatment this time and happily signed our declarations and then told the guard due to search are car that we were free of undesirables. At which point he asked us to open our fridge, which was a blow. Having since had time to properly read through which food items are banned I can quite confidently say that the whole bunch were present and incriminatingly correct, which, probably with some justification, el Chilean customs muchacho took umbridge with. Having been the one to boldfacedly lie to him I was marched back to immigration and accosted for my duplicity. However, we did have one (not completely unplanned) saving grace. I'd lied in Spanish. Conveniently all my Spanish left me and I explained in English that I hadn't understood the question. Thankfully they simply decided to make me sign a declaration saying that I did have fruit and veg (although this was no longer true since they had relieved us of them) and handed me a leaflet explaining the evils of taking food into Chile; spread of foot and mouth, transportation of little bacteria and beasties etc. They don’t see fit to spray your car for such threats but we are clearly in no place to point fingers.

The following day we rose early and trundled down to the ferry port to see when and if the ferry was departing for the mainland. Our first ferry trip towards the end of our marathon drive to Ushuaia had been pretty fortuitous, as having rocked up to the port at 1’o’clock in the morning we’d simply joined an already waiting stream of cars. This time there were no cars, no people, no information and only the vaguest indication that ferrys ever frequented the area. Our ever improving pigeon Spanish came to the rescue, discerning that there was in fact a ferry arriving at 11am. One of our continual little gripes about the helpful locals though is their inability to see the bigger picture. This chap had kindly answered that it arrived at 11am, and took 2 hours to reach Punta Arenas. We (I) had admittedly failed to ask when it left, but really you would hope at that stage that he might have inferred that that little nugget of information might be right up our strasse. Anyway we boarded the 3pm (departing) ferry and spent the two hours updating our journals and starting across the incredibly flat sea. A pod, school or potentially gaggle of dolphins kept us company for a while and, confident that little now stood in our way on our drive to the top of South America, our spirits soared.

Punta Arenas was our first taste of a proper Chilean city and it was perceptibly cleaner and more Western looking than Argentina. The downtown area was still relatively small but there were a good few bars and restaurants to keep us occupied. The next morning we paid a visit to the city cemetery, where the graves range from fairly typical to incredibly ornate tombs for the richer families. They also had beautiful tombs for their police and firemen. It was very calming and humbling to walk among the shrines and a lovely place to reflect on the trip so far. And we were almost completely reverent and respectful, except for when Tom pointed the camera at us, at which point we morphed into grounded but still flapping angels. Apologies.

After our brush with death we headed north to Punta Natales, via Los Penguinos! It is a genuine fact that penguins are the coolest creatures on earth and we were all incredibly excited to go chill out in their manor. These little super stars had arrived in October / November to begin breeding (they only come as couples) and, with their young finally old enough to take to the seas proper, were two weeks away from migrating north to Brazil (Apparently where Happy Feet gets it’s Samba influence).

That night we stayed in the quiet but pretty Punta Natales and then shot on to Chile’s most famous national park, Torres del Paine (The blue towers) for some luxury camping and car repairs. The park itself is absolutely spectacular. The lakes have been formed by a receding glacier and, according to the guide, the way the sediment particles are suspended in glacier melt makes them a strikingly, opaque turquoise colour that captures the sunlight magnificently. The mountains surrounding the lakes are also hauntingly blue and this gives the whole landscape a beautifully tranquil, almost fantasy feel. Our final night there we brought ourselves back to earth with our first (of no doubt many) all steak barbeques, with a little (a lot) vino tinto under a star-packed night sky.

12 Days On This Road: Time For a Photo Montage

It's been 12 days since we started the Tierre del Fuego to Alaska stage of the trip so we thought we would share those dozen days in picture form. Fear not: The verbal will return shortly.

All Journeys Have a Beginning	Good Things Come to Those Who Wait - Leaving Tierre del Fuego
Punta Arenas Cemetry	Penguins
The Open [and Endless] Road	Tim Gives You: Torres del Paine National Park
Dusk Falls: The Jagged Torres Stand Silent	Lomo
The Star of The Team	The Road Beckons
Ice Ice Baby	This Thing Doesn't Drive Itself
Free Showers	Upon Closer Inspection We Deemed The Tyre Unserviceable
This Road is in Chile	Chaiten: Ghost Town