Preparing for the end of the world

Rodrigo is a quiet, friendly Chilean biker from Concepcion. Whilst patiently waiting for the tyres to be replaced on his BMW GS, he asks me my planned route to Ushuaia after Santiago. Despite my appalling Spanish I manage to explain and all is well until I mention taking the ferry from the island of Chiloe in the south of Chile, to the town of Chaiten to start down the long road called Carretera Austral (southern highway). He tells me Chaiten is "gone". It was destroyed by a volcano and the road there is impassable. All the people fled. Rodrigo's identical-GS-riding friend nods vigourously and when I produce a map of Patagonia, they help me find a route with lots of scenery, avoiding the problem. I love Chilean people.

I'd left Copiapo and headed south towards Santiago, but having read of a Suzuki repair centre in Vina Del Mar on the coast, I decided that would make more sense than asking around in a city the size of Santiago for a dealership. South of Copiapo the Atacama desert finally started to give way to greenery again. It had been almost a thousand miles, 1600 kilometers of sand and nothing else since crossing into Chile from Peru. A desert longer than the United Kingdom... no birds, no trees and about enough people to fill a small Bermondsey housing estate. I couldn't imagine living in Arica in the north and having relatives in Santiago. The transition was interesting, first grasses, then shrubs, some wildflowers and a few butterflies. Finally trees, and just north of Vina the first of the famous Chilean vineyards.

Vina Del Mar finally came into sight as the sun was sinking into the Pacific Ocean on Friday evening. It had been the second longest day of the trip, just under 800km, and both butt cheeks had long since gone completely numb. I'd been yawning all afternoon, maybe the tiring ride but I seem to have struggled ever since going forward two hours at the border. The first three hotels I tried were all either truly booked or their staff didn't like the look of the scruffy biker :) But finally I found a place and crashed out. On Saturday I wandered up to the Suzuki dealer and found out that they don't do servicing on the weekend, so I probably needn't have rushed down to Vina. Sunday was spent chatting to a guy in the hotel who hopes to be an English teacher one day. He told me of a place on the Chiloe peninsula where an earthquake drained all the water from a lake, leaving all the boats in it stuck at weird angles in the ground. I added Chiloe to the visit list.

I'd agreed with Matias, an English-speaking guy at the Suzuki garage that I would return at 9am on Monday morning for the service, and he was waiting for me when I arrived. It turned out the service would need to be all day, so my plans to head for Santiago afterwards were dashed. Matias, however, was superb and offered to drive me to an hotel in the area. I checked in, dumped my bags and told Matias I would be back to check on the bike at 6pm.

I was sitting in the hotel cafe when an elderly lady walked in. She went to the front desk and started asking them questions, but no one there spoke English, and the lady didn't speak any Spanish at all. The receptionist kept looking imploringly at me, and not knowing what else to do I offered to try to translate.

Viera it turned out, was Canadian but originally from Czechoslovakia. She'd been part of a big organised tour round South America, but when it came time to go back to Vancouver, she'd said no thanks! She'd been wandering around Vina and had seen the hotel - which was called Hotel Vancouver - so she wandered in. I liked her straight away, but boy could she talk :) It was very obvious she hadn't had any English conversation in a while anyway. Over the next hour or so, I learned about Vancouver past and present, the Sunshine Coast and what it was like to flee Czechoslovakia during the Russian invasion. And unbelievably, I ordered her coffee, and arranged her accomodation for several weeks. I guess compared to her strong accented English, my bad Spanish was easy to interpret!

When I got back to the bike, it was short the necessary spark plugs but the service was ninety percent complete. I was assured they would arrive the following morning, so I said I'd be back at 11am and then I would hopefully have time to head to Santiago. Tuesday morning was spent trying to fix the hotel Internet and chatting to Viera and a Scottish Australian I'd met called Frank, who was in Vina looking for a place to live. When I finally got to the garage, the plugs were sorted but the back brake was leaking fluid and felt spongey. If the brake didn't stop the bike on it's own, I wouldn't like to be on board with all the luggage at 100 kph! Fortunately the garage managed to sort the problem and I was soon able to leave. Matias had been kind enough to download Google Earth and show me the route I needed to a dealer in Santiago for a new chain, and some replacement tyres, so I left Vina actually knowing where I was going for once :)

The road to Santiago was only an hour or so, passing vineyards and through tunnels in mountains. I followed the directions Matias gave me and passing up a wide street I saw a Kawasaki dealership that had Metzeler tyres in stock, so I thought I'd at least get the tyres sorted and then look for the Suzuki dealer. Everything was going far too well, the shop had two sets of the tyres I wanted in the size I needed. They even had a replacement chain. The gear was stacked up on the counter and I produced my credit card, to be told cash only. I politely pointed out the large VISA sign on the front door, which was only there for decoration apparently. I didn't have anywhere near that sort of cash on me, so the next hour was spent trawling around for ATMs in the area. Having finally paid for everything, I then had to take the tyres to another shop to get them fitted, at additional cost. However it was whilst there that I bumped into Rodrigo and his friend, and another guy on a TDM900 who spoke a little English, and we all had a good chat over my map, which was soon scrawled all over :) . The guys even wrote the name of their bike dealer friend in Ushuaia, which might well come in handy. It became clear though that they thought my tyre choice, Metzeler Karoo trail tyres, was a bad one. They told me that Ruta 40 in Argentina was madness on my own and along with the closed Carretera Austral, not a lot of the route would be gravel. Plus the tyres would only last 5000km, not so much wearing out as unwinding ;) The Trailwing road tyres that were just being thrown in the bin had been punctured and still covered 18,000km.

I also met a chap named Harold who worked for Motorex oils. He was stunned I'd never heard of them - especially as they sponsor UK racing bikes - but impressed I was more than 30,000 km from Alaska on a Suzuki VStrom. He said that a lot of people do the trip on BMWs, but none on VStroms, and he took pictures of me posing with the bike, trying not to look embarrassed. He said he would send them to Suzuki Chile as they would be interested! The bike is a great advert for Suzuki, so far it has been marvellous.

Finally at around 6pm I loaded up the bike with luggage and spare tyres and headed off, with great directions from Harold, to the Suzuki dealer. I found it straight away and they promised that they would be able to fit the chain tomorrow morning, as well as repair the bar end I lost and finally replace my broken windshield. I only had to ride two blocks to a hotel Harold recommended, but in that time I got a lot of stares from passers by. The spare tyres strapped on obviously make me look a bit hardcore, a bit Dakar Rally. Or stupid, one of the two ;)

Frase.