Trans Americas 2009 - The Blog

Border-crossing day, as we continue to follow the Dakar Rally's liaison route up and over the high mountain Paso de San Francisco and cross into Argentina for the first time (we'll be heading back into Chile in 3 days or so). As usual with long days like these, we're up early, packed and breakfasted and then out on the road in the early morning light. The road initially takes us out of El Salvador and up and over the mountains, dropping back down into the valley we rode up yesterday, then heading up a dirt road up and onto the Paso proper. The dirt road is in really excellent condition, being solid mud with little loose gravel and no muddy sections, making it more like smooth tarmac than the bone-shaking bowel-loosening dirt we're used to. As a result the group gets spread out, those that like a bit of speed and don't feel intimidated by the dirt blasting along stood up full of the joys of riding in such remote places... like Ozzy Andy, pictured below catching me up after I'd stopped to get some pictures...





The road twisted up the mountain and then went across the plateau, the surface just perfect for high-speed standing up riding, the cool early morning air refreshing as it flowed through my jacket, all my senses heightened by the sense of freedom and isolation. Riding alone for a while I realised there was nothing in front of me, and nothing behind, so I stopped for one of those perfect “lone rider” photo-pairs...








And so it continued all the way to the Chilean border post, where there were 3 large trucks being processed. No sooner had I arrived than I was joined by others (who must also have been motoring on the high-quality dirt), and we began the process of clearing ourselves and our bikes out of Chile. What's odd about this particular border post, though, is that it's not near the border. That's still some 70 miles away, marked by an inconspicuous police checkpoint where they check that you've got the necessary form from this post. One mistake and you'll be riding back 70 miles to correct it. With that in mind, we were double-checking everything before heading off once again. Once clear of the border post the road changed slightly, becoming more gravelly and therefore slower, and rising up and around more mountains as it gained height – reaching almost 4,800 metres at the highest point. Once again the scenery was stunning, with distant snow-capped mountains under a clear blue sky.





But the road had a couple of nasty surprises in store. First to encounter them was Nick, who caught a deep sandy patch on a small uphill section and lost control, going down hard on his ribs and wrenching his left wrist. When I came on the scene there were plenty of others stopped, all waving and telling me to keep left up the hill, where the sand wasn't so deep (but still deep enough to have the bike weaving this way and that). I stopped and walked back to see how things were, and Nick looked ok, just a little winded. I helped put up a marker to warn others of the deep sand, and then as there were so many people with Nick, carried on my way. A couple of the big trucks had passed whilst we were dealing with Nick, and so I had to negotiate my way round them to get clear air, the dust cloud they kicked up making reading the road impossible. Once in front, I carried on, my pace slowed a fair bit as a result of the unexpected sand patch that Nick had fallen victim to. Cresting one rise I saw the road in front looked good, but just as I started my descent I went into a deep sand-pit, my front wheel bucking one way and then the other, the bars going from lock to lock. Remembering my training, the only way to deal with sand is to keep the power on to lighten the front wheel and hopefully stop it tucking completely, so I accelerated, increasing my speed from the 35mph-ish I'd been doing. But the bars went lock-to-lock twice more and I knew I was in deep trouble as the sand was too deep and too long for me to ride through it. I went down hard, banging my head and knocking myself out. I don't remember anything else about the crash, until I was sat at the roadside asking what had happened, the actual crash seeming like a dream. I was pretty dazed for a little while until I pieced together what had happened, whilst Pertti and Nigel (who had been first on the scene and described seeing my bike cartwheel down the road in a cloud of dust) went looking for bits of my bike way back up the road where my troubles had started...





Looking at the photo it's hard to see the deep sand patch I rode into, on the left just below the brow of the hill and extending all the way down to where my panniers were placed. It must have been a good 6-8 inches deep and there's simply no way I could have ridden through it without coming off. My mistake was keeping to the right coming over the hill in case of oncoming traffic, putting me in the position most likely to be where the sand was, untouched by the wheels of other traffic. As well as knocking me senseless for a while, I'd also hurt my shoulder and ribs down my left side and my right thumb in the crash, but remarkably didn't have anything broken. That's more than can be said for the bike, though, as the screen and instrument panel was all damaged, the rear light cluster smashed, the pannier rails deformed and the top-box mount shattered. The panniers themselves had taken a beating too. Fortunately whilst I was still coming round, Nigel, Simon and Pertti had appeared and cleared all the debris, collecting together the bits from my bike and making sure I was safe and well.

When the van appeared, I was fully expecting to be loaded on board, bearing in mind the long day we still had to do, but Nick was inside looking decidedly unwell. He'd succumbed to shock and was pale and shaking, sat in the front with Karen and was being rushed to hospital the other side of the border. Jeff took one look at me and asked how I was “battered but ok” I replied, and he checked my bike over, to discover that the crash had loosened the brake banjo and I'd lost all my brake fluid and therefore my brakes. “Right”, said Jeff, “You're riding Nick's bike, this is going in the van” and with that he unloaded Nick's bike, loaded mine and sped off to get Nick the attention he needed.

For the next hour or so I crawled along the rest of the dirt road, with Richard (who'd stayed behind looking after Nick following his accident having been first on scene) and Pertti following me ready to pick me up if I fell again. Every unintentional movement of the bars caused by the rocks and ruts on the road were agony, sending sharp pain down my ribs and robbing me of breath. At 4,400m it was hard enough to breathe, without the added complication of painful ribs. At one stage I nearly lost it in a sandy pothole when following Gerald, who also went completely sideways, but we both stayed upright, the difference being he carried on whilst I had to stop for 5 minutes to regain my breathing. Finally I arrived at the Argentine border, where there was a pile of van-stuff and my bike stacked up by a pylon. Jeff, Karen and Nick had gone on to the hospital with one of the customs guys, but clearly couldn't take the goods into the country uncleared, so had been forced to unload them at the border. The rest of the group cleared their bikes and set off, whilst I cleared my bike despite it not being in a fit state to go anywhere unaided. The stories of carnage on the road kept coming – Al had been down and banged his foot, Jim had been down 4 times and badly sprained his ankle, and at least half a dozen others had been down at some stage, though thankfully without injury. Julia was questioning the wisdom of using the road, but Kevin said that when they'd come the same way in January there had been no sand, a sure sign of just how quickly these dirt roads can change their character. I sat whincing in the customs office wondering just how the hell I could have avoided the sand in the first place...

When everyone else had gone, Kevin and I waited for Jeff to return. Richard had kindly offered to take me pillion, so they could load Nick's and my bike in the van, but I felt able to ride and didn't want to miss any miles – getting all the way from Alaska to Argentina on a bike still the goal and I wasn't done with it yet. Whilst we sat outside in the cold, one of the customs guys came out and invited us into their common room. They get posted here for 30-day stretches, living in a little wooden house with a dorm-room and a common room attached to the customs post. It's a really desolate, isolated spot, but when they threw a large log into the fireplace and got the fire going, and handed us hot coffee it didn't seem so bad. Two of them were playing football on the Playstation, initially Argentina vs Brazil but when they realised we were English they switched to Argentina vs England whilst the captain asked Kevin (in Spanish) about where to visit with his family if he was to come to London. England won 2-0, so that was good.

Finally, Jeff appeared and we cleared Nick's bikes with his passport and they re-loaded mine into the van, together with the rest of the stuff, and we handed out DVDs and stickers and shook hands before leaving the customs guys to their lonely isolated existence.





Thankfully the road from the border was smooth tarmac, as it wound its way down the mountains back to where the air had some oxygen in it and I could breathe a little more easily. My aching body seemed to be more comfortable when on the bike, and it wasn't affecting my riding too much, except when I moved too quickly and whinced with pain, but I soon learnt to whince without it affecting my steering. It had been cold and going dark when we left the border, and as we dropped down from the mountains it went properly dark, but the temperature rose quickly and we had to stop to remove our warmer layers. The ride to Tinogasta seemed to take ages (it was 150 miles from the border), and I was very relieved when we finally pulled into the hotel car park and I could peel myself from Nick's bike. I was greeted by several others enquiring about my health, and I returned their questions asking about Nick. The news was good – he had recovered significantly on the way down the mountain, had been x-rayed in hospital and had nothing broken, but was still badly winded and suffering from bruised ribs. Once someone had helped me carry my bag to the room, once again devoid of Jim who'd been given a room to himself by a kindly woman running the hotel on account of his ankle, I changed as quickly as I could (not very quickly at all) and joined Kevin, Julia and Jeff for dinner. We walked (I hobbled) to a restaurant in the square a couple of blocks from the hotel and ordered steak (this being Argentina after all) and a beer. The beer came and went, but the steak took over an hour, by which time I was going downhill and feeling crap, a combination of the hard day's ride, the pain and the heat sapping me of energy. Finally the steak came and I managed to eat some of it, then we paid up and left, getting back to the hotel and my much-needed bed at 12.30am... I'd got a couple of strong painkillers from Kevin to help me sleep, so took one and laid flat on my back, the only position I could bear, and fell asleep...