Babs’ travels -The Peking to Paris Rally and other driving adventures.

A rather unfortunate name. Wifi, in this tiny town, is very sporadic and weak so a short post, sans pics, will have to do. A simply marvellous day. Stupendous views and not boring at all. Still empty, vast, desolate but beautiful, just unbelievably beautiful. We met, on this lonely road, a lovely, international group of chaps who are taking three months to ride motorcycles from Alaska to Ushuaia. What a journey. Their leader, who has ridden through Patagonia 10 times told us that he had never known the weather to be so good. Usually, the famed Patagonian wind is almost knocking their bikes over. Today was warm, the cloudless sky azure and there was barely a breath of wind. Blessed indeed. Critters spotted: A few sheep A couple of cows 1,435 guanacos (Patagonian llamas) Several dozen Rheas 2 flamingoes A splendid silver foxy gentleman A condor - yes folks, we saw a condor today! All cars are safely in as I write, the only causality is an organisation Jeep wh...

Patagonia, for me and for many of my fellow rallyists, has been almost a byword for romance, beauty and far flung isolation. In truth, from what we have encountered so far, Patagonia is: Unbelievable vastness Desolate, oh so desolate Often stunning Often dull beyond belief Has stupendous skies Empty, empty, empty So flat sometimes that you half expect to drop off the end of the world into the abyss. Ruta 40 is the iconic road that runs the whole length of this massive country and here, in Patagonia, it is pretty much the only road apart from tracks off it to even more remote areas. We encountered almost no traffic, some alpaca type things, sheep, birds including two flamingoes spied by your ridiculously thrilled correspondent today and two silver foxes. Parts were outrageously beautiful but mostly empty desolation was our main impression and there is still so much of it to go. We are staying in a variety of accommodation tonight in the tin...

A wonderful journey today. We left the lakes behind and entered proper Patagonia. Mountains and lakes gave way to pampa and then to steppe. Bleak but beautiful steppe, wild, remote and rather fabulous. About 8 miles north of a tiny town; Chilila, we made a slight detour to look at the homestead that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, along with Etta Place, lived in for around three years before going on the run, yet again, to Bolivia where they met their end. At least the men did, Etta's fate is a little unknown. Whilst researching the homestead, I read that the owners, in 2006, had ruined it by replacing much of the timber with orange pine. We nearly didn't go fearing a travesty. In the end, we were so close we went anyway. It seemed rather foolish not to. We loved it! There was no one there and we only found it because I knew roughly where it was and I recognised it from a photo I had seen online. It was off the road by about a kilometre and there wasn't a ...

Chris and Mark have just arrived.. So much for my anguished waiting. Ace mechanic Charlie fixed their cylinder head gasket by the side of the road whilst Chris went fishing and caught two fish! Good news indeed!

As usual, it was a 6.30 start again this morning. The latest incarnation of car #7 had a heavy load of 5 passengers and a ton of luggage, but what a jolly crew we were. The border formalities were very swift and, on the Argentinean side, the was a very welcome log fire - it was freezing. The open cars occupants were bundled up in sheepskin and other varieties of fur and many, many layers, but still they were cold. The Argentinean immigration official was totally charming and, in perfect English, he told me that he would love to visit our country one day. He thought we had reached the zenith in music, literature and cars. He told me he was not going to talk about the politics of his country! We have been travelling through the Argentinean Lake District - not quite like the Lake District in GB; fewer sheep for a start and more volcanoes. All beautiful and there were lots of 'oohs' and 'wows' and 'look at that's' from car #7. Our home for the night ...

Normal positions were resumed today. Adrian driving and me navigating = harmony! Today we made our way to Pucon, a really pretty little place on a sparkling lake with a wonderful volcano looming over it. For me, by far the most interesting thing about this place is that the snow covered volcano is around 6,000 feet LOWER than we have driven so far on this rally. Did you get that? 6,000 feet! The Hertz crews were all on a mission today so, instead of taking the prettier rally route, we bombed down the PanAmerican to save time. Reason? We all had to change our cars at Hertz, for some unknown reason. The Godwin/Ayre crew were able to collect a new vehicle to take the a s far as Punta Arenas where they will stay the night before flying to Ushuaia. The Ramao D'Sousa crew will travel with us tomorrow to Bariloche where they will pick up a car that they can keep until Ushuaia. The Reddington crew will pick up a vehicle through Avis in Bariloche that they can take to Ushuaia...

The border formalities between Argentina and Chile were fairly straightforward. The main concern the authorities had was taking fruit across. Most cars had a labrador doing a thorough search inside and out, we only had a cursory check though, must have been our Chilean plates. Adrian declared our ham and cheese sandwiches on the form as meat and cheese are prohibited, but they didn't have to be blown up or anything and the dog didn't eat them. We're so law abiding! We came across massive road works and were held up for ages just across the border. They are widening a very impressive road a practically vertical drop with around 30 hairpin bends. Some of the lorries in the queue with us are probably still there. The rest of the journey was uneventful until, as we were coming in Santiago, the driver made a unilateral navigational decision, against advice and got us lost. Luckily, the navigator was able to get us to the hotel, eventually. Actually, most crews got a l...