Bruce's Latest Blog - Patagonia

We finally arrived in Patagonia, via a 4 day cruise of the fjords seeing seals, whales, penguins and a glacier.

We decided to spend a few days camping in the Torres Del Paine NP.

The road in and out of the park is "ripio", hard packed gravel that is a step up from sand and soil.

Unfortunately a single road can be OK, or often they may be repairing sections of it, which means they pile a lot of soil up on the surface. And when you add rain it becomes what Jean now refers to as "Sh*tio"

The ripio has taken its toll, it may look smooth but it is corrugated with many bumps and pot holes. As we returned to Puerto Natales Jean mentioned that it felt different on the speed bumps, so I looked at her bike and noticed the rear shock was not at the right angle.

We managed to get the bike loaded onto a truck and taken the 240kms to Punta Arenas where we had located a man who turns out to be a suspension expert (Gonzalo of Motoescar).

He stripped the shock off and diagnosed it as a missing "pin", and told us the good news it was repairable. Thus saving us a *lot* of money and time.

As the shock is (in his words) "A cheap one", he has had to to drill a hole to release the gas so he could extract the shaft for repair.

Then he will add a gas bulb to the system.

We have been in Punta Arenas for 4 days now and have done every thing there is to see, including getting to the end of the paved road on the mainland.

We both felt it was fitting that the bike that has given the most trouble, and that at one point I did not think would get out of Mexico was the one to make it.

North beckons, hopefully we will be on the road again tomorrow.