The Moped Diaries

Our efforts to leave Chile and continue our journey have been thwarted by the bad weather in the mountains. We set off yesterday through the snow but a few miles after we had labouriously fitted the snow chains our truck was sideways on the road and at severe risk of falling off a cliff.

Whilst waiting to be pulled out by the snow plough…..

we took refuge at a Chilean police checkpoint where the nice Chilean policeman had a lovely fire in their office. Unfortunately the nice Chilean policemen were miserable sods and wouldn´t let us in (something about dripping on the floor). They very kindly let us shelter outside in the three foot deep snow and sub-zero temperatures next to an abandoned border control building. We peered through the windows of this building and saw seats and an old wood burning stove. The temptation was too much and after picking locks, rearranging walls and selecting the smallest member of our group to fit through the hole we were inside making a fire.

Fortunately the police were too lazy to investigate the plume of smoke and steam rising from the old chimney and we escaped arrest in comfort until we were rescued several hours later. So now we are stuck in Chile (in a very nice holiday resort called Pucon) and will be attempting another border crossing into Argentina tomorrow in four wheel drive vehicles.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 23rd, 2007 at 9:20 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.