We based ourselves in Santiago for five nights to give us time to rest and, more importantly, get the bike serviced. Warning lights were popping up everywhere.

Thankfully the BMW garage was very helpful and accommodated us at short notice. The bike was ready the following day, washed and polished. It now looks better than we do! Well better than I do at least – Susan managed to dye her hair in Santiago so she’s looking as fresh as the bike!

In addition to the usual service maintenance, the tyres were replaced, the rear brake pads were changed as they were critically low and air was bled out the brake system.

The bike now feels as if it can stop in half the distance it did before we arrived in Santiago. That’s just as well because we have been eating rather unhealthily for a few days in Santiago and the bike will be carrying a little bit more weight than usual.

Have a look at this bad boy hot dog.

It’s the ‘famous’ Santiago ‘Italiano hot dog’ with a dog, chopped tomatoes, avocados and sour cream. It’s incredibly popular- everywhere you look someone has one of these in their gob. And believe me this seven incher is the wee boy’s size and I felt inadequate compared to a girl who was tackling a 14 incher. Fair play I thought.

What does it taste like? It’s kind of a squidgy mess dominated by the sour cream. I have no idea why they are so popular.

Of course, I’m not the only one to indulge. Only this morning Susan was having pizza for breakfast. She often sets a standard that sometimes I find hard to follow. Fair play I thought.

Now Santiago is a nice city but it’s still suffering from the consequences of the 2019 riots when many city centre businesses were destroyed. Even today its estimated that 30-40% of businesses are closed and much of the city centre is abandoned and vandalised.

Whilst the unrest was triggered by a 4% rise in subway fares in Santiago, the country has huge underlying economic issues. Although Chile has a stable, prosperous economy it also has the highest rate of income inequality of all the wealthiest nations in the world.

Chile’s elite families, 0.1% of the total population, are an endogamous group of power players, hidden from public scrutiny. They own the banks, insurance companies, mining companies (the core of Chile’s economy) football clubs, forestry and big media companies.

Price fixing between companies is endemic throughout economy. The most famous of cases that have recently come to light is the bum deal Chileans were getting on toilet paper. For ten years two companies formed a cartel to control and inflate the price of toilet paper! And guess who controls these companies? Yes the wealthiest and most powerful families in Chile. Was anyone prosecuted? Well, what do you think?

Essentially, the money is in the hands of the wealthy few and education, health and welfare are seriously underfunded. Against this background of discontent, the rise in subway fares was enough to trigger the protests.

One of the days we were in Santiago was an anniversary of the riots. Shops, bars and restaurants closed early and the police were out in huge numbers. We tried to visit a tourist hilltop lookout but the young chap at the entrance said it was closed. He explained helpfully in reasonably clear English that there were going to be ‘manifestatations’. No idea where he got that word from but it was good enough for me – we’re going nowhere near ‘manifestations’!

Here’s a photo of the cathedral and the main square, one of the few places that looks largely untouched.

So that’s Santiago. Nice place to visit but be aware of manifestations manifesting themselves. Great bars, restaurants and friendly people. Hopefully, they fulfil the plans to rebuild the city centre and McDonald’s opens again and manifests itself in all its golden M splendor.

Leaving Santiago, we took the interstate South and covered nearly 700 miles in 3 days. It’s a fast dual carriageway but it was a tiring few days riding as we were constantly buffeted by cross winds.

We crossed paths with another manifestation of a volcano.

We sat outside a guest house which was being ‘sanitised’ and who didn’t honour our booking. The owners did not manifest themselves so we moved on.

We then crossed another border.

Yes, we were back into Argentina. It was a smooth crossing as our bike was already registered on the Argentine computer.

Unfortunately, the first 40 km of road on the Argentine side was shockingly bad. The road was at high altitude through the Andes mountains and has obviously been ravaged by the weather over the years. Our new tyres took a good thrashing and we were rattled to bits over the very rugged surface. Welcome back to Argentina.

By the time we got to out destination on day three I was like a burst balloon and feeling nauseous. We couldn’t figure out whether I had a man virus thing, whether I was tired from the riding or whether I was just feeling like an old man should.

Either way I was clear about the solution – similar to the bike I needed a servicio or, the next best thing, ice cream and red wine. Yes, I appreciate that’s probably not what I need when I’m feeling nauseous but think about it – sugar for energy and wine to make me happy and forget my ‘old man’s’ health scare.

After a large ice cream I felt slightly better, or so I told myself. Positive thinking. Next on the agenda – a nice Argentinian Malbec.

Then my whole day caved in.

It was election day in Argentina and they ban the sale of alcohol on election day until 9pm. Oh, we walked another mile trying but it was no wine for the old man. Poor ‘old man’ with a health scare.

Then, as we were staying in a relatively shabby apartment with a shabby cooker, Susan cooked some shabby spinach ravioli with tomato sauce for dinner. I’ve no idea what I’d done to upset her but I ate my punishment meal regardless. Fair play to the poor ‘old man’ with a health scare I thought.

We went to bed at 8.15pm that night. Well, we may as well – it could only keep going downhill.

But this old man is always positive and as he drifted asleep he was already looking forward to tomorrow. For tomorrow was definitely going to be Malbec Day.

And we were going looking for Nazis.

Malbec and Nazis – I could hardly contain my excitement as I lay my ‘old man’ head on the pillow. ‘Goodnight Clif’ said Susan, ‘I hope you feel better tomorrow’.

‘Gute Nacht Susan’ I replied.

You can’t keep an ‘old man’ with a health scare down,

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