We didn’t want to leave Bariloche as we both decided we wanted to move permanently there. Well, to be honest, that wasn’t the only reason. The weather app wasn’t being nice to us. Bad weather app. Naughty little weather app.

We seriously considered staying onto the weekend in Bariloche to avoid travelling in the forthcoming weather. But we’re tough old buggers and so we decided to bugger off down the road.

Thursday was a good day before the weather closed in and we spent the night at Freddy’s Hostal in Esquel. What a lovely guy. Wish I could say the same about the accommodation but I suppose you can’t have everything.

We couldn’t fill up with petrol in Esquel because there’s a petrol shortage in Argentina and the petrol stations were closed. Why is there a petrol shortage? Apparently, oil companies are stockpiling until after the national elections in November when they expect inflation to go even more bananas than the 140% it currently is and they can make a killing. However, the Argentine Govt is now blackmailing the oil companies so it should get back to the ‘normal’ poor supply it usually is. I don’t mind a good bit of blackmail if it keeps us on the road.

Thankfully, we had enough left in the tank to make the 41 miles to the border. Yup, we were heading back to Chile where petrol is plentiful but double the price. That’s the way our route goes south – zig zagging across the Chile Argentina border. This is our eighth border crossing.

Our journey from Esquel was very windy as we crossed a high plateau and then it rained. After three months in South America we had our first rain. A new experience for Susan on the motorbike but it didn’t bother her one bit. She was probably recalling how much worse rain was when we cycle toured on the tandem.

We reached Futaleufu and our wonderful wooden hotel.

Inside it was an eclectic wooden palace.

Everything wooden in this photo was made by the owner, Silvano. There was a magnificent detailed model of a sailing ship (on the left of the photo) and even wooden WW1 planes hanging from the ceiling.

Silvano is Italian, once an architect in Milan and now a wooden hotel owner in the middle of nowhere. Well the middle of nowhere for everyone unless you are a salmon fisherman. Apparently, it is a salmon hotspot.

Silvano is also an expert flytier. He had thousands of his own flies and, on his wall, he even has a ‘Speyside fly’ that he picked up on his travels to Scotland.

Was that the limit to Silvano’s talents? No of course not! He’s Italian and he cooked the best damn pasta I’ve ever had, made from ingredients imported from Italy.

Then, after a few complimentary Italian aperitifs, we had a great night with Silvano and his fishing pals telling tall stories. The night ended with a photo with Pinocchio.

Now please go back and look at the photo properly! Susan is holding Pinocchio’s hand! Honestly it is!

The following day it rained and rained. And the road was terrible and terrible. They call these unpaved roads ‘ripio’ and it’s basically layers of gravel spread on the mud base. You want gravel to make the mud more solid but you don’t want gravel because the bike slips on the gravel.

Here’s the bike on a relatively good patch of ‘ripio’ road where the surface is relatively firm and there’s no loose gravel.

We spent that night in a cabin with a wood burning stove. Look how happy Susan is drying off her pants eating Ritz crackers that are never far from her side.

Susan was as happy as a toasted Llama sitting by that fire. Happy because she didn’t yet know what was to happen the following day.

You see the following day was Saturday and snow was forecast. When we woke in the morning we were delighted to see the ground was clear. It was raining heavily but we could cope with that.

The road started off paved. Nice. Then it was very poor ripio. Not so nice. Then we started climbing to go over a mountain pass. It wasn’t too high, about 3000 feet but the road was steep hairpin after steep hairpin on the way up.

Not such a long climb compared to what we had done over the Andes many times. This time, however, it was different. The road was mud and gravel with small streams running down it.

Starting at the top of the photo, the first few corners were tricky and I thought of Susan getting off. Too fast and you won’t make the turn around the hairpin. Too slow and the bike will slip on gravel, forward momentum is lost and over we go. The bike has great torque and pulling power in low gear but the balance is absolutely unforgiving at slow speed on this type of surface.

So we got through the first few hairpins and pushed on. Then we hit the snowline. Snow at the road side but that’s fine, the actual road was still clear.

We climbed higher around another hairpin to find some slush on the road. That’s fine we can cope with that. We climbed higher around another hairpin to find light snow on the road. That’s fine we can just cope with that. We climbed higher around another hairpin to find a couple of inches of snow on the road. ‘It’s time for you to get off Susan’.

Whenever we bike in difficult conditions there’s effectively three of us on the bike – me, Susan and Mrs Hip Replacement. I don’t need to tell you who I’m most concerned about.

Susan got off the bike like Olga Korbut and was standing on the road before I had actually finished my sentence.

‘You walk and I will take the bike up’ I said.

Susan was more than happy, almost laughing at the relief. ‘Yes that’s fine’ she replied.

I breathed a sigh of relief as Susan and Mrs Hip Replacement started walking. Just looking after our £16K investment.

Without the precious cargo I pushed on with the bike. With Susan walking the bike felt half the weight and I skidded on through a few more hairpins in the snow. Then Susan and I lost comms through the helmets as I went out of range. So I stopped. Bad mistake.

Well it was a bad mistake and in some respects it wasn’t.

It was bad because I lost all forward momemtum on a 25 degree hill. It was snowing and I was now standing in six inches of snow. I couldn’t put the stand down because the ground below was too uneven. I tried to start again and the rear wheel just spun and embedded itself.

On the other hand it was the right ‘mistake’ because I had to stop and keep in contact with Susan.

So there I was stuck and ‘up to my arse in trouble’. I couldn’t even get off the bike to walk down the hill to find Susan.

Thankfully, Susan walked into comms range and said she was fine. I started to think about a plan to get out of there. We had two options. Turn the bike around and return to our hotel and wait for a few days for the snow to clear. Second option was to ask the next vehicle coming over the hill about the conditions ahead. If not too bad Susan and Mrs Hip Replacement would continue their snowy forest hill walk and I would somehow get the bike going again.

Then a miracle happened.

First, I heard Susan speaking to someone. It was obviously a truck coming up the hill. They must have found it bizarre to find a woman walking up the snowy mountain in motorcycle gear with no motorcycle.

I heard her saying she was fine and her ‘esposo’ (husband) was further up the hill on the motorcycle. I’m standing there listening to this conversation thinking I’m not fine, I’m stuck and ‘up to my arse in trouble’.

As I stood there straddled over the bike, four guys on motorcycles came around the hairpin below me and stopped. What a delightful sight – four German Gentlemen motorcyclists.

The German Gentlemen Guide at the front politely asked if I was okay. I could tell by his quizzical expression he thought I looked like a guy ‘up to his arse in trouble’.

‘I could do with a hand to push me out of this snow’ I asked as confidently as I could, pretending I wasn’t a guy ‘up to his arse in trouble’.

On the intercom I suggested Susan get in their truck (I still couldn’t see the truck as it was a few hairpins behind). Susan and Mrs Hip Replacement actually didn’t need this advice for she was already in the front passenger seat sitting on Big Martin’s lap.

With the precious cargo safe in the truck, the Gentleman German Guide gave the guy who was ‘up to his arse in trouble’ a push and, eventually, we got the bike back on track.

We were off, up the hill and the guy who was only a few minutes ago ‘up to his arse in trouble’ was happy to be moving.

Well, happy to be moving for around 30 seconds. Then his front wheel hit an icy pothole, slipped to the side, the bike went down and he was back ‘up to his arse in trouble’.

As he lay there at the side of the road looking upwards to the sky and snow flakes settled on his face, he could hear Susan over the intercom speaking to Big Martin.

‘Oh why have we stopped?’ I could tell by the easy conversion she and Mrs Hip Replacement were relaxed and comfortable. Well as comfortable as a woman can be sitting on Big Martin’s knee!

‘It’s me’ I said. ‘I’m down’ I said.

‘Ah okay’ she replied and continued chatting to Big Martin. There was no ‘are you alright’? No concern. Nichts.

So it was with help from a Gentleman German I got the bike upright again and we were off again. Tentatively. Very tentatively.

Oh you want to see a photo of the snow. Well I suppose it’s about time for a photo.

This is the Gentleman German Guide’s bike. By now we had passed the last hairpin and we were going over the summit. Gentelman German Gude and I were stopped because the other Gentlemen Germans behind were falling down like skittles.

Each time they fell down they got up again. What Chumbawamba German Gentlemen they were. ‘I get knocked down, but I get up again’.

Ich werde niedergeschlagen aber ich stehe wieder auf’.

I admit the lyrics are quite as catchy in German.

The road was treacherous but I managed to get the bike over the top and back onto tarmac without falling again.

Yes we were still riding on snow on tarmac but it was a lot easier than snow on ripio. I no longer was ‘up to my arse in trouble’. Oh what a nice feeling. Thank you Gentlemen Germans.

A few miles later, once we reached below snow level we all stopped and Big Martin then passed over the precious cargo.

Here’s the Gentlemen Germans further down the road.

We rode with these guys for another 50 miles over another mountain pass and through a blizzard. Thankfully, there was only a light coating of snow on the road. It was reassuring to have the support truck behind as we pushed on.

That night Susan informed me that her Apple watch gave her a critical alert for her heart rate. Now this watch gives you a warning when your heart rate is very high and it doesn’t detect you’re doing any exercise.

I obviously thought that moment was on the back of the bike when I was at the limits of my skills keeping the precious cargo safe as I negotiated a tortuously tortuous gravel hairpin.

‘I’ve worked it out’. she said. ‘It was 12.32pm’ she said. ‘That’s when I was sitting in the truck’.

‘Oh really, whilst sitting on Big Martin’s knee’ I exclaimed.

Susan didn’t reply as she pondered that thought.

Gentlemen Germans indeed! 😀

• South America