‘Gott in Himmel’ – the first German words learned by many a young lad growing up in the 60s in the UK. Along with ‘schweinhund’, ‘tommy’ and the infamous ‘achtung spitfire’ we were a lot more language aware than the youth of today. Education through ‘Commando’ comic was better back in the good old days.

Why are we talking German? Well today Frau Susan and Herr Clif are in San Carlos de Bariloche. Oh, that’s a nice alpine setting.

And here’s Frau Susan with Herr Bike.

And we checked into a nice apartment with a ‘balkon mit aussicht’ – that’s a ‘balcony with a view’ if you’re not a German speaker like me.

Susan was so happy she went down to Lago Nuhiel Huapi and washed her feet. She calls it paddling but I say it for what it is.

She’s actually quite brazenly brave standing there because this lake has a monster! Records of witnesses back to the 1800’s talk of a huge snake type monster in the lake. It even has a name – Nuhuelito. Does this monster sound like another you know?

‘Och’ you’re kidding me!

Do you see how easily I slipped into Scots language? I’m the language melting pot that keeps on giving.

Anyway that’s just a cropped photo of the ‘Bariloche’ town sign. There were tourists at the other end and they would clutter up my nice photo.

So before we get back to our German theme, let’s not forget that this land belonged to the indigenous Mapuche people. The Mapuche lived in this land, fought the Incas and the Spanish for this land and today comprise 80% of the indiginous people of Argentina and 9% of the total population.

Oh I know, I know – you don’t want to read politically correct acknowledgements to indiginous people. You’re sitting there thinking ‘yeah, yeah that’s good to know but let’s move onto the Nazis. Tell me about the ‘Nasty Nazis’

Okay, but be patient and let’s set the scene with a bit more history.

In the 19th century there was a great wave of European migration to South America. Amongst those immigrants were the Welsh. No, no they’re not Nazis – I’m just diversifying and trying to make this a multilingual multicultural conversation.

Anyway, the Welsh (well about 500) came to Patagonia in 1875 and today about 70,000 residents of Argentina have Welsh surnames and 5,000 speak Patagonian Welsh as their first language. Towns such as Trevelin and Trelew were established and even today local cafes and restaurants proudly serve cakes, scones and breads made to ‘grandmother’s recipes’.

Oh I know, I know – who really wants to talk about the Mapuche and the Welsh? All you’re interested in is the ‘Nasty Nazis’.

I’m just setting the scene of the waves of European migration to South America including the Germans! Yes, now it’s the turn of the Germans. Happy now?

In 1895 a Chilian German named Carlos Weidehold established a shop called Le Aleman (The German) in what is now known as San Carlos de Bariloche. Since that time Germans have immigrated to this area and the town now resembles an alpine resort with gingerbread houses, chocolate and fondue shops which has led many people to compare it to Bavaria. I can personally testify that the Bavarian cheese selection in the shops is particularly nice.

So when WW2 ended it is common knowledge that Argentina was a safe haven for many ‘Nasty Nazis’. President Juan Peron, yup that’s the guy married to Eva, was a sympathiser and he helped arrange passage for many high ranking officials to come to South America. Eva Peron herself allegedly received Nazi gold and art in return for facilitating the smuggling of 15,000 Nazis out of Europe. Of course, she’s now been whitewashed as the tragic heroin in the musical Evita but the truth is far darker.

So that’s dasterdly Juan, Eva and the Nasty Nazis. But let’s not hold off there – wait until you hear who else was involved.

It’s well evidenced that the Pope, the Vatican and the Red Cross were complicit in the ‘ratlines’ giving false papers to fleeing Nazis. This network became known in common culture as ‘Odessa’ (remember ‘Odessa Files’ by Frederick Forsyth) though there’s no actual proof that it formally existed. Instead, it was probably a network of who you knew, what contacts could you establish and how much could you put into the right dasterdly hands.

After WW2 Bariloche became the most prominent enclave of ‘Nasty Nazis’ in South America. They lived here peacefully for years, untouched by justice, because soon after the war the focus quickly turned from Nasty Nazies to Nasty Communists.

So who settled in San Carlos de Bariloche? Well Joseph Mengele, the ‘Nasty Nazi’ who committed human experiments took his driving test outside the town hall. He moved on to Argentina and in 1956 he even returned to Germany for a holiday, travelling under his own name.

Another infamous Nasty Nazi was former SS Captain Eric Priebeck. He was a prominent local Bariloche businessman living under his own name (there was a long held code of silence in the town).

In 1944, this Nasty Nazi was in command of a unit responsible for the execution of 355 civilians. In 1995 he even felt comfortable enough to talk about the massacre on ABC TV. This was a step too far and outrage led to his extradition to Italy to face trial. He was found not guilty for reason of ‘acting under orders’ even though this was not accepted as a defence at the Nuremberg trials. Then there was outrage at the verdict, an appeal, retrial and conviction and a sentence of ‘house arrest’. Even that wasn’t enforced properly and ‘Nasty Nazi’ Eric died in Rome of natural causes at the age of 100.

Lots of other Nasty Nazis settled in Bariloche and the most outrageous allegation was that Hitler settled in a Bavarian mansion with Eva Brauna and died in November 1962. These accounts are disputed by most historians. Okay the allegation that Hitler fled to Bariloche may be far fetched but there’s still talk of annual Hitler parties in Bariloche on his birthday, April 20.

So that’s enough of Bariloche and the ‘Nasty Nazis’. Unfortunately I didn’t see any evidence of them even though Susan and I sampled quite a few ‘German style’ bars in town doing our research.

I will finish with a couple of photos of Frau Susan and Herr Clif. Firstly, here is Herr Susan sitting on her throne giving me orders.

And here’s me with the only two pals I have down here in South America.

Yup you recognise them – it’s my good buddy Mr Beer and his partner Mr Bourbon.

Okay, okay, I hear you, I hear you – ‘forget the photo of three woodentop men. After all this talk of ‘Nasty Nazis’ we like to finish on a nice calming sunset photo from your Bariloche ‘balkon mit aussicht’.

Well here it is. I’m just a wish filling pleasuremonger.

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,

So where are we? Here’s a map and an explanation.

We started at the blue dot near the top (Bogota) and looped up to our most northern point, Cartagena, before heading south.

We travelled down through Colombia, Ecuador and the coast of Peru before heading east over the Andes towards Machu Picchu, Cusco and La Paz. Then it was down through Bolivia and Argentina before crossing into Chile.

The ‘blue dot’ at the bottom of the ‘teal dots’ is Santiago where we are today. 6,300 miles travelled.

The blue dot at the bottom is Ushuaia, ‘The End of The World’ and the furthest point south we will travel.

The blue dot in the east is Buenos Aires where we fly home in December.

It’s about 2,000 miles to Ushuaia and another 2,000 miles up to Buenos Aires.

Hope this map of our progress isn’t too dotty.

Leaving Cafayate we headed south towards Santiago, Chile.

Over the following four days we covered 900 miles down the magnificent Ruta 40 running parallel with the Andes mountains.

We made good, reasonably fast, progress each day. The red sandstone mountains gave way to long straight roads across a desert landscape that enabled us to keep up a good average speed.

Unfortunately, every 500 metres or so, the road dipped significantly as we crossed a dry river bed. We run down the dip, clatter across concrete slabs and then up the dip at the other side. For a hundred miles or more this happened time, after time, after time.

Each time we cross a dry river bed I give Susan pre warning over the intercom. We have perfected a messaging code over the last couple of months:

‘Bumpy bumpy’ is a mild rumble with no need to hold on. ‘Bump’ is hold on but it’s fine. ‘Big bump’ is hold on and brace yersel woman’.

Then there’s the final message ‘fu*k I didn’t see that coming’ – it’s more of an after the fact comment than a warning. Unfortunately, Susan would probably say she gets too many of these particular ‘messages’. It’s just so difficult to judge the roads ahead when they’re an absolute mess.

Everything happens at a bit of a pace as our average speed this day was about 60 mph. The road is inhospitable, desolate and not for sallying along. Susan takes it all very well and I can appreciate it must be like riding a rickity roller coaster blind fold.

One river crossing tested her more than most. That’s because it wasn’t a dry river bed like all the others. This was a real river about 35 metres wide.

It looked shallow as we slowed to a slightly too fast speed for the circumstances. The water sprayed everywhere and I thought momentarily that’s good the bike and my legs are getting a good clean.

Then I saw the deeper section of the river a split second before we hit it. It was nothing really, about 20 cm deep but the breaking force on the bike was considerable. So I accelerated through, went up a small river bank, that appeared out of nowhere (fu*k I didn’t see that coming), hit some holes caused by the swirling river current and the bike left the ground.

Now it wasn’t a big jump but I felt Susan lift off the seat and her left hand flew off the bike and up into the air above us. Thankfully, she still held onto the bike with right hand. It was like she was in a rodeo on the steel horse, bucking like a bronco. Well done ‘Cowboy Susan’. Ye ha!

To give you an appreciation of the forces at play I can tell you that even I left the seat. Yes I really did and I’m sure you can appreciate the amount of force it takes to get a lardy like me to defy gravity!

Of course, ‘Cowboy Susan’ got the message ‘fu*k I didn’t see that coming’. She wasn’t impressed. ‘That was bad, I was nearly off’ ‘Cowboy Susan’ says. ‘It was fine’ I reassured her as we accelerated down the road scanning for next river bed. Hopefully it would be dry next time.

To reach Santiago, Chile, we had to cross the Andes mountains, yet again. We don’t mind because they’re the most spectacular, beautiful, colourful mountains of grandure. The outlook and scenery changes at nearly every bend.

So after three days riding the steel horse, ‘Cowboy Susan’ and I ended up in a little western town called Uspallata. The only accommodation with steel horse parking was a hostel but we went upscale and rented a small ‘cottage’ as opposed to the communal dorm. We’re posh hostellers.

It had all the essentials and even included two sets of bunk beds if you had four pals to share. ‘Cowboy Susan’ was a bit of a spoil sport as she wouldn’t let me sub let. I thought she would have been okay with a couple of ranch hands sharing but it was a definite ‘no’. Maybe not a real cowboy after all?

Then there was the common room where all the nice hostel people hung out talking young people conversation. ‘Cowboy Susan’ and I fitted right in.

Now I accept there’s no young hip trendy friends in this photo but I’m not making them up. It’s just that I took this photo at 6am as we were up early to tackle the border crossing. Okay? So let it go because we really did have young hip hostel friends. Please don’t be jealous.

Now may I repeat previous similar warnings – please don’t show these hostel photos to your partner.

I don’t want them saying ‘why don’t you take me to a young people’s hostel like Clif takes ‘Cowboy Susan’ where we can live as if we’re young again, talk about travel and be cool, hip and trendy’. Peace and happiness ✌️

We had some great food that evening in Uspallata. We went to an Argentine parrilla – essentially it’s a restaurant with an open BBQ. We opted for the BBQ chicken and it was outstanding. I thought ‘Cowboy Susan’ was going to order a side bowl of beans and sit by the BBQ and start farting. But she didn’t – maybe not a real Cowboy after all?

The following morning we loaded the steel horse and set off whilst all our young ‘invisible’ hostel companions slept and dreamt of a better world. We had no time for dreaming, we had another border to cross.

First we admired the morning sun rising over the Andes – that’s where we were heading.

90 minutes later we reached the border crossing at over 10,000 feet. The last half hour was relatively awful for a steel horse. The road started off greasy then became icy. It largely consisted of concrete slabs that had become cracked and potholed by the extreme weather. Some of the potholes would throw you off the horse – this was no time for ‘fu*k I didn’t see that coming’.

Arriving at the customs post early Sunday morning was an advantage. It’s a joint Argentine Chile building, a one stop shop. However, even with relatively few travellers it was a bloody confusing mess with no clear process.

Thankfully, we now know what forms we need to complete and get stamped and so we negotiate our own way through various people, forms and queues to get the job done. Honestly, like other borders in South America there’s been nothing stopping us from entering and exiting the other end without getting anything stamped. As long as you’re not carrying any blinking fruit or honey you’re fine.

We left the border post. We were in Chile, our sixth country. ‘Ye ha’ as ‘Cowboy Susan’ would say.

Then it was a steep descent through say 30 or more hairpin bends. We took it easy and a couple of hours later we were in Santiago where we rented a small apartment for 5 nights. Of course, you know that that means?

Yes its ‘Cowboy Susan’, me and Mr Beer for four days. Happy as three non farting llamas.

‘From the end of the world to your town’.