THE INCA TRAIL

the big South American adventure rally

Day 29: Marbella Temuco (870km)

Comings and Goings

Joining us again at Marbella after playing a particularly long game of 'catch-up' were Howard Seymour and Anne Bennett. We last saw them and their Range Rover at La Paz, where they stopped to sort out mechanical problems. Before they could leave, though, Howard came down with a nasty bug, further delaying them. But the Range Rover is still unhappy, and they will try to get more work done at the Santiago dealership after the coming weekend.

John Blanckley, Tony Davies and Ann Humphreys also rejoined at Marbella: their A90 is one inch shorter now on one side than it should be, and two inches shorter on the other. 'At least it's still running, but we'll just be cruising from now on,' commented John. We'll believe that when we see it ...

Malcolm McKay discovers a broken front spring during routine servicing

Jan van Geen has reappeared as well. He was forced to drop out for several days to seek treatment for a back problem. He and Julienne Straatman have had a host of difficulties, managing each time to catch us up again. But their Mustang seems determined to keep them guessing about what may go wrong next. Its favourite trick seems to be ignition problems.

Whilst at Marbella, we heard that Ralph and Dorothy Jones with their lovely Aston Martin had decided to pull out of the event. Ralph has not been well since we started out from Rio, and now at half way they feel it would be best to motor gently back to Rio.

Meanwhile, Trevor Green should have been joined by his brother, Ian, who arrived at Marbella as planned. But Trevor has had difficulties with his Land Rover Discovery that have delayed him for several days. Ian will be travelling with another crew until they manage to meet up again.

Back to the road. After a day to relax, fettle cars and find new tyres, much of Day 29 was a transport section: 650km down the Panamericana Sur. But an early morning Regularity Section on gravel for the classics caught out quite a few: a turning off the major road just a few kilometres from the start was a popular wrong-slot. John Blanckley finished around eleven minutes late as a result, getting maximum penalties on the first section, and continued to run late through the rest.

Regularity timing apart, there were no major dramas today, and everyone arrived intact at Temuco. Tomorrow we head into exciting rally territory and still more spectacular scenery, and reach the gateway to Argentinian Patagonia at Bariloche.

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