Gaucho at work
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Gaucho at work |
Day 56 - Thursday 16 March
Just outside Catamarca is the Cuesta de Portezuelo, a wonderful asphalt climb up multiple hairpins through 17km and 1,000m. When it was gravel, it was once used as a special stage on the Rally of Argentina - Juha Kankkunen holds the record, apparently. Now it would make a terrific speed hillclimb, if they had such things here, but sadly they don?t. We note it as a great regularity section.
From the top, the route we had planned along the mountain ridge starts out well enough, but after about 30 km is getting too rough - it is clearly now not a maintained road.
So we backtrack and try another way. This too starts out OK, but we come to a tree branch laid across the road - the normal sign of a blockage. We drive round it, and shortly arrive at a muddy patch. This looks passable for Mitzi, so we drive into it - a big mistake! The left side of the vehicle immediately sinks to the axles.
Jingers sets off for the nearest village, about 5km back. An hour or so later, back he comes with two men and a two-wheel drive pick-up. This makes no impression on pulling Mitzi out, but at least we now have transport. They all go off to look for more powerful help. It starts to rain.
Another hour or so later, Jingers appears at the car window with a big grin. Our troubles are over: a road gang have been found and are bringing their grader! But this great machine does no better, ending up having to use its hydraulics to lift its wheels out of the mud so that rocks can be put in. It retires hurt.
So it?s down to the old tried and true method of jacking the car up, putting stones under the wheels, and repeating the process until it?s standing clear of the gunge; and then getting lots of people to push. Some four hours after we went in, Mitzi is finally heaved clear. It?s nearly dark, so we retire to the local pub for us to treat the assembled company to a few beers, then a few more.
We learn that this road has never been blocked before, and that the rains have made every route out of the village impassable, apart from the Cuesta de Portezuelo; so we slink back down this into Catamarca. Our first major hole in the route.
The Cuesta de Portezuelo hillclimb, near Catamarca
The grader came to help Mitzi, but ends up having to dig itself out
Day 57 - Friday 17 March
Our plan to take the pre-war car route out of Catamarca was also thwarted this morning: that main road, too, was flooded. So we detoured round to pick up on rally route about 100km later.
The route now lies mainly across flat pampas, but we find a lovely 40km regularity section on good twisting gravel through some beautiful hills.
Just outside San Juan, we come across a great rally of gauchos: very picturesque, but the ones we?d seen a couple of days before looked more like the real thing.
Once in town, we fall yet again into our routine of meeting a senior figure in the municipality, contacting local motor sport and classic car club officials, and inspecting hotels.
San Juan is yet another attractive city, set in great vineyards - it is the harvest season, and the ripe smell of fermentation lies heavy in the air. Sampling the local wares helps to diminish the Pisco Sour withdrawal symptoms.
Gauchos at play, San Juan
Day 58 - Saturday 18 March
San Juan has a great race circuit set in hills, and we start the day by inspecting it for a possible lap consistency test. From here, we follow the road eastwards up a narrow and attractive valley to Calingasta and Barreal, where a fertile landscape is set against a backdrop of great Andean peaks.
We see a sign to ?El Alcázar? pointing to a cleft in the rocks. Intrigued, we explore and find an extraordinary great ?castle? of light yellow sandstone, luminous among the dark grey rocks of the surrounding hills.
We join the main road to Chile, running through a landscape of impressive scale and great beauty. Just before the frontier, we get a superb view of Aconcagua, at 6,959 m (22,800 ft) the highest peak in the Americas.
The frontier crossing was pretty painless at the well organised border posts, before descending the famous 29 hairpins down from Chile?s ski resort of Portillo. Getting into Santiago was nightmare, but our consolation was to arrive at the cosseting of the five-star Hyatt Regency Hotel.
Near Calingasta
El Alcázar rocks, near Barreal
Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the Americas, seen from the rally route
The hairpins at Portillo, Chile, on the main route from Argentina
Day 59 - Sunday 19 March
So here we are, more or less at our halfway point - a suitable point to spend a day in the hotel room taking stock. So far, Mitzi has covered 23,200 km since we left Rio - a little more than the whole rally.
We have to date taken about nine days longer than the event, which is not surprising considering the work we have done in each of the overnight cities.
Jingers has spent his last day working on Mitzi, changing brake pads and shock absorbers. Tomorrow, he flies back to England, having done a terrific job of not only driving Mitzi all those kilometres (frequently arriving late at night only to start again at dawn) but also keeping her fed, watered and fettled - no mean task. Thanks, mate; I?ll raise a glass to you - a Pisco Sour if I can find one.
To be continued ...