I left the hotel in Santiago just as the sun came up. Their heating bill will be higher for my room as I whacked it up all night making sure all my kit was dry. Good practice for the Sahara! Time seems to have changed a bit since I started this trip, I never know what day or time it is. It's either food time, fuel time or riding time with once a day, sleep time!!
Having spent some time looking at the route last night, I'd decided to head to Padron, SW of Santiago. The road down there was really busy, after days of no traffic, it was a bit of a shock to the system to suddenly have to think about others on the road again. A full tank of fuel and another cafe con leche down my neck and it was off onto the trails again.
This area is made up of white and pink granite. Plus points, it dries quickly and drains well, downside, on steep gradients there are marble of crystals everywhere, so no hard braking and keep and eye out for the regular side cuts draining the excess water off the hillsides.
During the morning, the trails were all easy, flowing and climbed up and down rolling hills or dodged down little back streets in villages. As the day wore on, the trails got rougher, with a few requiring real concentration with the deep water cut channels and rock strewn everywhere. All of the day wound through either Eucalyptus forest or vineyards. The smell of the Eucalyptus was lovely after all the rain. The trail wound back towards the coast and followed this, towards late afternoon it turned eastwards and started to run adjacent to the Portuguese border. I suspect I'll cross this tomorrow now.
My camp for the night was more a lack of choice than anything else, tucked in a small firebreak just off the route. I'd passed loads of good places with water, tables etc, but as usual, I thought I could get a bit farther, so carried on! At one point during the day, I made a nav error and rather than turn around, I thought I could take a short cut and rejoin off an old section of forestry piste. That was a mistake. The track narrowed up and I found myself in an awkward place where I couldn't turn around and everything below me was thick fallen trees. I decided to unload the bike, then get it over the next log as there was an obvious way down from there. It didn't go to plan, the bike ended up facing uphill above a hole, no traction and a big boulder which sucked the bike right between it and a tree. Hey ho, Climb underneath it, lift the back wheel and lower it down. It was nearly there, when the bike decided to just drop onto the back wheel, tumble backwards over itself and land upside down. Oh well, it was down! Next, get it through the bracken and bramble back to the track below. Lots of sweating, kicking trapped bramble and good old 690 was back in a rideable place.
I took the trail back up to the same height as the dumped luggage, then retrieved that lot, had a dunk in the river as I was poring in sweat by now, then reloaded the bike and off I went again. (Note to self: Turn around earlier and don't get into that again!!). The bike was typical KTM. Get it back on its wheels, check it over and start it back up ready to go again!
I do need to straighten the rally screen though as two of its brackets have bent.
