Sunday 9th February Lincoln to Chacabuco
We ate in the hotel last night, nothing fancy, it was just convenient, been a hectic few days.

We was that early this morning we woke the night porter up as creeped down stairs trying to be quiet, but banging the bags and stuff against everything, sometimes I think it better, not to try and be quiet. Good thing we woke the guy up as he filled the water bottles up with nice fresh cold water.

Off we start on route 188 for the first 40 odd miles, then onto route 7 at Junin, may have a slight problem on the route 7 as it maybe a toll road, hey ho we will soon find out.

Bit of a cloudy day as the sun started to break through you could see storm clouds brewing and fork lighting crashing down, quite lairy was we cycled towards the storm. We soon put an end to the storm, as we stopped and put the light water proof jackets on and cover the front valuable bag with a water proof covering, always seems to work as the storm petered out, just left loads of standing water on the road. Once again the wind is a big factor, head on, nothing we can do about, just carry on riding, only a relatively short ride today 72 miles with a few places to stop along the way, so should not be an issue.

Had the first stop just as we joined route 7 at Junin, all seemed ok on the toll road, big hard shoulder to ride on and could not see any tolls at all.

Pretty steady ride today, not breaking any records just keep the bike ticking over, with 30ish miles to go and two possible places to stop, all looking good, had another break caught up with the rugby game, them moved on to the second stop. Not sure how we do it, but the place looked like it had not been used for a few years, peered through the window, few dusty fridges and a counter, then a little sign that read “tocar el timbre para el asistente” ring the bell for attendant, rang the bell, then out of nowhere appeared Handicaps missus with a fag hangout of her mouth, we managed to get a cold drink from her, but could not understand a thing she said bless her, she never stopped talking, as we only had about 10 miles to go, I gingerly asked if she had a beer, low and behold up popped a couple of cold dusty cans and another blast of words, I think she was saying if the Police come we did not sell you the beer, but not sure, all in all a good fun stop.

Just a short hop to Chacabuco, Bingo had booked an AirBB (Sandra thinks we are living the posh life, says someone who complains when we ride to Deal!), just on the outskirts of town you could smell the BBQ’s on the side of the road, Bingo called the stop, rightly so had lunch, great chat with a couple of locals and a bonus for the Editor a freight train [General Motors EMD G22WC locomotive made between ’72-’90: Ed] crossing the busy road into Town, Bingo took the photos, allegedly 65 carriages long, so no animal spotting today train spotting, forgot to get it’s number though [9477: Ed].

One of the locals came over after I have spoken to him at the bar, he is coming over to the UK in April for a professional boxing bout in Cambridge 70 Kilo weight I believe Nico Falabbla, he has started to follow us on Instagram, so watch out for him. The another guy came over heard us speaking English, him and his wife were from Pennsylvania, moved down to Chacabuco about four years ago, seemed a nice guy, wished us luck on our travels. Finally off to the AirBB,, funnily enough we nearly got caught behind the freight train as the thing was going slower than us, barrier came down, but plenty of time so us and a few cars went around them.

All good on the digs guy was waiting for us as we came down the street, all booked in no dramas, but failed on the shopping front, most shops closed, so nearly got lost, did not pin drop my starting point, school boy error, Bingo got it all sorted easily, think I was a bit tired.