Into Chile January 29
After the horrendous Patagonian roads , Chile was a dream . The roads were so good that Holmes found himself wishing he was on his Ducati 749 . ' The ride around lake Nahuel Huapi was fantastic ' he says . ' I loved every minute of it . After a while you just seem to become at one with the bike , picking out cornering lines and clipping apexes without having to think . I reckon I was riding as well as Geoff Duke !
Next destination was Los Angeles ( no , not that one ) where Guevara ' s two-wheeled adventure came to an end . His Norton had been getting more troublesome by the day – unsurprisingly , since crashes sometimes numbered nine a day - so he and Granado brought the bike to Los Angeles for repairs . They got permission to put the bike in the fire station and to sleep in a tiny room there . When the bike turned out to be unrepairable , they put it on a truck and rode with it to Santiago where they continued their trip on foot . Sandford and Holmes wanted to find that fire station as it played such a vital role in Che ' s journey . ' We wandered around and found it at 11pm and got chatting to a fireman who knew all about Che ' s visit . He opened the big sliding doors to the station and gave us a guided tour . We saw the actual room where Che and Alberto slept . To know they had walked around those same rooms was quite spine-tingling .'
While Che and Alberto ' s Norton left Los Angeles in the back of a truck , Sandford and Holmes ' faithful steeds were still going strong . ' We were leaving town on bikes and felt like we had been passed the baton to complete Che ' s journey ' Holmes says . ' Any mile past that place was a bonus . We then tried to do 300 miles to Santiago in one go but bike trouble halted our efforts .'
Bike trouble was an understatement . ' We found my carburettor was hanging off ' says Holmes . ' So was the fuel pipe . My throttle cable had frayed and Pete had persistent gearbox problems too . Pete sorted the throttle out via a ' direct feed .' In other words , I had the cable attached to my right hand and had to pull on it to accelerate . He also refitted the carburettor but his gearbox would have to wait . We pressed on but 45 miles short of Santiago the bike died completely and we had to spend another night in a field making repairs .'