Day 5 from Argentina to Chile

Well we have arrived in Chile, and boy what a road to arrive by.

We left the low grounds of Mendoza and half an hour into the journey you could see this enormous rock wall covered in snow, our first sighting of the Andes. 

                                      

' Wow, look at that snow, that must be incredibly high' I say. 
'You're about to find out' says a slightly nervous Julie.
We start climbing and climbing. The driving is totally different to the long flat roads of 
previous days. These are like lovely Alpine roads with no traffic and views to take your breath away.
It's not possible to put in words the sheer scale of the area we are driving through, absolutely awesome!

We have a couple of interesting moments with lorries (must get some better distance specs)




 and eventually get to the top of the road.
We have a Garmin in Molly, it's not too great at directions but it does have an altimeter.

The altimeter showed 10???? This is almost as high as the highest peaks in the Alps and Ben Nevis is 4409 feet. Molly has driven all the way up without missing a beat. However the driver and navigator were puffing and wheezing something alarming, and that's not because of the fifty shades of rallying :)

Thanks to some excellent organisation we pass through the border from Argentina to Chile without a hitch.
The Chilean customs officer was quite insistent that he looked in the boot and was quite alarmed to find an engine, laughs all round and through we go.

500 metres from the border the first challenging road of the rally.

This is Chile's equivalent of the Stelvio, but it's being resurfaced and the safety barriers are random cones, all good fun, an amazing drive.
We pass through some great scenery to the only test of the day.
Having 'cleared' the test the day before we were quite confident of doing the same this time.
However the organisers had a different idea. The start consisted of a very steep climb, which was  1st and 2nd  gear for Molly, after about 1st Km out of 9 and still going up, it was obvious we wouldn't make our time. When we did get to the top Molly breathed a sigh of relief and then off we went down the other side, maybe we could make the time up. Halfway down the brakes called enough and we had to ease up, but we did have a really good go and ended up 'only' 3 minutes over time. Making us the 11th fastest, which we are highly delighted with, well done Molly.

We are camped out in a ramshackle place called The Grand Hyatt, Santiago. This rallying can really take a heavy toll on your waistline. 
We are having great fun and getting to know more of the other crews and their amazing cars.  Great bunch of people from all walks of life and interesting stories from rallies around the world.
Tomorrow is the first day of the gravel road sections. This should prove interesting, it will all depends on what version of 'gravel' we get.
Tonight we are off to a cocktail party hosted by the Team America in the Presidential Suite, where else :) I've always wanted to act like a rock star, now's my chance.
Hopefully it won't get too messy and I'll be able to drive tomorrow.