4 Days, 136 miles, 3 cries, rain, snow, sleet, sun and unbelievable wind. And 4 very sore cheeks.

Well this is not quite as easy as I had planned, this lovely little warm up ride took us an extra day and damaged face, groin and knees to name just three.

The beginning was perfect, we cycled at a rapid rate, defying the weight in our panniers and the rain in our faces. It wasn't until 200 metres down the road that we hit trouble. Anna's pedal broke and we had a 20 minute break trying to fix it. The rain hit hard after about 10 miles, switching to a bit of snow and sleet for a while before settling again on driving rain. We were soaked and shivering as we crawled to halt after just 21miles. Anna had been blown off her bike once, and ended the day with bags on her hands in an attempt to keep them warm. We found a camp ground of sorts, setting our tent up in a plastic igloo and warming and drying ourselves and possessions in the next door restaurant. Matt attempted to dry off his fashionable fluorescent jacket and proceeded to burn it comprehensively on the radiator.

Day two brought sunny skies and incredible scenery as we passed through the mountains. The wind was behind us and we made much better progress, leaving the snow behind. We even befriended a dog who dutifully ran along beside us for several miles. The day was a success aside from having incredibly burned faces. We managed to pick up some food and water in a village and camp just outside it, beside a beautiful little lake.

Day three brought the wind. All day the wind was against us or from the side, so strong that we could barely stay on the bikes let alone make much progress. We had aimed to cycle the rest of the distance to Rio Grande but had to reassess things. Downhill became harder than uphill and in our lowest gears we crawled along at an arthritic pensioner's walking pace. As we struggled along we came across Dorothy, a German lady who has been cycling all over the world for two years who left us with the positive advice "It can always get worse." We forced ourselves to within 40 kilometers of our destination, at times pushing the bikes when we couldn't stand up on them in the wind. (Anna had already been blown off for a second time). We set up camp in a relatively sheltered area by the beach and were fast asleep by 8.

The fourth day brought similar winds and we cycled hard all morning (surviving on nuts from our good buddy Dorothy as we had managed to run out of food) until finally we turned a corner and the wind was at our backs. 7 kilometers without pedaling feels pretty amazing. We coasted into town and have ourselves a full day of recovery before we continue Northwards. We have learned a lot, first of all that this may take a wee bit longer than we thought.

Onwards to Chile