As we had a shortish leg of 310km, we were content to leave a little later than normal and spend the morning exploring the town of Bariloche. The town isn’t particularly beautiful; certainly nowhere near in the same league of its surroundings, but it had a certain feel to it which everyone in the team really liked. It felt like home, not like London or any other European city which we are acquainted with, but home nonetheless. The morning concluded with lunch with a local reporter in a very quaint little ski chalet-styled restaurant serving absolutely delicious food.

After lunch, we headed back to the hotel to pick up the SRZero, and amid a crowd of people wishing us luck, we headed off to our next destination; a small town called Esquel located deep in the Pampas. The weather was cold and crisp, with some cloud in the sky but generally pretty sunny, so we were desperately hoping for the weather to hold up as driving in the rain when it’s cold is very unpleasant!

For a long while though, the weather conditions were struck from our mind as we were once again dazzled by the most extraordinary scenery. I had never imagined Argentina to be so beautiful; just as wild and remote as the furthers reaches of Alaska or Canada that we have passed through, we felt a real privilege to be able to have a glimpse of this breathtaking wilderness. However, soon the clouds started descending, but rather than being massive slabs of grey as seen in previous days, they became as much a part of the landscape as anything else. The effect this had on the light and shadows dancing across the mountain faces added a whole new texture to this fascinating landscape.

There was a little bit of rain, but really nothing to whine about and we carried on driving all the way through until we reached Esquel, nestled in a beautiful green valley. Again, we found this small town atmosphere really homely, and after putting the car on charge we went to enjoy a fantastic local meal of grilled meats. Check out the pictures to see what I mean about the scenery; it’s definitely among the best we’ve had!

Ushuaia seems so close!

Fortunately, we didn’t have many photos that were lost, and Chris and Cynthia had very kindly offered the use of their camera for the remainder of the trip. However, it is a waste of money and a serious annoyance, and much as we wanted to stay for longer to file a police report we couldn’t. So long as everyone is still healthy and the car is still working, we can’t let anything stop us keeping to schedule and getting to Ushuaia on time, and as such, we had to push on.

However, just a few moments into the drive we had forgotten about the morning’s disappointment as we were engulfed in the most incredible scenery! Despite the cold, wet and grey weather, what we could see was still pretty incredible. It felt like we were driving through the set of Jurassic Park or something; the lushest vegetation we had seen yet spread out from the road, and amid the myriad lakes, huge mountains stood tall while waterfall after waterfall gushed from their snowcaps. It was a shame about the weather, but nonetheless it was a drive containing some of the most incredible views!

This amazing drive continued as we wound our way up into the Andes mountains, with each turn of the twin motor configuration bring us that bit closer to the Argentine border. As a point to note, while Argentina is our final country, it’s not the last border. In order to get to Ushuaia on the island of Tierra del Fuego, one has to cross back into Chile and then back into Argentina. Nonetheless, when we reached the border hut on the Chilean side located at 1,400m above sea level, we were very excited to be finally getting into Argentina after nearly 2 years of dreaming, thinking and planning! We just needed to negotiate the border…

We have never had any problems getting out of a country (with the exception of Mexico) and fortunately this was the case today whereby our passports were quickly stamped and we were free to drive off towards the Argentinian side. However, before we left a coach driver approached us and told us of an obstruction further down the road which the SRZero would definitely not be able to pass. Apparently there was a big ditch crossing the road which was filled with water, and that his coach could barely get across. How were we going to manage this one?

The border posts between the 2 countries are separated by a 44km road, and we were told that at the 22km post we would encounter this obstacle. We were not particularly worried as we knew we would make a plan if the situation was bad enough, and so until then, we enjoyed the drive. For the first time on the entire trip, we were driving amid some snow! Lining the road were patches of snow, and some of them pretty deep! This raised the much bigger question of if there’s snow up here, is it going to be even worse down south?? It certainly was very cold…

Anyway, the 22km mark was approaching, and our focus shifted to the obstacle which revealed itself just around a corner. We could see how a coach would have had problems as the ditch was perhaps 1 metre deep and 10 metres long, but as the SRZero has such a comparatively short wheelbase, it could just drive down and up without any problems. It brought to mind the hundreds of times that people said a certain feature of this project was impossible; be it building the SRZero in the first place, or driving across Alaska, making through Mexico alive, or surviving the Central American onslaught of rain. While such advice should certainly be considered and respected, very often the best way to do things is to just check it out for yourself!

Next up, 22km later, was the Argentine border post, and by now the rain was really coming down thick and fast! As such, Nik and Sebastian who were driving the SRZero were very happy to get out of the car and into the warm which the rest of us sorted out the documents. In summary, this was the most painless border we have ever had. We had our passports stamped, we showed the car documents to a big Argentinian, he punched some info into a commuter, gave us a piece of paper to sign, and that was it! We were driving out of the border post less than 45 minutes after arriving, and this was a veritable record! A big thanks to Argentinian customs for making our lives so easy!

The rest of the drive down into Argentina was equally spectacular, yet different in so many ways. The lush vegetation was gone, but huge lakes and mountains stood in their place in a way which was not the case in Chile. It was colder, wetter and windier than anything we had experienced yet on the trip, yet the car continued to speed along towards San Carlos de Bariloche. After a little bit of confusion as to where our hotel was, we found it with the help of the owner who came out to meet us, and soon after we were in the beautiful hotel complex.

It was actually a collection of ski-style chalets located right on the shores of a lake and in full view of the mountains, and very unlike the traditional hotels we had become accustomed to. Upon arriving, Nik and Sebastian ran inside in the search of a hot shower, and Toby, Clemens and I set the car up for charging and inspected the car after this rather brutal day. Everything was in order, and we soon retreated to our cabin to shelter from the horrible weather, and to mentally prepare ourselves for what was to come.

Vegetarians are advised to stop reading now!

We had been dreaming about having an Argentinian steak for a long time now. In fact, I had pretty much abstained from any serious quantity of red meat for the last month or so in view of the fact that I wanted to fully savour the taste of a true Argentinian steak! And, being as we were now in Argentina for the first time, we were hellbent on getting that steak. On the recommendation of the hotel owner, we went to a place in town which was well known for their half kilo steaks, and this is what we were preparing for!

I can’t go into too much food detail as it may very well result in local flooding due to excess salivation, but I can tell you that it was delicious! Accompanied with the huge steak was a salad of equal size, and while it wasn’t as filling as we might have expected, the quality was certainly excellent. With dinner over and another day of driving ahead, we hastened back to the hotel for some sleep.

A quick point about how many days driving left. Yesterday I said we had 7 days of driving until we hit Ushuaia, but this has been revised to add one more day to cover a leg which was particularly long. As such, NOW we have 7 days left!

So exciting!

Anyway, despite the rain and cold, we powered on. We are so focussed on reaching Ushuaia now that it would have to take some pretty extreme weather to stop us from driving! Nonetheless, our aim is to stay safe and to get to each day’s destination as quickly as possible. And, due to the good quality of Chilean roads, we were able to arrive in Osorno after just 6 and a half hours, including a lunch break! This leg had perhaps the highest average speed since leaving the US, and we arrived at the hotel well before 5pm.

Aside from the rain, which is the first we have had since Pasto in Colombia, there was literally nothing to report for the entire drive. It was one of those days which was completed quickly and efficiently with the minimum of hassle, and this is what we need on the home straight! So, apologies for not being able to thrill with more drama, but I have a suspicion that our crossing into Argentina tomorrow may bring about a bit more of a story to tell…watch this space!

7 driving days left until Ushuaia!

Unfortunately, customs did not release the camera, and so he arrived at the hotel empty handed. Fortunately though, due to his good organisation, he did have a backup camera to film with to ensure that all the moments were still captured in glorious detail! In addition, during our stay in Santiago, he had managed to get his hands on the same camera which he could rent for the remaining few days, so all is well (Sony kindly sponsored this cost for him).

This is actually a point I have yet to mention in these blogs actually; so far, I have told the story of RGE and the trials, challenges and fun we face on a daily basis. However, we are travelling with 4 other people as well; Claudio, Paul, Chris and Cynthia, and they have their own challenges alongside a mountain of work to do as well. Yet with a dedication and focus which easily matches our own, they have managed to come through it all, and when the documentary is complete, I think their efforts will become fully apparent.

Anyway, back to the day at hand. Claudio and Chris arrived at the hotel, and after a quick lunch to ensure that we wouldn’t have to stop mid-drive, we headed off into southern Chilean sun. You may be wondering why, for the second day straight, we are doing a slightly shorter leg. The reason for this has to do with our crossing into Argentina which was scheduled for the day after tomorrow, and which is around 700km away from Talca. The plan was to arrive at the Argentinian border early in the morning so that if there are problems here, we would have time to react.

So, in order to reach the border first thing in the morning, we needed a place to stay close by, and this would be Osorno. And, in order to drive the 700km to Osorno, we needed a city of sufficient size somewhere in the middle of this distance  for us to stay and recharge the car. As such, this is the reason why we found ourselves heading to the Chilean version of Los Angeles!

In some ways we were all glad that the drive was an easy one again, with perfect weather and straight, unblemished roads. But on the other hand, the challenges that we had faced in earlier sections of the trip were missing, and in some ways we wanted them back! Nonetheless, the important thing was that both the car and the occupants were less at risk with these kinds of conditions, so all in all it’s a very good thing. The scenery was fantastic too, with the mighty Andes running parallel to us on the left, and their permanently snow-capped peaks glistening in the afternoon sun.

The rest of the day was completely standard; I’m sure you can guess what happened next! We put the car on charge, checked into the hotel, and then went off to grab some food at a delicious local restaurant.

Only 8 driving days kept to Ushuaia!!

After arriving and being introduced to the distinguished party, we were ushered through to the classical style dining room. The breakfast was conducted while I presented the project to the audience, and even though you may expect the focus to be directed more so on the food, the opposite was in fact the case, and this was reflected by a set of some of the most astute observations and questions to date.

With the breakfast/presentation concluded, we went outside where the press were waiting to view the car with all the dignitaries eagerly clamouring to have a quick ride around the courtyard in the SRZero! It is amazing that even though the SRZero has the general wear and tear of a car that has driven a good 30,000km in total, in other words looks a little shabby, it still attracts an incredible amount of attention and admiration!

We were also joined by a troop of smartly dressed school children who were also keen to understand more about why we were in their city with this car. So, once the press interviews and pictures had been concluded, we went back into the residence to give a presentation to all the school children. I would say that this was probably the youngest audience we had addressed, and I was a little worried that some of the material may be a little too advanced for them to full appreciate the concepts we were talking about.

However, I am glad to say that these young teens proved me wrong, and while some of the precise technical understanding may have been beyond their reach at present, the concepts of why we need electric cars in our society was fully grasped. For the first time, we were really able to pitch the idea of inspiring and encouraging education in science and engineering to the people that really needed to hear it, and I am hopeful that they can take something away from the experience which gives them the motivation to really pursue their dreams.

After some more press interviews following the presentation, the time had come to depart Santiago. For our 250km drive to Talca today, we were joined by our friend Chris Carver who had spontaneously decided to fly out and meet us here in Chile. Incidentally, he is the brother of Andy Carver who supported the project with some of the stunning early photos that you can find on our website.

So, along with the temporary addition to the team, we headed out of the city towards the south on our final push towards Ushuaia! Unlike previous drives where I had much to comment on, I’m afraid that there’s not much I can say about today. The highway was straight all the way to our destination, and while the vegetation got slightly more temperate, the roadside was almost continuously lined with industry of some description…quite a change from the hundreds of miles of complete isolation we had in the desert mere days ago!

Arriving in the city of Talca well within daylight (this seems to be becoming a very positive trend nowadays) we put the car on charge, dumped our stuff in the hotel, and headed out for a quick bite to eat.

Many thanks to the British Ambassador for hosting us in such style this morning, and for the other Embassy staff that helped so much to make our visit so enjoyable!

As there were no activities planned for today, we had the entire day free to work on all the various aspects of the project. This was very productive and took us right up to 8.30pm when the Starbucks, whose Internet we were using extensively, threw us out as they were closing! From here we made our way to a little sushi restaurant a short walk from our hotel, and while the food wasn’t up to the Peruvian sushi standard, it was very palatable indeed. This concluded our day at the relatively early time of 11pm, and we retired to the hotel for a decent night’s sleep.

Tuesday morning brought about a mass influx of people coinciding with the end of the holiday, and streets that had been empty before were now thronging with cars. However, for a change, we didn’t need to drive to our destination as we were due at the KPMG offices which were a mere 10 minute walk from our hotel. We arrived there at around 8.30am and prepared to deliver a presentation to an assembly of KPMG staff. Traditionally we have had a large press attendance at these presentations, but this was an employee only affair, and the press event was scheduled for the following day.

The presentation, which we are used to giving by now, went well and we had a round of very interesting questions delivered by the attentive audience. With this complete, we went outside where Toby had just arrived on cue with the SRZero to display outside the office. There were gasps of surprise as the SRZero cruised silently down the wide, leafy boulevard, with the sunlight glinting off its white bodywork, and came to a stop right where we were all standing.

Toby parked the car up on the pavement, and we spent the next few hours talking to KPMG employees and passing public alike. We have done this often before, but today had something very different going on. Just before lunch, I got asked by a man why there is a Hellmann logo on the car. I explained that this is because they had sponsored the project with the transport of the SRZero and equipment from London to Anchorage. He then excitedly explained that he was actually from Hellmann’s Chile branch, and that he didn’t know anything about it and that he wanted to hear more!

It didn’t end here though as he quickly called down his boss from their office just around the corner. His boss and the head of Hellmann’s Chile division, Markus, was just as excited to see the car there, and he was vaguely aware of the project. We spent some time explaining the project in more depth, and also the coincidence that Clemens was, just earlier that day, talking to Markus’s counterpart in Argentina in order to arrange the shipment of the car back to the UK. He promised to help sort something out, possibly in return for a much bigger logo on the car, but he suggested we discuss it over dinner later that evening, and he subsequently invited the whole team out! This was a great turn of events, especially as we haven’t seen anyone from Hellmann since leaving London.

Anyway, back to the day at hand; our last engagement for the day was a big lunch at a fancy restaurant with KPMG staff as well as diplomats from the British Embassy. Sitting in the restaurant eating the delicious food and enjoying the stimulating company, one could easily imagine being anywhere in Europe or the US such is the modern feel of Santiago. It distinctly feels un-South American, with a huge number of foreigners calling the city home. People often refer to Chile as the Switzerland of South America, and sitting in this beautiful and smart area of this 6 million strong city, I couldn’t but agree!

The rest of the afternoon was spent, as you may have guessed, working. Although, on this occasion, Nik and Toby were out fixing the van’s mirror which had had an unfortunate encounter with the wall of a car park. Fortunately though, the damage was easily and cheaply fixed, and everyone was soon reunited at the hotel.

At 7.30pm, Markus arrived to pick us up to take us out to see a bit more of the “local” side of the city, outside the glitzy area of skyscrapers and plush apartment blocks. He had booked for us a table in a very traditional restaurant in a an up-and-coming area of the city, and we enjoyed a fantastic traditional meal of grilled meats and potatoes, accompanied by a great German tasting beer which, perhaps surprisingly, originated from the south of Chile. We had the opportunity to quiz Markus on the ins and outs of Hellmann as, seeing as we have done so much logistics work ourselves, we were interested to find out how the professionals do it on a global level.

As you would expect, this was a very interesting conversation, and time flew by until the food was devoured, and it was time to move on. We found a little bar off a side street and listened to some live music while sampling the local variety of the pisco sour drink; a prerequisite for anyone visiting Chile!

Our last stop for the night was something quite special; Markus took us to the top of the W tower which comprised of a hotel, restaurant, bar, and residential units. This building was on par if not exceeding anything we would consider impressive in the western world, and the view from the bar at the top was nothing short of spectacular. Before calling it a night and walking back to our hotel, we enjoyed another drink up here, and had a chance not recount some of the stories from the trip.

All in all, our stay in Santiago was really enjoyable, and the city was far nicer than what we were previously expecting! A big thanks to KPMG and Hellmann for showing us such a good time and for feeding us in such style!

Anyway, back to Tongoy where, for the first time in weeks, we were engulfed in cloud and it was really cold. Nonetheless, we were ready to leave early and speed the 275 miles south to Santiago! Apart from a very quick sandwich stop, we drove nonstop towards the capital and we were making fantastic progress. Around half way in, I switched driving the SRZero with Sebastian, and I think he got a little carried away!

Obviously believing he was already on the go-kart track, he took the car up to quite a speed, and by the time we reached the outskirts of Santiago, we were dangerously low on juice! This is because, as in a normal car, if you double the speed you at least quadruple the amount of energy used, so going fast really soaked up the energy left in the battery pack. As result, for the last 20km into the city, we had to go a lot slower than the deserted roads would allow us. To ensure we didn’t get lost, we had Caroline from KPMG meet us on the city outskirts, and she kindly gave up her day to direct us to where we needed to go.

Nonetheless, we got into the centre of Santiago with a few per cent still remaining, and Sebastian was quickly forgiven for his energy-hungry driving! Our destination was the palatial residence of the British Ambassador. He had kindly let us store and charge the car there, but seeing as no one was there at the time (4pm on a Sunday afternoon), we parked the car there and quickly hastened to the hotel in order to check in and get ready for go-karting!

Before getting on to the commentary of who won what in the ensuing competition of driving skills, I would like to say something of the drive we had coming in from Tongoy. Driving into Tongoy 2 days earlier we had noticed a distinct vegetation change, but it was still semi arid and the scenery was very similar to what we had been experiencing for the few preceding weeks. However, today marked a seismic shift in our surroundings.

For a start, we moved over from Chile’s low coastal mountain range to the foot of the mighty Andes mountain range, and for much of the journey we could see the permanently snow covered peaks standing out in the distance. The scenery passed from the semidesert as recently described, into a very Mediterranean landscape before turning into the lush forests surrounding Santiago. Really, the pictures will do the vistas far more justice than I can, so please do take a look at these.

Other than the scenery though, the weather cleared up nicely, and by the time we got into the city, it was very warm indeed with blue skies above. The road surface was excellent throughout, and it was a very smooth day’s driving. Chile was on a bank holiday weekend, and the streets were very quiet, and we could drive through and really see the best side of this beautiful city. It is quite unlike any other city in Latin America, and is more akin to an American/European city than anything else.

And now, back to the day’s main focus; the go-karting! We made a deal with the manager of the track to give us 4 10 lap races for the price of 3, and before long we were sitting in the karts rearing to go! As an observer, the karts didn’t look particularly fast, but when driving them they were perfectly fast enough for this short and very twisty track.

The first race was fast and very furious, with Sebastian taking an early lead. However, miraculously, I managed to overtake him on the 4th lap, and for the remainder of the race I managed to successfully fend him off and retain the leading position! This was certainly a surprise to me as I had never exactly excelled in this sport, but upon talking to everyone after the race, it was clear that there was a big difference in the performance of the karts. Some were good, and others were dreadful!

So, in order to balance it out, we all swapped cars so we each got a go on a range of cars so we could ascertain who was the best driver. The subsequent races became more and more competitive as we learnt how to properly control the karts, and some great lap times were set. Sebastian did convincingly win the next 3 races, clearly setting himself in a league above the rest of us, but the rest of us were very close in skill and performance. I guess this should be expected after driving the last 23,000km, but nonetheless it provided for an exhilarating afternoon where by the end we were racing in the dark! It was really great fun, and we are looking forward to a rematch in Argentina where we have been offered the opportunity to race very fast competition karts! Keep a look out for the video of today’s events; it should be a fun one to watch!

After karting we grabbed a quick bite to eat, and then made our way back to hotel. Some of us went out to see something of the Chilean nightlife, while others stayed back and worked. In conclusion, it was a really fun day with a lot of exciting driving! Many thanks to Caroline for accompanying us about town, and for managing to put up with a bunch of guys talking about cars for several hours!

To set the scene, I better describe the hotel in a little more detail. It is a small place set right on the sea with a balcony and lounge in full view of the extensive bay and beach. Small fishing boats gently bob up and down right outside the window, and the air permanently smells of a fresh sea breeze. The hotel only has a few rooms with nothing special about them, but it is the communal areas which we enjoyed so much.

The lounge, as I mentioned, had a panoramic view of the bay, and a number of comfy armchairs and sofas to recline on. In addition, there is a never ending supply of soft lounge music playing in the background, and there are relics from ancient sea exploits all around. My favourite was a fully intact diving suit standing in the lobby, complete with lead weights and shoes, and alien-looking helmet! At night it gives you quite a startle! The management of the hotel were exceptionally kind and accommodating, and a more homely place can surely not be imagined!

And so this is where we spent the entirety of our day; sitting in the lounge and working! It was a very relaxing as well as productive time, and that’s about all there was to our day, except lunch. As you may expect, being so close to the sea, we were eager to eat some fresh seafood. So in a break from the work, we walked just down the road to a building which had a fresh fish market on one side, and a row of tiny restaurants on the other. It was here that we enjoyed some quality local cuisine, and the shrimp empanadas we had were the best we have had on the trip so far! Dinner was a similarly fishy affair, and that effectively summarises our day; eating, and working!

I often mention the fact that the team is working, and you may be wondering what this work consists of exactly. Keeping this project not just afloat, but also improving, is a daily mission for the team, and there are a number of activities that we do on a daily basis.

Firstly, and most obviously given that you’re reading this, the blogs need writing and uploading. I have come to really enjoy writing these summaries of the day as they really help collect my thoughts on the trip’s proceedings, but nonetheless, this is a time consuming process. In addition, all those lovely pictures in our Flickr albums which accompany each and every blog do not appear from nowhere. Andy is the main man behind our photo effort, and out of around 400 quality pictures that are taken each day, the best 30 or so are selected, occasionally edited, and uploaded.

As an interesting side note, by the end of the trip we will have accumulated about 30,000 high resolution pictures, all of an exceptionally high standard (i.e. Edited from a much larger number of pictures taken). In line with our message to encourage and inspire, the best of these pictures are available for anyone to download for free.

Where do we go next? What route? Which hotel? Can we charge there? Who’s our main contact there? What’s the day’s schedule for the press events? What local knowledge do we have about the road conditions, weather, altitude etc? These questions and more are solved on a daily basis as part of our logistics effort which everyone chips in on, but which is spearheaded by Clemens. Some of our events are so carefully coordinated that they are organised many weeks in advance, and without having a dedicated response to these challenges, we would be extremely disorganised. Fortunately, we all recognise this and so more often than not we have a plan B, and this means that apart from the 3 big delays (shipping, fire, and crash) we have always arrived when and where we say we would arrive.

Then there is the car, and despite it working superbly, it is still a prototype which was built in just 9 months. As often as we can, we check that everything is still working smoothly, and we analyse the data we have collected. We are constantly learning more about how the car works, and how certain components respond to varying circumstances, with particular attention to the batteries. So, very often when the rest of us are working on the computer, you’ll see Nik, Toby, and often myself, working on something to do with the car.

There is of course the issue of charging every day that we drive. As we require 30 amps to charge at full speed, you cannot just plug into a normal wall outlet if a) you want to charge quickly, and b) you don’t want to trip the circuit breaker when somebody turns on the kettle for example. As such, we are often wiring into rather unconventional sources, and this takes quite some time on occasion.

There is also a documentary being filmed of the project, and the filming of this and the background work of actually getting the documentary onto the BBC is very time consuming. This work is mainly done by Claudio, Paul, and Jonathan who are all doing a fantastic job, however we often need to chip in with various things.

So there you have an insight on what exactly we were doing on our “day off”. Certainly a lot of work, but never would any of us EVER swap it for anything else. Every day we fall even more in love with what we are doing, and it is a real privilege to be in a position to be able to do it. It’s not a walk, in the park, but we would never have it any other way!

The owner of the hotel, a miserly old man, had switched off the electricity supply to our chargers despite being perfectly convinced the night before that it would be OK for us to charge up. He then remembered the previous conversation and allowed us to turn the chargers back on for one last hour. However, when we were ready to leave, he refused to move his car which was parking in the SRZero, and there was no reason for this he said, he just didn’t feel like it!

We thought that perhaps this was because we hadn’t paid yet, so we hastened over to the office to settle our bill. On doing so, the woman demanded we pay $50 for the electricity we had used! Again, we had agreed the night before that we wouldn’t have to pay because the amount is so small; somewhere in the region of $5. But the woman was insistent we pay this extortionate price, and it was only after we showed her the local electricity price per kWh, and the meter reading of how much we used, that she finally gave in and gave us the electricity for free.

However, we still had the issue of a 2 ton pickup truck halting the exit of the SRZero. Finally, and I mean an hour after we had asked for the car to be moved, the owner hobbled over and performed the required action. This was by far the most torturous and laborious process we had ever had to charge the car and leave, and by the time we were back on the road it was 2 hours later than scheduled.

Nonetheless, we aren’t ones to dwell on the negative experiences of the past, and the beautiful drive that ensued soon put all memories of the previous night and the morning far behind us. The only notable thing from today’s drive was the vegetation change. After being in the most barren of deserts since the border of Peru and Ecuador, the green was returning, albeit slowly. Every few kilometres brought about an increase in low level grasses, cacti and shrubbery, and while the vegetation was still relatively sparse, the greenery was a welcome change.

By the time we reached our destination in the small seaside village of Tongoy around 400km further down the Pan-American Highway, we were beginning to see the occasional tree as well! It is very rare that you will find a group of male engineers talking about trees and flowers with such excitement, but after so long in the desert, you can forgive us!

Tongoy was not what we were expecting at all. Our previous experiencse with small seaside towns have been mixed, with most having some sort of industrial bent to it. Even Mejillones which we enjoyed a few days ago had big industry and power generation on it’s fringes, however Tongoy was completely different. This is what you really would hope for in a small seaside village; a wide open bay with a beautiful untouched beach, a small peninsula with charming houses and small hotels overlooking the sea, and an abundance of small traditional fishing boats bobbing away in the gentle swell. The air was warmer than we had experienced for a while, and fresh with the salty tang of the sea, and the whole pace of life seemed slower; perfectly matching the tranquil surroundings.

We quickly found our hotel after asking directions from a few locals, and after discovering that it was located right on the beach, and had a comfortable lounge with fast Internet directly looking over the sea, we were eager to settle in for the night! Priorities were addressed first though, and we put the car on charge with the help of the owner; a sharp contrast to our experiences the night before!

As it turned out, the circuit at this hotel was unable to support the fast charging of the car that we have become accustomed to, and so rather than the car being fully charged at 7am, it would now take until 2pm the next afternoon. Given the fact that we would still arrive 2 days early for our commitments in Santiago, we were not phased by this delay in the slightest. In fact, we welcomed the opportunity it would afford us to catch up on work and relax in these beautiful surroundings before we hit the bustle of Santiago.

With this in mind, we took our time sauntering down to the local restaurant where we were treated to a fresh and delicious seafood dinner. Soon after this, we found ourselves falling asleep to the gentle sound of crashing waves just outside our bedroom window…paradise!

Anyway, after waking up in this strange but wonderful place, we all met downstairs for a sumptuous breakfast before taking an unusual break before departing. This was because we had a large amount of work to do which we weren’t able to do the night before due to the night’s activities, and the Internet here was excellent, so we spent an hour in silent concentration until it was time to pack the van and push off.

Leaving Paranal one got the strong feeling that you were leaving behind a small oasis of the future, and that the road down the mountain was literally bringing us back down to reality! However, as always we were excited to be back on the road and we had a 410km leg to take us into Copiapó, a mining town with a population of around 150,000.

The drive went very smoothly for the entire duration, and we were treated to some truly beautiful vistas. Aside from stopping for lunch, where people in the small seaside town had already heard about the SRZero amazingly enough, we drove nonstop. The only surprise of the whole day was when driving through Copiapó trying to find the hotel, we came across the capsule in which the Chilean miners were rescued in earlier this month! We ended up returning to the main square to see this in closer detail later on, but for now we needed to get to the hotel.

The hotel was pretty dingy, and despite them agreeing by phone to let us charge up, they still made a hassle about it. But finally we managed to convince them that it doesn’t use much electricity and that it’s not dangerous; these were among the hardest people we have come across to explain that this technology is safe! However, we soon had the car charging, our rooms sorted, and we could head off to dinner. Surprisingly, there was an abundance of Bavarian restaurants in this city! We ate in one of them and the food was pretty good, but this was the extent to which we explored the city for we had another early morning to get up for, so no late nights for us!

Not the most exciting of days all in all, but it was a successful day bringing us that much closer to Ushuaia!