Our planned visit to the lovely town of Castro turned out to much longer than expected. Come Monday morning all strapped up and ready for our trip to Puerto Varas (So selected because it is only a 20min bus ride to Puerto Montt and extremely beautiful) we just could not get my bike started.
After the battery went flat the friendly owner of the house said she had a mechanic just down the road (yes that means up to a very steep hill), with Marius pushing at the back and me steering and pushing we eventually got to the mechanic.
With his ever-improving Spanish Marius explained to the owner that we needed help, and he just looked at us and even I could understand it when he said he has no idea how motorbikes work.
He did point out that there was a motorbike mechanic in Castro and gave us some idea where to go. Now we had some directions before and let me tell you if we understood the first part it was miraculous. We then pushed my scooter on the pavement through the city centre across a few roads and I told Marius to wait while I go find this mechanic.
Road after road searched I eventually returned after an hour empty handed, we then decided to just leave the bike on the pavement while we both go searching. Hidden down the Main Street the same place that sells pyjamas we found the mechanic, typical as with most Chilean places it was still closed at 10:30 am in the morning.
Pushing the bike up and settling in front of the bike store, I poked the engine with the screwdriver and tried to unfasten some screws, after a few serious words between Marius and myself of where the spark plug was located the owner arrived. He soon had the battery hooked up and removed the spark plug, Marius was right, it was not on the carburettor. He sends Marius off to the parts store to get a new spark plug and fiddled around. Come lunchtime and still no luck we all headed to lunch in Castro.
At 3 pm we returned to the bike store, still locked we made ourselves comfortable on the pavement in front. At 4 pm the mechanic was back and 5000 pesos later my bike was up and running.
Arriving back at home, the owner already had us back in the room for another night. And of course, it was probably the funniest thing that ever happened to them.
More coffee, dinner at the best Chilean restaurant right on the bay and a nights sleep we were ready to go. All packed and strapped onto our bikes my bike decided nope I’m not going anywhere. It was obvious that something was seriously wrong with it.
Not giving up we pushed my bike back to the Auto Mechanic and asked him to give us a jump start (That means hook it up to a huge mother of all batteries). As we did this Marius went back and fetched our luggage and his bike.
YES, success! The bike started and died and started!
Everybody was convinced that it was the battery and Marius urged me to go buy a new one. The motor is running and that is all that mattered to me, so off we went to Ancud, our next fuel stop.
85km later we arrived in Ancud, filled up, both our tanks and our bikes tanks.
Again my bike did not want to start, and just as I was about to give up it gave that great sound and we were off again, 35km to the ferry port.
making it all the way to the ferry was a miracle again, we boarded and my bike was still running. Marius said that I should switch it off and I was like, “Nah lets just keep it running”, I said. Eventually being over optimizing hand Marius getting his way I shut down the engine.
As we pulled in to Pargua, there was no luck getting it started. I eventually pushed it out the ferry and up the hill out of the dock. Whatever we tried it just would not start. Eventually, Marius went off and bought jumper cables at a local hardware store (Ferrateria), desperate I stood in the road holding up the cables waiting for someone to stop and jump us. A friend Chilean eventually came to our rescue and we hooked up. Try as we might with all the power there was just no spark!
Eventually, we tied the bikes to a pole and took the bus to Puerto Montt and onwards to Puerto Varas.
To be continued…
