We had breakfast in the common room and then returned to the room to publish the next blog and sort out the accommodation payment for Concepción. They had e-mailed that we needed to pay 50% 24 hour before arriving and I had replied that they need to send us a link that we can pay on credit card as the normal bank transfer does not work for foreign nationals. They eventually got back to me with a link and I paid the full amount for the next 3 nights in Concepción. When they sent the details of how to access the apartment and garage, it was for a different address than what we had booked – I messaged them and said that we really needed the apartment at the address we had originally booked and luckily they replied saying it was a mistake on their behalf and they confirmed the original details. With all that clarified, we set off on the 222km trip which was supposed to take 3.5 hours. We rode about half way to Nacimiento which included a toll road and fuelled up there. We decided to stop on a side street and have a break in the sun and charge my phone and eat some nuts as we were on time to arrive in Concepción by 3:30pm with plenty of time to fully unload the bikes and deliver the bikes to the mechanic place for their service before they closed at 7:30pm. We continued riding along the Ruta de la Madera which was a toll road even though it was a single lane country road that meandered along the river and had lots of logging truck traffic. At km 39 we hit completely stopped traffic – we waited in line for a bit and realised that there was no traffic at all coming on the other side of the road. Then an ambulance went past on the wrong side of the road. We suspected it must have been an accident and decided to ride on the wrong side of the road to get to the head of the queued traffic – people were out of their cars sitting on the road and we passed about 3km of queued traffic before reaching the blocked off road. We just saw that a car which had the car doors removed was lifted up by a crane and placed on a tow truck. We waited about an hour before the road was re-opened in both directions and the queued traffic on the other side was also 3km. We later found out that it was a single vehicle accident that had occurred at 10am with the 30 year old driver of the car declared deceased on the scene.

We arrived in Concepción at 5:00pm and for the first time on this trip completely unloaded the bikes. We noticed that the washing machine in the apartment was still running and I messages the rental agency to ask if they wanted me to take the load of washing out when it finished and also asked for more toilet paper as there was only 1 roll for three nights. They replied saying don’t worry about the washing – leave it in the machine and that only 1 roll of toilet paper would be provided – this was quite ridiculous as we paid $90 per night and if you stay 1 night you get a full roll of toilet paper but if you stay 3 nights you still only get 1 roll of toilet paper😳🥺. We also later that evening discovered that my night lamp did not work at all because it had no batteries in it and there were spiderwebs inside the apartment – apart from that though it was perfect for what we needed. We then rode to a Jumbo – my favourite supermarket in Chile – the last time we had been to one was middle of January – unfortunately I only had time and space to buy just what we needed for breakfast the next day including blueberries for our cereal which we also have not had in a long time. We then dropped the bikes off at Pistons Speed and Luis listened to all our wants and needs and told us that he has an expert on suspension who is currently in Argentina with Ducati racing team but he will return on Friday to look at our bikes and fix the suspensions. We were very happy with the attention snd customer service and Luis said he had a DR650 himself – so we were reassured that our bikes were in good hands. We could leave our helmets at the workshop and then walked back to our apartment which was a 13 minute walk. We got changed and headed out to the restaurant “Lo que más quiero” for dinner. When we got there they told us it was fully booked but we could sit at a little bar table which we were happy to do – we sat under a painting that looked as if it was an Australian Aboriginal painting. We later asked about it but we were told it was from a local artist. I had a pot of mussels which was delicious and Andrew had the Chilean version of a parmigiana Schnitzel. We then ordered a pavlova to share for dessert – it was an upside down pavlova with the fruit at the bottom then the eclair and the cream on top and it was such a huge portion that it could have fed 4 people but we managed to eat it all 😉.

The next day was washing clothes and cleaning day. I cleaned my rok straps and wiped the dirt off my panniers. We had a washer/dryer in the apartment and got two loads of our clothes washed and dried – in the second load, I realised that my travel credit card was in the pocket of my pants 😳 and had gone through the wash and the dryer and came out very hot and warped 🙁.

We also got more grocery shopping done at a nearby Unimarc for lunch and Andrew got a haircut. We walked past Pistons Speed to pick up my helmet as I wanted to cheat my pin lock on my visor. We then decided to just have dinner at our apartment and got sausages, crackers and cheese and a bottle of red wine while catching up on blogs and planning the rest of our trip. Researching the best time to visit Peru and see Machu Picchu and keeping in mind that crossing over the Andes in June might be difficult with road closures due to snow even on the main roads, we decided to head to Uruguay first, then Brazil and the Iguazu Falls, then return through Argentina to Chile and then North to Peru before travelling back to Santiago along the coast.

The next day was more maintenance to be performed – my pin lock on my visor had accumulated so much dust that it was difficult to see through – after watching a few videos on how to remove, clean and re-install the pin lock, I tackled that project and managed to do it all without too many dramas – there are fine scratches on it now even though I used a clean microfibre cloth but it is definitely an improvement and I can see through it again 👍. Then I fixed my kidney belt by sewing the Velcro strip back on that had peeled off – another successful fix👍.

We then tried to get more Chilean pesos from the Western Union but had issues with the app and needed to walk back to the hotel to get it all sorted before successfully getting dinero the second time round. Now we were just waiting for our bikes to be finished – they close shop at 7:30pm and it was Friday night – we hoped to go back to the great restaurant for another pavlova and this time take pictures of it but being Friday night it was booked out and we still were not sure whether we would get our bikes back and if so by what time. After a few messages back and forth they said they would keep working until it was all done and they said they would be finished before 10:00pm!! 👍on a Friday night 🥹. We put all our gear on and walked to a nearby pizza place and had very nice pizza and then ordered one pizza take-away for the lads working on our bikes until late in the night. We arrived at Pistons Speed at 10:00pm and Louis and Matías were still finishing up lubing our chains. We had never seen our bikes that clean. We were so impressed with their work attitude – being there late on a a Friday night with a smile and sharing stories and pictures of their bikes. They also answered all our questions about what had been done on the bikes and how they fixed the suspensions and showed us pictures of their work. We then posed for pictures and left a short thank you video for their instagram site. We exchanged stickers and social media details and after paying, we finally rode off in the dark with our shiny clean bikes that looked like new at 11:00pm at night. So impressed and happy that we chose this place over riding to Santiago to have the service done – I think it would be hard to find a better place to get your motorcycle serviced anywhere in the world – top guys and professional service with that wonderful added element of nice kind humans.