Cafayate to Villa Union

9am prompt we leave this pretty little colonial style establishment with Chauffeur Roj at the wheel of our Terrano and laden with yet another handful of useless Amendments.. Mind the bumps!!!

According to Rally Route Book we have a 600 km day through little dirt villages and our day is calculated as an 8 hour one!! Somebody has miscalculated once again. Back to Road Recce - ing School for Orgs methinks..

We are rather perplexed as to why so many tests are being allowed through these little villages. A tad dangerous one would have thought. There seem to be plenty of off roading tracks here for road rage to take place safely?

We hear that yet another Test is cancelled today (much to the annoyance of some participants) so maybe the locals have got wind of whats going on??

Apparently the 'grapevine' tells us lol that on Day 1 we were all going to be handed 400 sheets of Amendments just for FOR Day 1, then the Orgs thought it may look a tad silly and we left Rio de Janeiro with just 1 page.
No wonder we got lost lol

LOL is 'LAUGH OUT LOUD' lol
A few peeps have been asking :)

Apparently the grub at last nights BBQ wasn't up to much again at Rally HQ but the entertainment was 5 Star ....
We on the other hand had both :))

Alistair Caldwell celebrates his birthday today along with his grand daughter so HIP HIP HORAY to you both..
Sorry we cant make it to the Big Bash in Berkshire.

Hope the EVANS WATERLESS COOLANT worked well for you on your Indian Rally ..

Haydn from The Porsche (another past Philip Young Peking to Paris competitor) had some T. Shirts made for the occasion - will have to borrow them again today in the daylight - useless flash on my iPhone 5 lol. Talking of phones.

My lovely network Vodaphone have cut me off as they were concerned with the high usage in bandito country - they were supposed to ring me yesterday but am still waiting - their loss....
Will wait until Mendoza to complain - we are not getting a service out here anyway..

Fabulous day today and we start our journey being overtaken by a 'flight of parrots' ah - they move so quickly that we missed a real splendid photo opportunity.

But an emergency stop prompted by David brought the Terrano to a halt for a rare photo shoot of Rusty old engine..
May be of interest to Mr Ward ??

Lots more photo opportunities on route. We even found bored and underpaid support crew paddling in a ford and offering a spot of windscreen washing.

Filled up with diesel (230 Argentinian Peso - approx £30) in a little village called San Blas and the pump attendant was rubbing his brow and complaining that is was 51 degrees and muttered that it was 54 degrees elsewhere...

Yes we had noticed it was a tad warm, when we all pilled out of our air cond jeep to stretch our legs, but Yicks 51 degrees - we would have fried on the Itala..

Weather forecast from Orgs was apparently thunder and rain storms!!
They got that wrong as well then, amongst other things....

Gosh am i still complaining??
There's nothing like a whinger on route is there - dampens the spirits lol
Quite a few of us on this route route and i can tell you that i am not the loudest!
But i promise i will stop complaining just as soon as we get home... Honest :))

Wonder how the others are doing.
We haven't seen anyone for ages, not since we saw Hans at the side of a dirt track fixing a puncture on his Mercedes. (But saying that i did take a short nap..)

Damn annoying things punctures, especially in the blistering heat and more annoying when you have to unload the whole contents of your boot to locate the tyre lever. A large camera clicking native audience doesn't help either..

Been there once and got that 't. shirt' lol
Still cant believe it - never ever had a puncture on the Itala and we go and get one on the first damn day 20km from our Hotel. I guess the odds were against from then on in ....

Wow just passed a few rally cars, some doing some last minute 'spannering' before their test.

Chucklet was looking a little incontinent or should i say the monster caddy they are riding in (another past ERA 2010 Peking to Paris competitor) pair of tough guys they are but even they had a shock to see the location of the proposed test today!!

We drove ahead and thought OMG there is going to be a fatality by the end of test!!

Sharp bends, missing barriers, sheer drop, on coming traffic and by the way maintain speeds of 74 kph

I told David to ring and warn the line of waiting cars behind of the dangers but luckily all was in order.

We soon came across another line of cars awaiting to start the test at a new location. at the top of the climb. Thank the lord..

Apparently the 48 hour car had pointed out the dangers days ago but it wasn't actually altered until this clerk and his deputy dog saw it for themselves..
What a shock they must have had...

What had the Recce Group been thinking of in the first place?? Very very Dangerous situation WOULD have arisen here!!

Think everyone is in a state of shock!!

Good luck on the new test guys.
David had a fiddle with Sir Bill's plugs and then we left them to it.
Twoz scorching up there and we are already 9 hours into our 8 hour day but with thank goodness only 70 km to go ...

At last we reach out car park um i mean our hotel lol 5pm and a pool to take a dip in ...