Tuesday November 22, Day 10
Concepcion to Vina del Mar, 633 kms
Today we will reach the Pacific ocean proper, at a beach resort near Valparaiso. A city slightly north of Santiago on the coast. But before we get there, there are many kilometers to go. Its going to be a long day of over 600 kms and of course what would life be like without a regularity test on a narrow gravel road with many curves up and down a mountain side. Properly chastised by yesterdays experience and yet the latent need to get back in our standings we are planning to take it calmly. At first all is going fine, but then we run into one of our competitors who is going very very slow. Honk the horn and try passing on a narrow gravel path is a high wire act. Then it turns out the officials have set out this test on a relatively busy public gravel road. So we run into a school bus, two more competitors behind a truck full of tree trunks all of which are going at a snails pace. We pass everyone and make it to the finish ok, but with 20 seconds late penalty. It does not change the standings much since almost every one got the 1 minute maximum penalty, except a few lucky ones that did not encounter any, or very little traffic.
Eating a sandwich in the shade of a tree at a time control, on our way to Vina del Mar.
Tomorrow rest day in Vina del Mar. Car is doing great; clean the air filters again, rotated the tires, lubricate a few places clean the ignition.
