Sciatica. Hint. It’s not a city in South America. I’d heard of it, but didn’t really have any idea what it was or that I could have problems with it or that it might even put an end to my trip around South America. Well, it has for now. My normally unplanned plans have been thrown into turmoil by the fact that I am struggling to walk and have no chance of riding a motorbike for a while. I’m just sitting, standing and lying in my room hoping for Xmas to end so that I can get to see a physio and get started on my rehabilitation and hopefully get some pain relief.

Let’s go back a couple of weeks when I was taking my health for granted and didn’t have to worry about where I would stay or which direction I should go. My only deadline was to cross the border into Chile before my visa expired on the 23^rd of December. And I know I could ride 600kms in a day if I needed to.

I left Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay, and headed for Filadelfia which is a Mennonite community about 450kms towards Bolivia. My aim was to ride to Bolivia and cross through the southern section of the country into the north of Chile or maybe even drop down into Argentina and then into northern Chile. Filadelfia has about 20,000 people and was started in 1931 by families of Mennonites of Russian and German descent who had fled persecution in various countries around the world. Apparently the local families have about 6-8 kids so they,ve cut back a bit. I found a nice hotel at a good price and then went exploring. I was expecting to see horses and wagons but there were a lot more mud cover Toyota Hilux’s and other utes.

It’s a very agricultural town and I think it is quite successful and prosperous. They had a great supermarket, similar to those in Europe and a great hardware store with lots of practical, quality stuff. I needed to buy another 15+ litre plastic fuel container to take with me into Bolivia as the fuel crisis was still happening there. This was very easy to do. Next morning I had my free breakfast, and I loaded up my bike with my two jerry cans which I planned to fill at the border. I have a tarp on my bike of a night, and I have to roll it up tightly to stow it in its allocated spot on the bike. I decided to roll it up on the clean floor of my room as it was very dirty and dusty outside. My room was small and so I was sitting on the edge of the bed rolling it up with my back hyper extended and for some silly reason lunged left to get the far corner of the tarp to tuck it into the roll. I felt an instant shot of pain in my lower back and left buttock. I got up and walked around a bit and did a few stretches and thought I’ll be fine and got on the bike and headed for the Bolivian border.

I had a nice little encounter in a roadside shop with empanadas and had lunch at a roadhouse that looked exactly like an aussie one with gum trees and all. I had heard that the petrol station on the border didn’t take cards, and I didn’t have many Guarani’s left so I decided to fill up in a town about an hour from the border which had 3 petrol stations marked on the map. And it did have 3 petrol stations, and they did have petrol but what they didn’t have was electricity. Eventually one of them was able to connect up a generator and I was able to buy fuel. Expensive fuel. I filled my tank and two plastic containers which I had wrapped in cloth and shoved in black garbage bags so that it didn’t look too obvious. To a blind person. So, I set off to the border with 35 litres of fuel. It was very noticeable in the handling of the bike.

At the border I topped up my tank again and found my information about the petrol station was correct and they didn’t take cards. The border crossing itself which doesn’t seem to have a name, was quite easy and took less than half an hour and I was the only one there. I was still feeling a bit sore and so decided to head to Villamontes which was 130kms and an hour and a half from the border. I went to the Eco Hotel which was quirky and nice. Lovely staff and I met the owner who was an architect and all for sustainability, which was nice. I had a lovely feed in a pop up restaurant on the edge of a drain near the river. So cheap and good. I had a couple of beers and crashed out. I was sore but tired and slept.

Next day I was up and ready by 8:00 and had a great breakfast at the hotel. I had 600kms to get to Sucre but google said it was 12 hours. No idea why it should take that long. I checked out a few petrol stations and no fuel. I found this long line of fuel trucks and I had noticed lots of fuel trucks crossing the border from Bolivia towards Paraguay. I’m guessing that they were queued up waiting for permission to head over the border and get fuel? When they had enough money to pay for it?

I was doing okay, and the road seemed fine until I got to some small town where the main road was cut off for a few hours and made into a rally track. There were no workarounds, not even for my bike so I had to sit it out and watch the cars zoom by. I was able to bypass the queue and get to the front and was the first person to leave once they reopened the road. I ended up at a town called Monteagudo late in the afternoon. I had managed to do 300kms in seven hours. I tried to buy fuel with no success and the locals said that it was illegal in this town to sell coke bottles of fuel so I had to use the first of my two plastic containers. I considered going to the next town before it got dark but was advised that the road was muy feo, and so decided to rest my left leg which was now getting pretty sore.

I found a cheap hotel and slept uncomfortably. Next morning I headed for Sucre. 300kms and 6 hours. The roads so far had been good and surely there were no more rally races. I got to the edge of town and the bitumen stopped and a partially hidden sign pointed in the direction of Sucre. Not a good start. The gravel was reasonable and then I come to some roadworks and a huge tunnel. It wasn’t open yet and the road went around it. The bypass was steep and caught me out. I was in the wrong gear and stalled and was slipping backwards down the road and trying to keep my balance. My sore left leg was struggling to support me but I managed to get it in gear and move forward in an ugly fashion and get the bike up onto a better surface where I could stop without falling over or sliding backwards. And catch my breath.

The gravel road was patchy but had beautiful views. But no one had told me about the butterflies. I had been hitting a few butterflies over the last few days but when I got into the more lush jungle areas they became a pain. There were white ones, brown ones, and green ones. And thousands and thousands of them. I stopped at one place to try and photograph them. You can’t swerve around them and so my bike, my clothes and my helmet killed thousands of them. I had to carry a bottle of water to wash my helmet face shield every hour so I could see through it. After a couple of hours and nearly 100kms of gravel it just finished, and a beautiful new paved road appeared.

I made it the rest if the way into Sucre and had the added bonus of seeing a petrol station with petrol and only a few people. The lady said I could by fuel but at $1AUD a litre. Without a receipt. Or having to show my passport. I’m sure she fed some other local persons numberplate into the computer and then pocketed the balance. Worked for me. My accommodation at the Casa Los Jazmines was nice thankfully, as it would turn out that I would be there for about 10 days. It was also about $20AUD and had parking for my bike. And was only 2 blocks from the hospital where I ended up.

The night I arrived I was in a lot of pain and it just got worse. I didn’t sleep all night as I couldn’t get comfortable. Early in the morning I went to the nearby hospital. They could see I was in a lot of pain and said as long as I was willing to pay $30AUD then I could see the doctor straight away. It was all in Spanish. He said I had sciatica and then gave me bits of paper with stuff scribbled all over them. I gave that to the pharmacy lady who said I need to pay first but there was a lineup to pay by that stage. With a bit of Spanish and some charades I realised I had to go and have some needles in a little room but I saw the nurse leave the room and turn off the light. I called her back, and she talked to the pharmacy lady for a bit then motioned me to her room. Lucky I caught her. It was too hard to explain anything to me or ask any normal questions about allergies etc. So it was a needle of something in my hip and then an intravenous bag with a few more drugs injected into that and I sat around in a chair for a couple of hours while people came and went, and used the toilet cubicle that I was sitting out the front of. It was quite funny really, but I wasn’t in a laughing mood. After the bag was empty I was given a couple of medicines to take home and then had to pay the total of $150AUD for the 4 hours I was there including the doctor and the drugs. One of those hours was writing down all the stuff and working out the prices. They were short of two drugs and said to pop into the pharmacy across the street and get them. I was feeling slightly better but still not well.

That afternoon I googled a physio and then I walked to it. It was a 20 minute walk. I found walking was slightly more comfortable than lying down or sitting. I found the place but it had no signage and so I rang the bell. They had nothing available that day but they said come back tomorrow and gave me a time. I made it through the day but drowsy and drugged up. A new experience for me. I went to the physio the next day and he was apologetic about not seeing me the day before as he had patients until 11:00pm.

Turns out I’d stumbled into the best physio in town and possibly Bolivia. He was great. Over the next 8 days we actually became friends. He only spoke Spanish, and I had a one hour appointment every day. He was very good at his job and had all the right gear. The first day he did an ultrasound and showed me the problem area. And also, on the last day when it was all but gone. From day one I got relief, and it just got better each day until it felt normal. And he only charged me $15AUD a visit and they were always over an hour. When I questioned his pricing, he said he normally charges double that but felt sorry that I was in such pain and then as we became friends he continued with the same amount. There are some lovely people in the world.

Sucre was a nice place, and I had some good meals. Here’s just some random photos of the town. I also happened to be there on judicial election day which was a sunday and all vehicle traffic was banned. It felt pretty weird.

My problem had eaten into my days to get to the Chile border, so I decided to ride a short day to Potosi which is known as the highest city in the world at 4090m. It was a nice old city and was once the silver capital of the world and its riches helped Spain to become a colonial powerhouse. But also a bad place if you were indigenous or an African slave and had to work in the silver mine. A few pics from there.

From Potosi I did another short day to Uyuni which is famous for its salt flats. Great scenery along the way. I found a guy selling fuel in two litre water bottles so I grabbed a couple while they were available.

In Uyuni I stayed a few nights in a private room at the Piedra Blanca hostel which was a nice change. Lots of young people stay there so they can visit the salt flats. Got my bike its 18,000km service . Fortunately, I got the best mechanic in Bolivia. I know this because he told me. Quite a character to say the least.

I did a short trip out to the Dakar Monument which was on my bucket list. I didn’t ride out to where the water is on the salt flats because it sounded like it was a long way away from the monument and I hardly had any fuel. The salt flats are about 20kms out of town. While I was there, I saw a shop with heaps of coke bottles full of clear fluid so I thought I could get some fuel. But turns out they were only bottles of water that people put outside their house to get warm in the sun for washing.

Back in town I got my bike washed by the best bike washer in town. Same guy. There was a long queue for petrol but I queue jumped to ask if they serve foreigners and they said yes but $1.20 instead of the local price of 70 cents. I said I’m happy to pay $1.50 without a receipt and they said bring your bike over to the pump now then and we did the deal. So I had a full tank and my container was still full and that meant I had enough to get me across the border and deep enough into Chile to find a petrol station.

I found Uyuni to be an odd town. Wide streets, dirty, dusty, flat. Not many trees. I had a nice Spanish lesson with a young barmen in the Lithium Club until some customers turned up. I then found a great little street BBQ and had a great meal for less than 10 bucks. There wasn’t much more to it. I had to get organised for my entry into Chile. I needed to buy Chilean Third Party insurance online which was a hassle as they only accept Paypal. I ended up getting a mate from Australia to buy it for me. About $50AUD for 6 weeks.

Next morning I was up early as I had a big ride of about 450kms and I thought my sciatica was under control so the distance should be fine. As I was turning my bike around in the parking area I was unbalanced and the bike fell towards my sore leg. I tried to balance it but my leg couldn’t take the weight so I let it fall. My leg seemed okay and I reminded myself to be careful. As I left town I visited an old train cemetery which was a bit weird with a side show of metal monsters. Sort of summed the town up for me. The guy in town who knew all the best directions actually gave me a bum steer when he said most of the road to the border was bad with only 30kms of bitumen.

Turned out it was about 80kms of reasonable surface which would have been terrible if it was wet. Then at least a 100kms of nice new bitumen which was great and then the final 50kms was a mix of roadworks and bad gravel and patches of sand. It made for hard riding and I nearly came off a couple of times. When I finally made it to the border my body was feeling tired and my leg was begin to ache a bit. The border is in the middle of nowhere and seem unorganised and overcrowded. Probably because a couple of buses got there before me. It took about two hours to get through, but it was easy enough. I’d made it to Chile before the deadline. I was happy. Sore but happy. I took the last 220kms to the town of Calama pretty easy and stopped a few times to take photos and have a stretch. It was unusual terrain as I was in the desert but with smoking volcanos.

Calama is basically a mining town, very similar to Australian mining towns. I stayed at the Hostel Jallalla which had tiny box rooms, shared bathrooms, but a nice shared kitchen where I met a couple of other travellers which was nice. I quickly discovered what I already knew to be true and that was that Chile has Australian prices and my $35AUD hotel was a $15AUD room in most of the other countries so far. And a basic takeaway meal was at least $15AUD and I’d been eating in a nice Sushi restaurant for that in Bolivia. I got $160 out of the ATM with a $10 ATM fee. The currency is Chilean Pesos and there are about 1000 pesos to the US Dollar. No blackmarket and I’ll probably just be using my debit card all the time. To save on ATM fees. But plenty of petrol at Aussie prices so it costs $20AUD to fill my tank now. Sad emoji.

I didn’t have a great sleep and my leg was sore. I was actually feeling a bit down mentally in my boxy little room and so I booked a night at a nice Ibis hotel in Antofagasta which is on the coast and from where I would start heading south to my goal of Ushuaia in Patagonia. I thought nice hotel. Positive vibes and I’ll be fine. It was only a few hours ride and I was leaving the high part of my trip behind for a while and back down onto the coast. The ocean has great healing qualities and sea level has lots more oxygen in the air than where I’d been for the last few weeks.

I had a lovely room on the 13^th floor overlooking the coast and about 200m back. The bike was in a nice underground carpark and the bed was comfy. I fell asleep for a short while after I arrived and then woke up with a lot more sciatic pain in my left leg again. I tried to walk it off and couldn’t get comfortable. By 2:00am I hadn’t slept and was almost in tears again with the pain. I could see from my window the 24 hour emergency clinic a block away so I got dressed and hobbled there. Thankfully there were only a few people there and the girl on the desk spoke some English. Unlike Bolivia, they wanted lots of information and I went through a triage nurse. The young receptionist had to come with me to translate each time I was shuffled around, and they gave me a nice hospital bracelet with all my details on it. Just like Australia.

The pain was the same level as I had when I was in Sucre and they said they would give me some medication to ease the pain. So. Here I am in Antofagasta in Chile, discovering the benefits of fentanyl at 3:00am but know that I have to find a physio, lock in some accommodation and spend at least 8 days again try to get back to where I was 3 days earlier. And I have to do all this in Spanish, and its Xmas Eve and everything is booked out or shut down over the Xmas break and the timing of the weekend couldn’t be worse.

I’m okay. Disheartened but see a glimmer of light. I’m safe, have a nice hotel room, a couple of random physio appointments lined up. I’m on medication so the pain is not too bad. I’m doing my exercises. It’s expensive but balances out with all the money I saved having the same problem in Bolivia where it was so cheap. I spend too much time on Google and it’s always on my mind that I might not be able to do any of the long days that I had planned. But we will see. Oh. And I’ve got the runs.

I guess it’s not an adventure if you don’t have a few setbacks. I’m not looking for sympathy as there are way more people worse off than me but just keeping my blog realistic. It’s not all llamas and empanadas over here. Smiley emoji. Merry Xmas and a Happy New year to you all.

PS. It’s taken me ages to write this bit by bit and I skipped a couple of blogs which I’ll get back to later. And for some reason I have lost control of where I place the pictures. Not sure if it’s me or the app.

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