Long Way Up (2020–…): Season 1, Episode 4 - The Andes - full transcript

Got sun on my face

Sleeping rough on the road

I'll tell you all about it

When I get home

Gonna roll up the sidewalk

Gonna need letting up

Comin' round to meet you

The long way up

We're gonna ride 13,000 miles
through 13 countries.

From Ushuaia, in and out of Argentina
and Chile, to the Atacama Desert,

heading up to La Paz
before we cross Lake Titicaca,



continuing along the Andes to Colombia,
over to Panama,

through Central America and Mexico,
arriving in Los Angeles 100 days later.

We're gonna give these guys video cameras,

and they're also gonna have cameras
with microphones on their crash helmets

so they can film themselves
as they're riding along.

Is this a road? Oh, my God!

A third motorcycle will travel with them,

and on it will be Claudio, our cameraman.

In addition, Russ and I will travel
in two electric pickup trucks,

along with cameramen Jimmy,

Anthony and Taylor,
who will also help with logistics.

We'll be filming the guys
from the vehicles,

linking up with them at borders,

but otherwise,
the motorcycles will be on their own.



We're crossing over into Chile
and then going up into the Andes

and heading up
into the mountains a bit more.

Sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep.

Wow, look at this.
God, there must be hundreds of sheep here.

They're very... got very pooey bums,
all of these little fellas.

I like sheep.

At least they're pretty.

Feels good right now, you know.

I feel like the first ten days
of the trip were quite difficult.

We started with a huge learning curve
with the electric of the bikes.

Yesterday, we were like,
"Can't do it. We can't do it."

And then, today, we're like,
"Okay, this is great!"

We realized that the cold
really does affect the bikes.

Apparently, batteries are
a bit like humans.

You know, they work perfectly well
around 37 degrees.

I mean, you can imagine if we could do
140 to 150 miles on one charge?

Now, that would be incredible.

So far, we've traveled over 1,000 miles

from Ushuaia to here in Perito Moreno.

Next, we'll cross over to Chile
and ride along western Andes to Chaitén

before catching a ferry to Puerto Montt.

Now that we've got
the bikes working,

we can actually relax a bit more

and get to meet the locals,
which is what these trips are all about.

Hello, my name is Ewan.

How are you?

Benjamin?

And dance, and dance!

Break it down. Come on, get down.
Let's see some moves.

Yep. Good, good. Yep. Yep.

A bit of a floss!

Very nicely done!

I was a drummer in a pipe band.

- You were, weren't you?
- Rock bands and stuff.

Well, a rock band.

All right!

- Bye!
- Bye!

Well, here we are. Paso Internacional.

Certainly the most
dramatic border crossing I've ever done.

We're into Chile,
and it's absolutely spectacular!

The scenery. Oh, my God!

You've got these mountains
and you've got that lake.

It's just magical.

Chile, man.
Things have just stepped up a bit.

I love Chile, and I've got
this distant family link there.

My great-great-great-grandfather
went to Chile to help build the railroads.

He was an engineer.

So, I've got this little Chilean chink

in my otherwise
pretty fully Scottish ancestry.

So, apparently, it's Independence Week,

is where they got their independence
from the Spanish,

and that's why all the flags are out.

The people take their holidays
at the beginning of spring.

So, it should be getting really lively
over this next week.

In 1818, the Chilean people
overthrew 300 years of Spanish rule.

And ever since, they've spent
the third week of September

celebrating their independence.

So, we picked a good time to be here.

That says...

I wish I knew some Spanish,
but can we please park our bikes...

Okay, let's try it.

- It's not open.
- It's not open?

There's a bad start.

It's 'cause of the holidays.

And everything's shut.

There's someone sitting there
having dinner.

Yeah. But the door's locked. It's shut.

There's a guy coming here.

- Hola.
- Hola.

Press the buzzer. You know.

Ring the bell.

Of course.

- Oh. Yes.
- Oh! Gracias.

There's our salad in the middle.

And chimichurri.

- Chimichurri?
- Si.

Si.

Thank you.

Thank you. No, no, great.
Thank you very much.

- Love the little smattering of a salad.
- Yeah.

You know... We probably won't eat it.

It's a salad for three.

This is amazing. Is this lamb?

I don't know what it is.

- It's meat. Meat.
- Is that meat? It's meat.

I don't know what it is.
My mouth is so on fire

from all the chimichurri stuff.
I don't know what it is.

It's really suddenly kicked in.
The nose is starting to run...

You know, I'm doing a lot of...
Just trying to cool the tongue down.

I've tried to get a little bit...
Oh, God, she's got more, look.

- She's giving us more.
- Gracias.

My mouth is on fire.

It's stunning today.

This is kind of what I was hoping for.

This has been the most amazing

motorcycle riding road
maybe I've ever been on

other than the roads in Scotland.

This road is just paradise!

I overdid it with the chimichurri sauce
at lunchtime today at Yusseff's.

So I've just been
paying the price for that.

Oh, dear.

It is absolutely hammering it down.

Listen to that.

It's just hilarious, the whole thing.

Gotta get to this boat
tomorrow morning to carry on.

And it's just not gonna...

Oh, my God.

So, Ewan, what you feel like?

I feel like...

I don't wanna say now.

But I wanna film this.

This little look.

What? What's wrong with my look?

- Is it nice?
- No, it's nice. Just a little...

Is my hair okay?

- Like a little granny look.
- Little granny look.

It's so cold.

This is the first time we've had rain,

and we're riding out on these dirt roads,
which should be fascinating.

I'm soaked.

Straight in the eye! It's horrible.

I'm sorry to laugh.
That was priceless!

I left my helmet out in the damp

and it's got quite wet
in the foam under here.

So, when I'm riding along,
it tends to steam up,

- even though it's got...
- Sorry, mate.

- Even though it's got double...
- Sorry. No. Excuse me, mate.

- So, even though it's got double...
- Sorry, I gotta get through.

Double glazing on it...

You'll maybe care enough to 360
on one of those days.

- Just if you're up for it?
- What?

What did you say?

I'm just trying not to steam up, you know?

- Was watching School of Rock, Jack Black.
- Yeah.

And he does a lot of that.

And it's so...
It's like really not rock and roll

but it's so cool when he does it.

Could someone deal with
all the scheisse down here?

It's probably not good
to leave that lying in the rain.

- Thanks, Ewan.
- We have a team for that.

Have the charging department come in.

Can they get past makeup?

- I don't know.
- They're a bit stuck in.

There's catering, makeup, wardrobe,
and then the chargers. So...

Who knows?

Just heading off with the crew,
and we are heading towards the ferry.

It's starting to rain
quite heavily again now.

It's always a struggle
riding in the rain. Visibility is poor.

And, of course, you can't ride very fast,

which isn't great
when you're trying to catch a ferry.

My brake lever's hanging there. Look.
The bolt sort of rattled out of there.

So I could've caught that somewhere
and it could've thrown me off.

I think I'll just cable tie it up
just in case I get it caught.

Like this.

I very rarely use the brake, to be honest.

There you go.

Okay, let's go,
'cause I'm so desperate to get there.

These ferries leave once a day.

So, if you miss this, then you miss it.

You know, you gotta wait another day,
and we don't have days to waste.

There it is.

Wow.

Beauty, mate, beauty.

God. That was a wet and windy ride.

The prevailing feeling was,
"Are we there yet?"

With limited places to charge the bikes

on the next long stretch of road.

So, we've decided to take this ferry.
It's gonna cross the Gulf of Ancud,

and it's gonna take about nine hours
to get us to Puerto Montt.

So, it's a double tap.

None of the instructions said
to just double tap.

- Well...
- Unless I've read them properly.

No, no. You didn't read them at all.

That's what's the problem.
Not that you didn't...

Not that they didn't say it,
but you didn't read them.

It's like a marriage, this.
Like a marriage for three months.

Maybe... So, in Peru, we should go
for counseling, probably, somewhere.

Do a little marriage
counseling session in the middle.

So, when you say...

those certain... in a certain way,
I find that hurtful.

- That makes you feel...
- It makes me feel...

You know...

that we don't talk enough and that
you're not expressing your true feelings.

Okay. I hear you.

And I will bear that in mind.

And if I feel that I wanna say something,
I will address that.

And try not to do that
'cause I don't want you to feel that way.

- Okay.
- And when you say, you know, anything...

It makes me feel like...

like I'm undervalued.

And that makes me feel undervalued.

- And so I...
- Never.

I would never. You are never undervalued.
Ever.

Every morning
when we are coming to breakfast,

you're there. It's a ray of sunshine.
Really.

And I feel the same way.

Okay, there we go.
That's so much better, huh?

- So, that'll be $5,000, please.
- Yes.

Thank you very much.

- Yeah, so it's here. Here.
- It's Independence Day.

- Here?
- Yeah.

We've got word that
there's an Independence party going on

in some car park
near central Puerto Montt.

Okay, perfect.

It looks like they've
just thrown up some tents

and put some music on.

And they're really
letting their hair down.

Hola. How are you?

- What?
- Ewan. Nice to meet you.

What's your name?

Ewan.

- Ewan?
- Ewan.

-Ewan?

- Ewan.
- Yeah. Nice to meet you.

There was some great dancing
and were some spectacularly drunk people,

but in a very friendly sort of way.
Wasn't, like, aggressive drunk.

It's like this is candy floss
with 36% alcohol.

But in water.

With ice cream.

This is a South American empanada
which is based upon...

Which is based on the Scottish pie.

Oh, my God.

Bye, girls!

It was fun. I have to say I enjoyed it.

It feels special to be in Chile
at this time of year.

Today we'll cross the border
back into Argentina

and ride on to Aluminé.

This is no-man's-land between the Chilean
and Argentinean border.

Yeah, we're just climbing
up and up and up.

And it's not doing
our battery life any good.

We're off the grid out here,
and the Rivian battery is low.

I wanna ask this man...

- Yes?
- ...if he would drop his trailer

and tow our vehicles 15 minutes out
and 15 minutes back.

- Okay? Is that okay?
- Okay.

Thank you. That's cool.

Yeah, I'm good to go when he is.

Towing the Rivian
quickly adds charge to the battery.

It's a pretty neat trick
to get us right back out on the road.

This guy came in for his empanadas,

and we managed to persuade him
to tow an electric car.

It's a good idea that Dave had,
charging up behind the rig.

You've got a motor on each corner
of the vehicle

which normally drives each wheel.

But when you pull the car along,

it turns that motion into electricity
that goes back in the battery.

And by tow-charging, we can get about 80%
of a full battery in about an hour.

We're a little tight and we are,
as you know, in the middle of nowhere.

This town is our last stop...

before we get to where we're heading,
and that's 150 kilometers away

and we probably
don't have enough to get there.

We haven't quite got into
the charging rhythm on the trip yet,

but we're getting creative
about how we charge 'em up quicker

to allow us to keep the expedition going.
And this is a fun way of doing it.

Gracias, señor!

The cars have been behaving really well

considering they're loaded
with all of our filming equipment

and the electrics on board
are all prototypes.

Wow, look at that snow.
There's so much of it. Oh, my God!

Look at it all.

Ewan disappears occasionally
with all the steam.

I remember riding in the snow once
with my dad.

We went for a motorcycle ride
up in the Sierras.

Up near Lake Tahoe.

And I think when we got near Lake Tahoe,
there was some snow.

But not as much as this.

But again, the Harleys are just fantastic,
just totally holding their own.

I mean, the roads are wet.
They're not icy.

They're a bit pothole-y here and there,
but the bikes are just soaking it all up.

- What are we doing?
- It's incredible, isn't it?

What are we doing?

Let's go for a motorbike ride in the snow.

Yeah. I mean, it's just madness, isn't it?
We're 4,100 feet.

Okay.

It's been amazing
crossing the Andes in the snow,

and it's been very special to film.

But it's also just been
great fun to be here.

We've loved Chile actually, I'd say.

It's been spectacular.
Patagonia has everything.

Yes, I'm getting you.

Okay.

One second.

We must've dropped a few thousand feet
down through the Andes.

So there's barely any snow now.

Look at this bit of sun.
The sun is dappling through the trees.

Feels warmer, which is good.

It's nice that it's
not so freezing cold today.

Okay, here we go.
Argentinean border crossing.

It's like a gateway to Patagonia,

but we're heading out
of Patagonia today, really.

So in the end, we went to a campsite.

- Ewan McGregor?
- Yes. Ewan. Yeah.

- Ewan? Oh, my goodness!
- Yes. Yeah.

- No way.
- Yeah. Charlie Boorman.

- What's your name?
- Martin.

- You're from?
- Poland. Yeah. I'm a cyclist.

And where are you heading?
South? Or North?

North. We're just sick of the cold.

Before him, I didn't cycle.

- Yeah.
- I wasn't a cyclist or traveler.

- Nothing.
- No.

I used to have such a normal life.

I was a teacher. I had a car.

I didn't do any sports too.

Where did you guys meet? You met in...

- Turkey.
- Turkey.

A really small town I live in Turkey,

and they look at life like this.

- Yeah, yeah.
- Really closed minded.

I was on the way
to cycle around the world.

I didn't want him to go.

I was thinking about his eyes.

His beautiful eyes.

But you gave up your school and all.

What did your parents and family say?

I packed my backpack, and I said,

"I'm going to work
in Istanbul as a teacher."

And I didn't tell them.

Wow. Still can't believe
you didn't tell your parents.

- We will.
- All in good time.

- Maybe tell them when you get back.
- Yeah.

This couple kind of
lifted my spirits a bit.

We all have our own lives.

And you've gotta live your life
and do what you think is best.

And she was brave enough to do that.

And she broke out.
And she's with this guy that she loves,

having this amazing adventure.

Their love story was so lovely.

The when she talks about his...
Falling in love with his blue eyes,

her face lights up. Oh, my God,
it was so nice to see!

She was just so in love. It was perfect.

It's a hotel but in summer.

We were hoping to stay.
Maybe have some food...

- Okay?
- ...and sleep, but it's not possible?

- No, I think it's not.
- Okay.

We barged in and there was this nice lady,

Solano, and her daughter.

The place is not open for business yet.

I don't think that they really
want us here, do they?

- Nah, it's gonna be fine...
- I think we can get there.

- Come, I'll show you.
- Okay.

They're not ready. They are...

It's okay, we can sleep
in our sleeping bags.

- Yeah.
- Yeah.

- Sure.
- It's okay? Yeah?

Great. Gracias.

That's fantastic.

Hey, cat.

What on earth are you doing on my bike?

I mean, we can eat our camp food,
or we can just have these.

Charley, mushroom or chicken?

Yeah, I'm happy with both.

This is real. This is real living.

There is something incredibly remote
about here, isn't there?

Yeah.

Just waking up here to the early morning.

And look at this. This is just...

beautiful.

Problem is, if we get to here,
it's 92 miles.

Then in order to get up to here,
we'd have to charge pretty much...

all day.

The breaks between where we wanna get to
are just a little far apart.

There's a little town there. La Lajas.
And that is...

127 miles.

Would be brilliant if we could
get some miles under our belts.

We want to pick up the pace
and increase our daily mileage.

The plan for the next couple of days
is to ride through northwest of Argentina,

passing Las Lajas,
and then on to Barrancas,

and with any luck,
finding somewhere to camp.

Charley was speaking to the guy
who owns the place here,

and instead of going blindly north,
we're gonna take another route,

which we wouldn't have
instinctually taken based on the map.

It's quicker, shorter,
and there's this huge switchback

all the way up this hill,
so that should be fun.

Came up all these twisties.

Up over here is...

Claudio von Planta,
drone pilot to the stars.

Claudio's our cameraman
who's filmed all our trips.

And he's riding on
a petrol Harley-Davidson.

Claudio, what seems to be
the situation here?

What is that?

- What goes in here?
- It's...

It's empty!

It's proving to be a bit of a liability
this motorcycle of yours, no?

I mean, I don't know
if you got the memo about Long Way Up

but this was an electric enterprise.

I mean, we've still got
miles and miles to go on ours.

What does this say here?

Forty-nine miles.

And we are struggling on the fuel front.

If you don't mind, Claudio,
we'd like to keep getting on the road.

We've got plenty of electricity
and Claudio is possibly gonna run out.

Bizarre.

This is actually
the first time we've broken down,

and we're right in the middle of nowhere.

I'm in park.
I can't get into drive otherwise.

Put it in neutral, and put...

I can't get anywhere.

Something's jammed the brakes
on Dave's car,

so they're permanently locked on.

The wheel won't move,
so we ain't going anywhere.

They're just not popping off.

We're hearing it.

Let me have a go
with a screwdriver.

- Can you get in there?
- Oh, no. No.

This is Zapala, ladies and gentlemen.

There's some sort of fuel crisis.

Look at this queue over here
of people waiting for fuel.

And again, the irony is
that we're gonna get held up

waiting for petrol for Claudio,
not for electricity for us,

which is quite funny.

So, look, if you could see here,
they've just got a delivery of fuel.

None of the petrol stations
in town have fuel.

And there's a queue.
And you can see the queue,

it goes all the way down here.

And this lady in front here
has been waiting for five hours for fuel.

Welcome to Zapala!

Either we wait and get some fuel,

or we stay here in town
and wait till tomorrow

when all the panic is over.

We're kind of in a conundrum
of not quite sure what to do.

Hold on one sec, guys,
before you do anything.

What do you wanna do?
We're forcing it back out

so we can make that rotate again.

I know it needs to get fixed,

but can we just try electronically
before we take it apart?

We both know she's a prototype,
not a production vehicle.

She probably just needs a minute.

The hope is that effectively,
by rebooting the car's computer,

it will let the brake off.

I asked a guy
who gave me the charger what...

What was happening. He said this is just
what it's always like here.

It's always like this.

We just take it for granted, don't we?

You can turn up to any petrol station
and there's always petrol there.

You don't have to think about it.
But in other places in the world,

like here, it's not the case.

We've heard a bit about this
when we've spoken to other people,

about how difficult times have been here.

People don't have money in their pockets
and don't have food in their fridge.

Or petrol in their petrol stations.

I just saw a guy on a moped
filling up a little jerrican.

So I ran over with Claudio's jerrican

and got them to share it with me.

So, basically, I just added it onto his,
and just gave them the 200.

So he now has a jerrican of stuff.

Did you also have an ice cream?

I had an ice cream.

Didn't ask me.

Actually didn't ask me either,
if we wanted an ice cream.

We're fueled up.

We're ready to go.
Okay. See you in Las Lajas.

Yeah, I just wanna reset properly, okay?

Dave, what about you toggle it down...

Just pull the two toggles down
for 45 seconds, see if that does it.

Come on, baby.

Come on now.

Green.

It's in drive.

It's looking good.

Empanadas, here we come.

Thank you, everybody.
We seem to be rolling out, rolling along.

The boys are a long way ahead of us now,

but at least we're back on the road.

What a day! Today we did 137.6 miles,

and we have ten miles left in the tank.
So, that is 147 miles.

These bikes definitely
work better in the heat.

And I reckon we can safely say,
without a charge, we have 130 miles.

Pretty good, 130 miles.

That wasn't the case when we were
further south in the cold at all.

So, it's been a bit of a game changer
these last couple of days.

The weather is beautiful.
I think it's gonna be warm.

No thermals on today.
Jeans, t-shirt, normal socks.

The woolly thermals
are going into retirement, maybe...

Maybe for the entire trip now.
Who knows? We don't know.

But we'll see.

But for now,

let's thank you for your service,
woolly thermals.

Thank you for your service.

These warmer weathers have allowed us
to ride a bit quicker.

And it's left us time to stop
and actually meet people.

"I am descendant
of our Mapuche community."

Mapuche? Mapuche? Mapuche?

- Mapuche.
- Mapuche.

"Because I am Mapuche language,
I'm descendant of a Mapuche community."

That's really nice. It's nice to meet you.

We shared a dream with my dad.

Three years ago my dad made us an offer,

so his grandchildren
wouldn't have to live on benefits.

"Together, with my husband,
they undertook a family project

to sell meals and to sell homemade bread,
everything related to homemade."

But it seems very difficult
around here to make some kind of living,

so your story about these people here
is a huge success story, isn't it?

Yeah. It's amazing, yeah.
I mean, there's not many places

like this in this town that we've seen.

They're the Machu tribe.

They would have been around here
600, 500 BC.

From what I've read,
there's quite a lot in Chile as well,

and they were treated quite badly.

We can go and visit one of these tribes.
It's just up the road.

So, we'll go and find this little town
with the Mapuche people.

The Mapuche indigenous people have lived
in this region for nearly three centuries.

In the 1800s,
Spanish invaders took control

of their once thriving cattle
and salt trade,

and their community fell into poverty
and has never really fully recovered.

Here we are in this town
of Mapuche people.

Yeah, it's really... looks like it's really
well put together, doesn't it?

Good community. Strong.

That looks like a town hall
or something over there.

- Hola.
- Hola.

My name is Samuel.

- Samuel.
- Samuel.

Samuel, I'm Charley. Charley.

- Ewan.
- Ewan. Nice to meet you.

- It's possible to go to the school? Yeah?
- Si.

- Buenos días.
- Buenos días.

Look how lovely it is.

All this stuff.
The kids must've made all these,

the little hanging things.
It's beautiful here, actually.

- Hola. Buenos días.
- Hola.

- I'm Ewan. Charley.
- Charley.

This is such a pleasant, cheerful place.

It's so nice, the colors on the wall,

- and everything. It's great.
- It's fantastic.

- Isn't it lovely?
- Yeah.

How do you say "children"?

- How many "children"?
- Niños.

Sixty-Four.

It's a bilingual school.
Spanish and Mapuche. Mapudingun.

In Mapuche, say, "buenos días."

Marr marri, pichiqueche.

Marr Marri, Pichiqueche.

Marr Marri is "good morning",

pichiqueche "children."

Marr marri...

"Pi-chi-que-que-che."

"Che." This means, "How are you?"

God, I'm really at school now.
I feel like we're in the right place.

You're a very good teacher.

We're getting a lesson. Yeah.

So nice.

Gracias. Thank you very much.

- Thank you for showing around. Yes.
- Have a safe trip.

- Yes. See you later...
- Goodbye.

This is what I love about these trips.

Learning about the cultures and seeing
how people keep their traditions alive.

This great guy there still smiles

and he drops his glasses. Claudio stood
on his glasses by accident and broke them.

- He's not gonna forget us coming.
- No, he certainly won't.

He's been so lovely,
and we've just broken his glasses.

He's probably had those for forever,
as well.

All right, let's...

For you. For you. We would like you to...

- No, no, no.
- Please, please, please.

For the glasses.

We don't expect accidents.
They just happen.

The souls you meet on a trip
like this, they just warm your heart.

This is Chos Malal,
which, in Mapuche, means "yellow rock,"

after the surrounding hills.

Come on. Come on, sir.

- Buenos días.
- Buenos días, Atilio.

- Buenos días. Hola.
- Hola.

I'm Ewan. Charley.

Nice to meet you.

He's a singer.
He's also a breeder of chivito.

- Goats?
- Yeah, goats.

And does he write songs
specifically for gauchos? For horsemen?

Because I'm a huge admirer
of the intelligence and creativity

of countrymen.

And would he sing a song for us?
Here? Now?

Yes. My pleasure.

From a peach tin

Natural peach

Like a good muleteer

I made a gourd for my maté tea

So I can off-load my packhorse

And make myself a resting place

And with my gourd

I'll sit and enjoy my maté tea

I pray to God and to the Virgin

To follow me wherever I go

And that in my bag I always have

Ñaco, ham and bread

A bit of tobacco and

Some maté to drink

- Cómo estás?
- Hey!

A bit of tobacco and

Some maté to drink

The sun is shining.

The temperature's up a little bit.

I'm just hoping this next bit
we can get a bit more rough and ready,

we can camp a little bit.

I'm just desperate to sleep in a tent.

I'm desperate to get my, sort of, camp on.
I wanna get my camp on.

We've arrived at our campsite.

I'm not sure it's quite the campsite
that we had in our imagination

as we were driving down here.

Basically just a yard that's used
for dumping building materials,

and they put a sign up saying "camping."

But as for the camping during this trip,

I've never opened this tent before.

Out. Okay, so that's that.

I've forgotten how much I love camping.

How's it going, Charley?

Yeah, it's going really well,
actually, yeah.

Are you up already?

- I didn't wanna say anything.
- Oh, God.

Charley's fuming over here.

What's this?

- Ewan, I'm in trouble.
- Why?

Well, I really don't know what I'm doing.

No way is this a two-man tent.

Look, it's tiny.
Unless I'm putting it up wrong.

No. But you had these peg out. Look.

- Yeah.
- Pull that corner.

There you go. Look.
That is a two-man tent.

- That's two-man?
- Yeah.

No, that's not too bad.

I really liked sleeping in my tent
last night. It was fun.

A good feeling
when everything you need is on that bike.

It's difficult to believe
that we were freezing cold.

And now we're in the baking desert.

Today, we ride 130 miles
across the desert to Malargüe.

It's super remote out there
with only one town along the way,

so hopefully we can make it on one charge.

Otherwise we'll end up
stuck in the desert at night

when it drops below freezing.

God, it must be tough living out here.

So barren and dry.

That beautiful farmstead looks like
it could've been hundreds of years ago.

It was totally an ancient way of life.

I hope this bridge is safe.

I don't really like the heights.

Don't know if you guys feel the same way,
but whenever I do this...

I do just wanna jump.

I just wanna go.

There's still a fair bit to go
to Malargüe,

and this B & B's the first place
we've seen for miles,

so hopefully we can get a charge here.

Hi, I'm Luz.

He's Enzo.

Luz and Enzo.

Shall we go over there?

It's okay?

- Come in. Yeah.
- Go in. Go in.

Wow, it's really cool.
It's a beautiful place.

- It's incredible, isn't it?
- The stone for the garlic, look.

- Look at that.
- That's you guys.

Charcoal.

Charcoal. It's lovely.

Look at this bench. Look.

- It's homemade.
- Look, it's just all made of...

- Everything is homemade.
- It's like my place.

- My benches.
- It is like your benches.

- But it's knocked up with whatever.
- We can just sit here and...

- and rest up. And drink beer.
- And drink beer.

Our entire building system is sustainable.

Brilliant.

You created it? Yeah.

- Wow, that's incredible.
- Amazing.

- Can we see more?
- Sure.

Can we see?

- The solar panels.
- Exactly.

Look. It's just all car batteries.
So amazing.

Look at all that. That's all familiar.

Eight thousand watts.

Very clever. Very similar to Ewan's.

And it's not that complicated, really.

I mean, I couldn't build it, but still.

Somebody could build it,
that knew what they were doing.

During the day,
we manage everything with solar panels.

At night, you have the wind.
During the day, you have the sun.

So the ideal is to combine both.

This is the future.
This really is the future.

They didn't have on-grid power
like we thought they might have,

and we felt like
if we plugged into their system,

the bikes just wouldn't charge.

So, we decided to move on
to try and make it to the next town.

But the problem is, is that there's not
a lot in between some of these towns.

It's a bit of a boneshaker, this road.

And then every now and again,

your front wheel
goes into that deeper gravel

and it gives you a little heart-stopper.

God, thank goodness we're here.
That was a tough road.

We've put a couple of hours' worth
of charge into the bikes,

and then we decided to take off.

We've got 30 miles left to go to Malargüe,
and it's getting late.

We don't wanna get stuck here at night.
It's freezing already.

We've got a bit of a headwind, Charley,

chewing through my battery life here
a little bit.

Try that for ten minutes
and just see how it changes.

It's not that far away.

I'm not gonna get there, I don't think.

But there's gonna come a point where
we're not gonna make it back

and we're not gonna make it there,
and then I'm stuck.

See here.

See, they've got power coming in.

See, from there. I don't know.
We may as well ask.

We need to put a proper charge
on the bikes.

We saw this little farm,
and so we've come in here.

Yeah, okay.

It's not showing a time till full yet,
which isn't a good sign.

- Did it alter yours?
- Mine is saying 42 hours.

Yeah, it's not gonna work.

The power here...
It's just not strong enough.

Gracias. Ciao.

Gracias.

Oh, well.

We're just not gonna make it,
so we're gonna turn back

and go to Bardas Blancas.

I was just dreaming
we were gonna make it to that town,

and then hot showers, Wi-Fi...

I can't remember how this goes.

I've lost another
pair of sunglasses today.

Maybe we left them at that farm.

But if we did, that little kid's got
a pair of nice sunglasses, so that's cool.

The little boy that was
looking at us through the window.

I didn't sleep great last night
with all the trucks going by,

but anyway, I'm up.
It's just about 6:45.

And let's go and see if the bikes charged.

Ninety-nine percent.

It's the charging dance

It's the charging spin

It's the charging dance
and the charging spin

This, I think, is the septic system
for all the buildings around here.

I just walked over there

when coming back
to check the bike's charge, and it's...

That's the pong I'm smelling.
And this is the septic system...

and this is my tent.

Septic.

Tent.

So here we go again.

I love camping, but it's time to move on.

- Are you happy at 55?
- Yeah, 55's fine.

We're gonna ride to San Juan,
and then to this town called Villa Union,

and then we're gonna try and do
our longest daily trip yet,

200 miles to the town of Belén,

taking us near the end of the journey
through Argentina.

The sun is shining. With any luck,
we're gonna push up our mileage.

So, I think it's here that we decided
to turn around yesterday.

It was here that I realized
we weren't gonna get there.

And...

possibly here that I left my sunglasses.

Let me see if I can just see them
lying on the deck.

What you looking for?

Your glasses?

Get the hell out... No!

No!

Great!

Oh, man, what a result!

It's a shame for the wee boy,
but still.

That is superb.

Okay. Wicked.

Holy shit.

Wow, that is quite spooky.

Wow!

Just stunning. There's no one around.

They must've made
a James Bond film here, surely.

We've got a tunnel, and a...

- James Bond.
- James Bond.

And all of this, look.

- Mr. Bond. Yes.
- It's so James Bondy here.

This amazing dam.

I'm just reminded that my dad worked,
when he was a teenager,

when he was 17 or 18,
he worked building a dam above Crieff.

Above where I grew up
and where I come from,

the town of Crieff in Scotland.

I'm just looking at this thinking,
what an undertaking.

What an amazing feat
to create something like this.

It's incredible what we can achieve.

Off on the road again.

Try and do a 200-mile day today.
Get to Belén.

Let's see what happens, man.
It's an adventure.

It's funny. It's all a bit
of ups and downs and stuff.

I'm feeling pretty good today, I must say.

Spiritually-wise, I'm feeling great.

This is great.

Like a motorcycle road
from your dreams, really.

I think we're coming out of
this little valley now.

We could try and charge the bikes in here.

It looks like some sort of
electrical shop.

What's your name?

- Vanessa.
- Vanessa.

Nice to meet you, Vanessa.

- Hola.
- Hola.

- Hi.
- How are you?

Nice to meet you.

What's lovely about this situation is
we just turned up here,

and we thought it looked
like a stereo shop or something,

like there was a place down here
where they put stereos in cars,

so we thought they'd have good power,
and we just rode in.

And it turns out it's just their garage.
It's just their house right in the back.

It's nothing to do with the stereo shop.
And yet they let us plug in.

They gave us lunch.

It's such a laugh. And we didn't...
They don't know us from Adam.

God Almighty. We literally just
rocked up, total strangers,

and now we're siphoning their electricity
and eating their food.

Eating their food.

- Island. The Island.
- He's onto me, look. He's onto me.

He's, sort of, half onto me
and half not onto me.

- Yeah?
- He's not trusting his instincts.

Trust your instincts.

Stretch out your feelings. Use the Force.

He's onto me.

The thing I will always remember
about this country,

always remember about this country,
are the people.

Just amazing, the people. Just amazing.

Friendly, couldn't do enough for you,
open doors,

no one ever said, "No."
It's just a really cool part of the world.

So, I'll be sad to leave it.

We've done 97.8 miles.

Looking good.

Yeah, at the moment it's all
going exactly how we'd like it to go.

Are we nearly there yet?

This is what it's like doing
a 200-mile day. Driving in the dark.

Streetlights. Streetlights! Belén.

Boom.

Happy to be in old Belén town.

Yeah.

So we'll have done 215 miles
or something today.

It is another extraordinary day.

Yeah, that was a great day.

Well done, Charley.

Yeah, we figured it out.

I really enjoy the unknown of it all.

Just coming across
the people we come across,

and the places we come across.

It's been wonderful so far.

Charley.

It's amazing to have crossed Patagonia
and the lowlands of Argentina.

What a privilege to have seen that.

Amazing place to be
and ride across on our bikes.

But now a new challenge:

We're gonna climb
to the extreme heights of the Andes,

and the real risks of high altitude.