October 2011 - Royal Automobile Club

the most exciting part of the trip. There are absolutely
no sign posts or GPS coverage. The first night in
Guatemala, having taken three hours to cross the
frontier, we climbed for an hour in first gear on
precipitous, narrow roads. Long after dark we gave up
trying to reach Lake Atitlan and stayed in a roadside
hotel. This was at 8,000 feet, bitterly cold and we were
clearly the first ‘guests’ in a very long time. But
Guatemala is incredibly beautiful and the next two
nights we stayed in luxury in Antigua Guatemala.
On 18 December we crossed the last frontier from
Costa Rica into Panama, where ten days later we
shipped the car to Buenos Aires. Christmas lunch was
taken in an excellent open air restaurant at the
Miraflores lock watching cruise liners negotiating the
Panama Canal. Then, on 5 February, we set out from
Buenos Aires heading North, almost to the Bolivian
border, and then South to Esquel and the Old
Patagonian Express. Right hand drive cars are also not
allowed in Chile but in over a month there, only one
policeman mentioned this. When crossing into Chile no
inspection of the car had been made and the entry
permit made no reference to the configuration.
Fortunately it satisfied the local constabulary. We have
lost count of how many times we were stopped by the
police in Spanish America. Our record was five times in
three hours, driving through Honduras. Perhaps luckily,
we were only relieved of cash once, in Nicaragua, for
speeding in a village. Having forked out US$60, way
over the odds according to the locals, we were then
asked for a tip. As I had my passport back by then, my
Spanish gave up on me!
On 8 April we departed Santiago en route to
Adelaide. Our rather well travelled car had to go via the
Panama Canal, arriving nine weeks later. As I write
(early August), we are in Townsville in Northern
Queensland, where we have been attending a sublime
chamber music festival. Later this month we will ship
the car from Brisbane, but to Turkey rather than
Jordan, in view of developments in Syria, and gently
make our way home, arriving hopefully at the end of
November. Our wrinkly gap year will have turned into
nearly 18 months. Our daughter thought we would kill
each other after three, but here we are, still loving it. The
car has thus far covered 27,000 miles. Until we reached
Santiago (22,500 miles), having driven on some awful
roads, many miles of no tarmac, climbing to 10,000 feet
on several occasions, and being generally abused by the
wretched driver, we had spent just $125 on repairs. The
evidence speaks for itself - it has to be said that the
Bristol 405 Drophead is the ideal touring car.
10DPG will be on display in the rotunda from 2 January.
October 2011 | Issue 136 | 67