It had been built by a British farming family when the landowners of Patagonia were as optimistic as they were wealthy. The staircase was wide, the hallways solid and the rooms cavernous. The - shared - bathroom was a study in intricate woodwork, floral wallpaper and fittings that had been Built To Last. They had outlasted the original family, and the optimism and money of a bygone era. It had been a hotel for many years.

Most of the travellers who come within spitting distance these days are truckers. They avail themselves of the food and drink but sleep in their cabs. It costs less. Even the French filmmakers were sleeping in their car to preserve their pesos - a saving not available to the average motorcyclist. Yet my room cost the equivalent of �5.

Oh yes, the French filmmakers. I had questioned their motives as they interviewed the two truckers last night - 20 mins taping on a camera they boasted cost about twice as much as my bike. Pretty extravagant for a home movie?

- Yes... no... well, we are film students, they admitted. And we hope top make something of this month in Chile. What a great film we could have! A whole country uncovered! What the people truly think. How the country sees itself. (Much to my surprise, we found ourselves talking in Spanish, though my French is supposedly alright. Every time I tried to speak it, out popped Spanish. Merde!)

I admired their pluck and the quest to *understand* but we clashed over their methods. There was no question of release forms or consent from those they interviewed. I don't suppose the two drunken truckers from last night would ever find out if they ended up on the big screen at some trendy French film festival -- and they might not object if they did -- but that's hardly the point. In seeking to understand how Chile percieves itself in the world, they were themselves exploiting. If you see the film somewhere, please let me know!

I had fallen in with the truckers too and last night -- as my muscles seized slowly in front of the fire -- one of them had offered to give the bike and I a lift to Rio Gallegos, 100 dirt road kilometres north. The bike had leaked petrol alarmingly yesterday as I revved my way out of trouble, and the engine was playing up. I didn't have enough petrol to reach safety. Oh, and by the way, it had started to snow. No time to feel precious about doing it all on the bike.

The trucker warned me to be awake at 6 if I wanted a lift. I was up then. The World's Greatest Barman was up then. Even the French filmmakers were up then, camera at the ready. But of the trucker, no sign. Just an empty bottle of vodka thrown from his cab sometime after he had retired for the night four hours previously.

There may not be much to hit in these parts but I wasn't about to get in a truck with a drunken driver (though I was learning a valuable lesson about my fellow road-users). The filmmakers had no spare petrol. It wasn't looking good.

Then the World's Greatest Barman, a young kid from Punta Arenas paying his way through college (decent wages here, *no* social life) unearthed a handyman from somewhere willing to sell me the ten litres I needed. This is life two hours from the nearest petrol station: someone will have petrol to spare and be nice enough to sell it to you. I was profusely and expensively grateful.

By 9 o'clock I was ready to leave, a full tank and every layer of clothing available wrapped around me. The snow was easing off but had already started to settle. The temperature was dropping. I have a most distinct memory of pulling away from the hotel, the French filmakers and the World's Greatest Barman waving from the front step, all three of them absolutely positive that they would be the last people to see me alive.

Back on the road, heading north. One lane is paved for the first 15km or so. There was no indication that the other lane would ever follow suit, or the rest of the road to the border. In a perverse way I hope the ripio stays, if only to give future generations a sense of achievement when they get through.

I had rejoined the highway alongside a convoy of trucks freshly decanted from the ferry. I figured company wouldn't be a bad thing if anything went wrong. The way the snow was coming down and with cloud closing in, I also relied on them to keep me on the road itself. But I struggled to keep up as I needed to stop every few minutes to clear my visor and rub my hands warm.

By the time asphalt gave way to snow-covered ripio the trucks disappeared quickly from view, leaving me alone again in a white wilderness. Pretty miserable. But the level plain I was now on was much easier to negotiate than the hills I had left behind yesterday; the road itself was straighter; gradually the sun peaked through the cloud. The further north I reached, the less snow remained on the ground and I was able to slowly pick up speed.

By lunchtime I was past the ripio and joyously cruising in to downtown Rio Gallegos. The place is such a centre of things, such a magnet that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid robbed a bank down there (true story!).

The sun was now well and truly out so I was able to stash my mud-splattered rainwear and enjoy a leisurely lunch in the most popular pizza place in town. It was packed - young families, businessmen, grandmothers, schoolchildren - and just what the doctor ordered. I read the local paper and stuffed myself. Out on the street a cheery parking attendant kept an eye on the bike, though it would take a fairly determined thief to want to steal a bike that dirty.

North of Gallegos and back on tarmac I made good time, bypassing the town of Comandante Piedra Buena where I had stayed XX nights before. (I stopped for coffee and petrol on the outskirts and got the once over from a small gang of off-duty soldiers. Remember - the army is everywhere down here and keeps place like Piedra Buena going).

I was going over old ground and a road that seemed ridiculously long when heading south. The next bed was to be found in Puerto San Julian, one of the first settlements in Patagonia and these days home to whales, seals, a decent campsite and a group of charming Basque hippies traversing the continent in a huge home-built bus, one of whom repairs pre-war motorbikes for a living.

I set the tent up two minutes walk from the Atlantic Ocean and promptly fell asleep. I saw the hippies again the next morning but never made it down to the beach to see the sea. I'm assured that it does exist.