Full.Circle.With.Michael.Palin.07.Chile+Bolivia(Arrival)
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00:3010,000 miles of unbroken Southern Ocean separate New Zealand from this, the southernmost point
00:52of the American continent, a place feared and respected by generations of mariners.
00:59This is the real Cape Horn because I think, you know, I know it is a place of mountainous seas
01:12and shipwrecks and all that. It's like a mill pond today. It is real really, but we have been
01:17very lucky. Yeah. This is very unusual to have this fine weather really. So it's true that normally
01:24it's a pretty rough place to sail around. Yes, I think, yes. No more than 20% of the time, the weather is like this one.
01:31Yeah. So we'll get across to the, we'll get across onto the, onto Cape Horn itself without any
01:38trouble. Cape Horn is a place few people ever see, let alone visit. Antarctica is only 500
01:45miles away. This is the one place on earth where the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans meet.
01:51Commander Marino and the Chilean Navy are our hosts and saviours. They know these
01:58unpredictable waters better than anyone else. Apart from its security role, the Navy supplies
02:12scattered communities, saves lone yachtsmen and, just this once, a not-quite-lone television
02:18presenter. So there's just the three of them here. The three, I think, are a couple of dogs.
02:26You think they'll be pleased to see us? Yes, I'm sure, yes. They don't receive visits very often.
02:35So it is that at four o'clock on a May afternoon, I land on Cape Horn.
02:43Ah, there's Tannis. Hello. Don't you start. Obviously hasn't seen anyone for a while.
03:03Right, take us to your master. So how long do these guys spend out here at a time? They stay
03:15for two months here. Yeah. Every two months, we have to change them. Yeah. And during that two
03:24months, do they see other people? Do they get visitors? Not very often, really. Cape Horn is
03:31in fact a tiny island, no bigger than Diomede, where my journey began. The few buildings here
03:37are a surprising mixture. A lighthouse, I expect, but not a church. Is this chapel just for the
03:46three people who live here? Yes, only for them, really. But normally, every two months, we send
03:52the priest from Porto Williams. Yeah. When we are changing the people, and then they have a
03:59service here, yes. Outside Antarctica, this is the southernmost place of worship in the world.
04:06Someone obviously looks after it, doesn't he? Oh, yes. And here. It's such a bleak place.
04:19It's beautiful. Still and peaceful. The extraordinary thing about having come here
04:31to Cape Horn, besides being a lifetime's dream realized, is that it is the very end of the
04:37continent of America. Those are the last few yards of America over there, or the first few.
04:43And for me, they are the first few, because now I turn north to follow that spine of mountains,
04:49which winds its way all the way up to the Bering Strait and Diomede, from which I started.
04:54That's another 10,000 miles to go. Before I set out, I can't resist sending a card from Cape Horn
05:03post office. So this will have the Cape Horn stamp on it, and be sent from Cape Horn? Yes.
05:10That's great. How does it get out? We will have to send it, take it in the ship,
05:17and send it from Porto Williams then. Oh, which ship? Our ship? Our ship, yes. Oh, there you are.
05:23OK, thank you. Let's go then. Oh dear, I thought it was a post box somewhere.
05:29Maybe I'll institute one. The Palin Memorial post box. Oh, yes.
05:34We turn north for the first time on our journey, picking our way around Tierra del Fuego,
05:45aiming for Punta Arenas, where the road begins. Our route follows the Beagle Channel. It's a safer
05:54alternative to rounding the Horn. It's called after HMS Beagle, a British ship which discovered
05:59and charted these waters in 1831. Charles Darwin sailed on the Beagle. His theory of evolution was
06:09shaped by his observations of this dramatic, ever-changing landscape.
06:13Darwin called this nature's workshop. There is a real sense here of scenery being created,
06:41of solid rock under remorseless pressure. Next morning, the weather has changed utterly. We're
06:52through the Beagle Channel and putting ashore at a small bay. There is a unique record here
06:57of the price paid by the first British sailors. Commander Pringle Stokes, RN,
07:10captained the Beagle on its first voyage. He never returned home. A simple cross reads,
07:21In memory of Commander Pringle Stokes, RN, who died from the effects of the anxieties
07:27and hardships incurred while surveying the western shores of Tierra del Fuego.
07:31The truth is he committed suicide. At Punta Arenas, I renew acquaintance with two old
07:47friends, Patricio from Pole to Pole and Magellan from Geography O-Level. Magellan, the man who
07:54first called the Pacific the Pacific? Yep. Nice monument. It is, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah,
08:01you know, quite powerful, quite powerful. And the good thing of this, at least for me,
08:05that this is one of the fewest monuments in Chile that is not related to the military.
08:10No, I suppose not, although he did wipe out the Indians. Yeah. Well, he didn't, others did. Now,
08:16this is the lucky toe. If you kiss this, you come back to Punta Arenas. I did that when we
08:20went to the pole. That's why you are back here. Yeah, well, I should do it again, I think. Yeah,
08:24go for it. Just a quick peck. People still believe in that, do they? Oh, yes, yes, still believe in
08:34that. Yes. Our first northbound road runs 160 miles out of Punta Arenas and no further.
08:46This is our first sight of the Andes, the Torres del Paine Mountains, a foretaste of what lies
09:11ahead of us all the way to Alaska. I mean, they're stupendous up there. I don't think I've
09:17ever seen peaks quite so sort of jagged and so tall as those towers through there. They're
09:25probably very new geologically. I mean, that must be, this is kind of early. Yeah, I suppose,
09:31but when I was here the first time, they were here.
09:51Our only way north from here is by boat from a place called Puerto Natales.
09:55It's evening when we reach our destination.
10:00There's a cargo ship, the Puerto Eden, leaving at midnight. It's rough and ready and smells
10:10ominously like a farmyard. Islands litter the southwest coast of Chile like pieces of a giant
10:29jigsaw puzzle. Our route dodges and ducks between them to the island of Chiloé. It will take half a
10:35week to get there. Sunrise reveals that overnight the Puerto Eden has become a Noah's Ark. Sheep
10:45and cattle are squeezed onto trailers that are themselves squeezed onto the cargo decks. The
10:52animals look healthy enough in the fresh sea air and the morning sunshine. The truth is that for
10:58four days and nights they will have nowhere else to go. The human cargo may have more room to move
11:12but not much more to do. I try to remember how to play chess and beat myself quite convincingly.
11:28There is excitement later as we approach a shallow and dangerous narrows called the
11:33Kirke Pass. With so few passengers aboard it's easy to get a grandstand view. As our captain
11:40cuts speed to negotiate the pass, we become a welcome diversion for the local seals and sea
11:45lions. They follow our progress with the joyful expectancy of those who've been waiting for a
11:53ship to run aground for years. With less than six feet to spare beneath her keel, the Puerto
12:09Eden sails through the Kirke Pass with aplomb and a blast of self-satisfaction.
12:23The offshore island of Chiloé has a reputation for poverty, superstition, independence, black magic,
12:42music and rain. To find out if any of this was earned I talked to Catherine Hall, an American
12:48now living here, on a typical Chilote day. My guidebook did say that Chiloé was renowned for rain.
12:55It's chilly. It's usually like this in the winter. It also says it's renowned for witchcraft. That's
13:04true. As the people here say, no creo en brujos, caray, pero que los hay, los hay. And that means, I don't
13:11believe in witches, but they exist. They do exist. There are witches here. Have you ever met one? Not that I know of, that's why I say, but I think maybe, I'm not sure. You see, this is the thing about the
13:26witches, that they only reveal their identity one to another. They're a very, very secret society. And
13:33we believe that this form of operating like a secret society is from the days of the Spanish
13:39conquest. It was a kind of a resistance to scare them. What are the characteristics of the Chilote?
13:44It's very hard to explain the Chilote. I'm just going to have to get you to meet them. I'm going to take you to meet them and then you'll know how they are. They're very special.
13:58Catherine's right. No sooner have I arrived at a local festivity than I'm put to work.
14:03Peeling the potatoes. Sonia's done 153. I've done four. Sonia is my host at a curanto, a sort of traditional do-it-yourself barbecue.
14:15Trouble is, I belong to that softy world of people who buy mouth suspensers ready peeled. I haven't seen potato peel in our house for years. Actually, that's not true. It's not at all true. My wife would thank me for saying that. It's just I don't see much of it, as you can tell. I do more cerebral things.
14:46I speak a little Spanish. A little bit. But I like the potatoes.
15:04The potatoes that may well have originally grown on this island. This is the first
15:10where they came from.
15:15One of the original world spuds.
15:21It's not like any barbecue I've ever been to.
15:28Some of the preparations are frankly alarming.
15:30Shaving cream. What's that? That's fat.
15:48Don't try this at home.
15:50The fire is kindled with special slow-burning wood. These special slow-burning properties are only enhanced by the start of steady but generous rainfall.
16:09At which point the guests start to arrive.
16:13Despite the downpour, the stones have heated nicely and are ready for the clams.
16:24Inside, dancing begins.
16:28The cueca is one of the oldest dances of Chile. The man plays the strutting cockerel and the woman the playful hen.
16:35The cueca is one of the oldest dances of Chile. The cueca is one of the oldest dances of Chile. The man plays the strutting cockerel and the woman the playful hen.
17:06By now the barbecue resembles the scene of a serious accident.
17:10But still more food goes on, bedded down beneath strips of fresh-cut turf.
17:36At last the curanto is ready. Somewhere under here, apart from my own homemade rissoles, are clams, mussels, pork chops, salmon, ham and strings of sausages.
17:42At last the curanto is ready. Somewhere under here, apart from my own homemade rissoles, are clams, mussels, pork chops, salmon, ham and strings of sausages.
17:50All we've got to do now is find them.
18:05Chiloé is indeed an eccentric place, but they do know how to have a good time on a rainy afternoon.
18:12And where else could you learn to play the horse's jawbone?
18:18E-flat, E-flat, gone for good.
18:36It never did stop raining on Chiloé, but by the time we move on to the Chilean capital of Santiago,
18:42650 miles north, it is dry and warm and suddenly, shockingly, full of people.
18:53Five million of Chile's 13 million people live in Santiago,
18:58where the most popular name seems to be O'Higgins.
19:01Bernardo O'Higgins, illegitimate son of an Irish immigrant, liberated Chile from the Spaniards in 1818, and they haven't forgotten him.
19:31There's even a street named after Bernardo in the cemetery.
19:41Santiago's general cemetery is a city in itself. Its long avenues cover 220 acres.
19:48The remains of two million people lie here, lodged in every kind of property, from an earth mound to a marble palace.
20:01Such is the demand for space that a rental system operates. It can cost up to $200 a year to be dead here.
20:32The cemetery has a haunting and powerful presence. Miracles have been known to take place.
20:51Away from the tombs of the rich and famous are the remains of those who died in the repression that followed the military coup of 1973.
21:02They were murdered quietly, methodically and secretly, and their bodies dumped outside the cemetery.
21:08Their names are still not known.
21:23This dark, unhappy period of Chilean history is remembered by the most powerful memorial of them all.
21:30A wall of marble bears the names of those victims who've been identified.
21:37From the president of the republic himself, down to the most ordinary people.
21:43Some of them children as young as two years old.
21:53These are the names of the dead and disappeared. Another 2,000 remain to be added.
22:00The Iron Grip of Military Dictatorship
22:05The iron grip of military dictatorship has loosened.
22:08General Pinochet and his army may wait in the wings, but Chile is once more regarded as a well-behaved democracy.
22:14In the plaza de Armas, life goes on. Men without women cluster around the open-air chess balls.
22:20In the plaza de Armas, life goes on. Men without women cluster around the open-air chess balls.
22:50In the plaza de Armas, life goes on. Men without women cluster around the open-air chess balls.
22:53If you're lonely, this is the place to find a partner. For chess, of course.
23:01Spurred on by my great success against myself on the boat up from the south,
23:06I decide it's time to put my newfound skills to the test.
23:20It's a bloodbath. He wins before I've even got the hang of the clock.
23:29It's a bloodbath. He wins before I've even got the hang of the clock.
23:31Yeah, it's finished already!
23:34I'm just getting warmed up.
23:36I know. Next time I'll put my glasses on.
23:38Okay, yes.
23:39Okay.
23:39No, thanks Gustav, that's good.
23:41So that's really…
23:42That's really good, because you've lost the game.
23:44Yeah, but you're allowed five minutes.
23:46Five minutes, that's all right.
23:47How long do we have?
23:48Well, we are already playing just what they need, three minutes.
23:51Three minutes?
23:52Yes.
23:52Sure.
23:54As evening falls over downtown Santiago,
23:57the hilltop park of Cerro Santa Lucia offers a quiet getaway from city smog and traffic.
24:04Or so they tell me.
24:14What they didn't tell me was that it's also the pitch of a local evangelist,
24:17who turns up every night to give vent to his passionate feelings.
24:21He's not the only one.
24:28Today a light is lit for your life.
24:30Today the light of hope is lit for your heart.
24:34This light is called Christ Jesus.
24:36He is not dead.
24:37Christ lives.
24:39He has come to look for you this afternoon.
24:41Blessed be God, so that you don't continue to suffer,
24:44so that you don't continue to be sad,
24:46so that you don't go to the place of torment that the Bible says,
24:51in the Calvary of the Cross.
24:53Blessed be God.
24:55Christ is not a religion.
24:56Christ is not a sect.
24:58Christ is the power of heaven.
25:00He is a transformative power,
25:02that changes the sinful man,
25:03that changes the sinful woman,
25:05and makes him a new creature.
25:08At this hour you can be born again.
25:11You can have a new life.
25:18Next day we set out on an adventurous, some would say foolhardy, mission.
25:23400 miles due west of Valparaiso is one of Chile's most remote possessions,
25:28a volcanic speck in the Pacific called the Juan Fernandez Islands.
25:40This is the start of the Chilean winter,
25:42and our flight has twice been postponed at the last minute.
25:45It's fine for now, but any rain will turn this dirt airstrip to mud,
25:49and if that happens, we'll be stranded.
25:54The runway is just about long enough to accommodate a light aeroplane,
25:58if the wind's in the right direction,
26:00and we all breathe a sigh of relief when we're safely down,
26:03and heading for the terminal.
26:13Though it seems unlikely at first,
26:15the islands are home to four and a half thousand people,
26:18one of whom is my guide Bill.
26:21This is our car to go to the bay.
26:23There you can take the boat to go to the town.
26:26I'll just join you in a minute. I've just got to pay a call.
26:33The facilities are not fully geared up for tourism.
26:36Some of the flights have been delayed indefinitely.
26:40The main road from the airport starts well on the hard volcanic rock,
26:44but peters out at a rocky bay full of basking seals.
27:04It's a great place for a walk,
27:06From here, with a bit of luck, a local boatman will take us around the coast to the only town.
27:18These islands are world-famous. A man called Alexander Selkirk was abandoned on this coast
27:28in 1704 and lived alone here until his rescue in 1709. Daniel Defoe was inspired to write
27:36a book of his story. He changed Selkirk's name to Robinson Crusoe.
27:56Three hundred years on, we retrace Selkirk's first slippery footsteps.
28:15A few hundred yards away, they've tidied up the cave from which he must have scanned the Pacific for four and a half years.
28:22He lived here with only goats, rats and wild cats for company. In reality, there was no Man Friday.
28:29In Robinson Crusoe, Defoe makes it all sound rather romantic.
28:34I've got my little book here. It's just something about him.
28:38I fancied myself now like one of the ancient giants which was said to live in caves and holes in the rocks where none could come at them.
28:45This was it? This was his actual cave and hole in the rock?
28:48I'd say somebody could come and get you here.
28:51Yeah.
28:53It's very small.
28:57It's actually small, isn't it?
29:01Alexander Selkirk was by all accounts a thoroughly unpleasant, quarrelsome character who deserved all he got.
29:07But after spending four minutes in a cave where he spent four years, I come away with a sneaking admiration for the old bastard.
29:18How long have you lived here?
29:20I've been here for five years.
29:22And where did you live before?
29:23In Santiago.
29:25Don't you miss Santiago?
29:27No. I miss the cinema or the newspaper, but that's all.
29:36What brought you here? Why did you come to this lonely island in the middle of nowhere?
29:42I came like a tourist for five days and I never leave the island.
29:48Did you marry an islander then?
29:50Yes. I have two kids and it's a very nice place for the kids because it's very safe.
29:58They can go everywhere they want. There's no danger.
30:05There is something appealing in the silence and seclusion of this dot in the ocean.
30:09Unlike Selkirk, I'm in no hurry to leave.
30:30It's my last day in Santiago.
30:33In La Pintana, one of the poorest parts of the city, a group calling themselves Caleta is working with the young children who grow up in these tough surroundings.
30:48Caleta, which means refuge, tries to create an alternative to poverty that doesn't involve drugs or crime.
31:04The idea is to get everyone to muck in and learn something, even if they make a fool of themselves.
31:09Of course, I'm in my element.
31:21Caleta, with few resources except energy and enthusiasm, is committed to helping these children.
31:27Very few others are.
31:33It's time to move north again, from the fertile centre of Chile to the bare and spectacular landscape of the Atacama Desert.
31:52Trapped between the high Andes and the cold, rainless offshore current, there are places in the Atacama where no rain has ever fallen.
32:04This is what I imagine it must be like to drive across the face of the moon.
32:10Before and after me, there is utter silence.
32:21The sun is setting.
32:24Nothing moves in this petrified landscape, day after day after day.
32:44But not far below the surface, there is plenty of water.
32:48At El Tatio, in the mountains high above the desert, the earth's crust bubbles and boils and geysers belch steam like factory chimneys.
33:18The sun is setting.
33:37Well, contrary to appearances, this great jacuzzi of a landscape is actually set in a very, very cold part of the Andes.
33:44It's about, my wonderful gadget here says it's about minus ten, and we are at 4,270 metres, which is, wait a minute, 14,190 feet, which is, I think, the highest I've ever been in my life.
34:03Unfortunately, earth has provided its own natural warming device here, which is just a blowhole.
34:08Oh, yeah.
34:13Oh, fuck!
34:22Now for an Atacama breakfast, an egg boiled on the earth's crust.
34:27Oh! Ow! Oh, shit!
34:31Oh, God!
34:37Brilliant, just brilliant.
34:42It's a long way to come, but it's worth it.
35:01As in many great wildernesses of the Pacific Rim, from Siberia to Australia, the rocks beneath the Atacama contain some of the most valuable minerals on earth.
35:15Chukicamata is a company town, built on copper.
35:20Over the last 80 years, an amphitheatre two and a half miles long and one and a half miles wide has been gouged out.
35:27Every week, a controlled explosion blasts more rock away.
35:31This week, there's a special guest countdown.
35:35Yeah.
35:38Cinco, cuatro, tres, dos, uno, dos.
35:45Tres, dos, uno, fuego.
36:08Chukicamata is a world of giants.
36:11It's the largest open pit mine in the world.
36:13Shovels lift 60 tonnes at a time and fill dump trucks high as a two-storey house.
36:19Each of these tyres that are rolling over our cameraman cost $12,000.
36:27But this is only half the operation.
36:30I'm taken down to the smelting plant and foundry, where thousands of tonnes of rock are turned into tiny amounts of pure copper.
36:44Chile is the world's largest copper producer.
36:48These furnaces have been working continuously for seven months.
36:52Despite pollution problems and recent scares over arsenic poisoning,
36:56neither Chile nor the world could afford to shut down Chukicamata.
37:05Arica is the world's largest coal mine.
37:07It's the largest coal mine in the world.
37:13Arica is Chile's most northerly town.
37:16It's nearly 3,000 miles from Cape Horn.
37:19It has a church designed by Eiffel, of tower fame, and a rail link with Bolivia.
37:27This isn't it.
37:38Twice a week, a railway service leaves Arica for the Bolivian capital, La Paz.
37:44It's going to take forever. Do you want a hand? Can I help?
37:47It's just only two of you.
37:51It's going to take two hours, OK?
37:53You've got a system.
37:55Captain Hook up there and here.
37:58I rarely felt quite as embarrassed at travelling with 45 cases.
38:02Each one must be hoisted up by hand and stowed on the roof,
38:06for the train is quite small.
38:16In fact, it's a lot smaller than most of us had expected.
38:24Some passengers are local, some have come from countries far away.
38:28Some passengers are local, some have come from countries far away.
38:32None have come quite as far as the train itself.
38:38We're to cross the Andes on a rail bus built for the branch lines of Munich 30 years ago.
38:49From the world's tiniest galley, two of our three-man Bolivian crew
38:54produce the first of several hot dinners.
38:58This line was built by the British in 1911.
39:02The chief engineer, John Roberts Jones, died of malaria during its construction.
39:11At one point, it climbs 1,000 feet every three miles.
39:17It's the longest railway line in the world.
39:21It's the longest railway line in the world.
39:24It's the longest railway line in the world.
39:27All this land used to belong to Bolivia, but Chile seized it in 1884.
39:32Now Bolivia has no link with the sea, except by arrangement with Chile and Peru.
39:47Our engine needs constant cooling.
39:50Water is pumped through a plastic pipe which runs the length of the track.
39:53In this shadeless, treeless desert, the 9 o'clock from Arica has developed a considerable first.
40:12Three and a half hours after leaving the Pacific, we're at 10,000 feet and still climbing.
40:24Freight wagons from the mineral mines of the Andes are a reminder of how vital this railway is.
40:31In a land of harsh climate and impassable mountains, this is the only lifeline.
40:39It's also my first taste of the Altiplano, the high plateau of the Andes,
40:44where the air is thin and simple things suddenly become difficult.
40:47The main feeling is just shortage of breath, shortage of oxygen,
40:52and also slight, just ever such a slight wooziness in the brain, I feel.
40:56Even, you know, more than usual.
40:59I just want to sort of quietly sink off to sleep, as I'm sure does the entire crew.
41:18As if to confirm that I've arrived on the high plain, herds of llamas are everywhere.
41:23They're the Andean beast of burden, domesticated by the Incas.
41:27Unlike us, they're perfectly adapted to this rarefied air.
41:48Oh, yes!
41:53Six and a half hours and a few llamas after leaving Arica, we've reached the Bolivian border.
41:59It's only 130 miles from the Pacific, but everything is different.
42:04We're entering the poorest country in South America.
42:08Up here, the walls are made of mud, and the soldiers' uniforms are a shocking contrast to their crisp counterparts in Chile.
42:18Maybe it's Bolivia, or another miraculously produced dinner, but everyone's started talking to each other.
42:25You're very adventurous, New Zealanders, all over the world.
42:28The quietest parts of the world, there's always New Zealanders there.
42:31There's no one at home.
42:33Why's that? What's the reason for it, do you think?
42:35I don't know, I guess because we're so isolated, so far away from everything.
42:38It's good to get out and...
42:40So you come to Bolivia?
42:42That figures.
42:43How are you feeling?
42:45Terrible, terrible.
42:47Is it the altitude?
42:49It gives you a headache, nausea, and it's hard to breathe. You start to wheeze.
42:55Yeah, did you not expect this? The guidebooks tell you about it.
42:58No, the book said there'd be oxygen on the train, and I was kind of hoping it would be, but when I asked him,
43:05was there oxygen, I said, you know, like this, and he says, no, Colombian oxygen.
43:09I said, no, I don't want that, I'm just a gentleman.
43:14So now I get coca tea.
43:17Oh, you've got the coca tea?
43:19The coca tea is helping.
43:21Is it working?
43:23Yes, if you keep drinking it, but the problem is that you drink it and you've got to run and pee.
43:27So you're drinking and peeing.
43:29Yeah, when you're close to the toilet.
43:31Clue, yes.
43:33Does it make you feel a little high?
43:35Yeah, a little bit.
43:36Lightheaded.
43:38But you still have the headache.
43:40Is it the journey of a lifetime?
43:42It's the journey of everyone's dream.
43:45Coca leaf tea is illegal on the Chilean part of the journey, but up here, two and a half miles high,
43:51it's a tried and tested way to soften the effect of altitude.
43:55A few hours later, the lights of La Paz twinkle below us.
43:59The end is near.
44:09Well, having climbed all the way up over the Andes very successfully,
44:12we just could see the lights of La Paz twinkle below us.
44:16It's quite a sight.
44:18It's quite a sight.
44:20It's quite a sight.
44:21Having climbed all the way up over the Andes very successfully,
44:23we just could see the lights of La Paz in the distance beginning to be a little bit complacent.
44:27And suddenly there's a juddering from the bogies underneath.
44:31And we actually have ridden the point here.
44:34And we're still about an hour from La Paz.
44:38Lots of people are trying to help out.
44:40People are emerging from the darkness all the time.
44:42Basically, what they're trying to do is to get it back on the rails by putting stones down,
44:47reversing back up, so the stones reverse up over the stones and back onto the railway line.
44:52That sounds extremely unlikely to me, but we're having a go.
44:56Can you hear it?
44:59Ah.
45:18Three, two, one.
45:20It's not bad.
45:46The rock theory of how to re-rail a train.
45:48It obviously works.
45:50You've just got to have a derailment where there's plenty of rubble.
45:58The delay is much less than we'd expected.
46:01After all, what's one hour on a 14-hour journey?
46:04But the new mood of euphoria is sadly misplaced.
46:07Trouble awaits at the next level crossing.
46:11The gates to La Paz are open for us, but no one's been told we're coming.
46:19What?
46:39As you can see, we've got a right-of-way problem here.
46:42This is the railway line, and this is the road.
46:45Our conductor's trying to get people to clear out of the way.
46:49That's it, they've cleared them out so we can go on.
46:52Getting to La Paz is not easy.
46:59Go on, off you go.
47:02Barring a few drunks, dogs and dumped rubbish,
47:05the rest of our journey to this, the highest capital in the world, is plain sailing.
47:16Atentos, Santiago, paraferro 41.
47:20To our enormous relief, the lights are still on at La Paz station
47:24when our heroic vehicle finally pulls in.
47:27We've crossed the Andes at 16.4 miles an hour.
47:33I'm not sure if it's a baggage trolley or a hearse that comes to meet us.
47:37Quite frankly, either would suit me.
47:45La Paz, Santiago, Paraferro 41
48:15La Paz, Santiago, Paraferro 41