The airport at Santiago in Chile is closed, the roads in a state of upheaval and there are food shortages throughout the country. We had no choice but to cancel our bus trip, our hotel rooms and our flight back from Santiago to Buenos Aires, most of which we managed to do quite easily. Phew.

But because part of the attraction of going to Chile was driving across the Andes we decided to drive up to the border anyway, we had a car, we had the time and from what we had heard the roads were fairly clear as trucks and large vehicles were not being allowed to cross the border yet so they were being held in a large customs area off the road.

We set off on a nice sunny day with a large map, a pocket full of change and a sense of optimism. The views certainly were spectacular.With the Andes ahead and to the side of us getting larger with every kilometre, we passed huge rock formations, or Quebradas, layer upon layer of compressed, coloured rock. All we had to do was ignore the long queue of tailgating vehicles inexplicably drawn to our little Corsa.

We had only intended to drive as far as Puente de Inca, a strange molten structure forged from a calcified stream that has left coarse orange-brown markings all down the side of a rock. As practically the only tourist site for miles around it is hemmed in by Andean stalls selling all things llama or hat-related. I started off sniffily dismissing the items as tourist tat but ended up pawing over them and holding them up for inspection as if I was at the local scout jumble sale. Needless to say I am now the proud owner of a llama hat. I tried to get Brian to buy one too but he is made of sterner stuff than me.

We drove up to the border and were about to turn back for home when we discovered that there was a ripio road of 8km up to the 'old' border at a place called Cristo Redentor (Christ the Redeemer) where there is also a large statue on top of the mountain. The border crossing was destroyed on the Chilean side sometime in the mid-1970's when they had a little tiff with Argentina about the Beagle Channel apparently, but the old border post is still there and this was our opportunity to actually set foot on Chilean soil.

We set off up the steep and stony incline and wound our way round the numerous hairpin bends. The road got steeper and narrower until there was hardly any room to pass the occasional car going in the opposite direction without hugging the side of the road and trying not to let a tyre slide off into thin air. Bri was becoming increasingly nervous with every passing hairpin. At one particular turn when the road turned to red dust beneath our tyres he asked me, tremulously, whether I would like to turn back now. 'Not on your life' I exclaimed,' look we're nearly there now ' (that last bit was a bit of an exaggeration as all we could see ahead was more road, more rocks and, wait, was that Death sitting filing his nails at the side of the road?)

Brian gulped and gripped the steering wheel a little more tightly. 'Well, I suppose there is nowhere to turn round so we'd better continue' he squeaked nervously, pointing out the startlingly obvious. And so we continued slowly to the top, where we were 4000 metres above sea level and it was freezing cold. We hopped around taking photographs outside the old Chilean border post and enjoying our brief moment of crossing illegally into another country before leaping into the car valiantly ready for our journey back down the mountain.

Just as we were about to set off there was a little knock on the window. I wound it down and there stood two swarthy men muttering various words in Spanish and gesturing at our back seat. Goodness, vagabonds or illegal immigrants - what were we to do? Or where they the hairpin bend police and we were in violation of one of the sacred laws of el ripio?

My rudimentary grasp of Spanish was sufficient to ascertain that they were actually the workers from the little mountaintop café that had just closed for the afternoon and were now hitching their daily lift back down to the bright lights. We were happy to oblige and transported them carefully and circuitously down the mountain where they jumped gratefully out of the car, looking a little less swarthy and a little more tense than when we had first picked them up. But hey, they were still in one piece!