Long Way Up

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.