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? 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.

It's really, really beautiful scenery.

It's difficult to describe it. Cactus everywhere.

Just this army of sentry cactus standing guard along this huge glen.

I just love this. I love seeing Mother Nature like this.

Watching the land change as we go by.

It's really, really touching me and, um

what I was looking for in terms of feeling closer to the world, the earth.

This feeling of appreciating the beauty of it as we ride along.

Feeling very energized today.

God, it's freaking awesome in this valley. Whoo!

We're riding through the Calchaquí Valley

on our way to the final border with Chile.

And this will be our first proper dose of extreme altitude.

It's spectacular.

It's rare to be in such open space, isn't it?

But that was really bright red this morning,

and then you get the dark green cactus in front of them.

It's lovely.

And that feeling of, every morning... Don't know if you have that, Charley,

every morning waking up in a different place.

And sometimes you have weird... you know, weird dreams.

And sometimes you just don't know where you are.

You wake up and you think, "Where? What?"

Well, often I don't actually know where we are.

Hey, lovely doggy.

Well, come and say hello. Yeah, you're so nice.

You've got such orange eyes. Your eyes are so bright.

Yes, that's Claudio. He's got the camera.

It's okay.

Look at all the chickens.

Dear. It's a bit rough, isn't it? A bit brutal.

I don't know that... I'm thinking this trip is making me...

I'm seriously, seriously thinking about being a vegetarian.

I don't know. There's so much meat to be eaten.

You should eat...

Reduce your intake of meat just to once or twice a week.

That would help the environment,

- if everybody did that. - Yeah.

Less cows would need to be produced and less chickens,

and there'd be less pressure on the, on the environment.

Yeah, they're vegetarian. There's no animal products in this.

Hey, guys!

My God. Look, our Brazilian friends. Hey, guys.

- Hola, hola. - ¿Cómo estás?

- Muy bien. - Muy bien.

We'd love it if we could ride along with you.

- Or we could follow you or... - Can go together.

We'd love that.

Here we are. We've met up with our old friends.

The lovely father and son who are doing this big tour of the Highway 40.

Here we go.

It's so nice to see their bug. I love this Beetle. It's just great.

Wow. That is the coolest thing in the world.

Put a smile on your face, Beetles.

When I was a kid, my mom and dad had three in a row.

- They had three in a row? - In the '70s, yeah.

They had a red one when my brother was born, a white one,

and then an orange one. And I remember the orange one the best.

We'd go camping every summer.

My mom and dad would drive from Scotland to France.

It was brilliant.

That's probably why I love them so much,

because they remind me so much of my youth.

See you, guys.

It's been fun riding with you.

Hola. Hello, hello. ¿Cómo estás?

- Jimmy, do you know what I need? - What do you need?

Nail varnish remover.

For your toes?

It's growing out, the blue.

The blue's growing out and I'm getting these little grow-out marks.

I'm not happy with it anymore. But I'd like to do it again.

No!

I'm in this film. I mean, I...

No!

Do you think this is, sort of, like someone's playing a joke on me?

I'm in this film.

I got to see me in it, just for a minute.

I'd quite like to hear my Spanish, you know.

That was me saying, "Come on, Jack" in Spanish.

"Come on, Jack."

- Isn't... Aren't you in this, Ewan? - I am.

I play Elmont, a knight with fantastic hair.

I don't know. I don't remember where I am at this point in the story.

Here we go.

- I never watched... - There you are!

There we are.

Did you see? Look.

- That's an ending. - Hey, that's it? Bad guy's done.

Great. I'll do a tattoo with it here.

- There we are. Gracias. - ¡Gracias!

That was hilarious.

And your Spanish.

Spanish is pretty good, yeah. It's amazing how much...

How quickly you lose it, you know, over the years.

This is the Gorge of Shells.

It gets its name from its unique-looking rock formations.

We're gonna stop by a natural amphitheater known for its amazing acoustics.

Apparently, only a few people come here. It's quite unknown.

So, nobody knows about it.

Wow, look at that.

Got a whole bunch of them, a couple of busloads.

Wow, that is

something else, isn't it?

It reminds me of like, a... like some kind of chocolate cake.

All the layers of crispy chocolate.

And then they're...

And then there's thin layers of cream in between.

Do you see? There's sort of layers.

And it's all kind of sunk a little bit, you know?

It's gone a little bit... The sponge has got a little bit soft.

That kid's just knocking them all down.

Someone spent ages... Ages putting that up, and he...

- He likes the ones on the edge. - Yeah, they fall nicer.

They fall further.

- Please? - Yes?

- There... - Yes, of course.

I will go there.

- Thank you very much. - Make sure you like them.

- Thank you very much. - Make sure you like it, and I can do more.

Beautiful!

- I did a few. I don't know. - You are...

You know how to... Thank you. Thank you very much.

- Great. Good. - Thank you very much.

No, no. My pleasure.

We're gonna go on the Cloud Train.

It's called the Cloud Train 'cause under certain circumstances

the train journey is above the clouds.

But you have to be lucky to have that happen on your trip.

And now we're seeing the clouds are below.

It takes us on a short round trip through the highest part of the Andes.

So, we're sort of keeping our fingers crossed

that the train will be above the clouds.

- We're quite high up. - I know. We're 12,000 feet.

It's quite a good altitude, no?

Yeah. That's nice and high.

Twelve thousand feet, and we're still going up.

They're getting higher, the mountains, aren't they? Over here.

Higher and higher.

Definitely higher than we've ever been,

and it's clearly starting to affect Taylor.

He's really starting to show signs of altitude sickness.

Now we're dealing with some real elements.

Nobody knows how elevation affects them until they're in it.

It's a funny thing, you know. It's nothing for some people, and it...

And it does affect other people in a big way, so...

Really, the aim of the day is just to get to this train.

And I've been looking forward to sitting on this train for a few hours

and enjoying the ride.

How many miles did you say it was to the train?

Um, it is 20 miles to go, and I've got 21 miles left.

I'm chewing through the battery.

Gonna be touch and go, I would say.

I'm gonna have to knock it back. Just too uphill.

Straight into the wind, as well.

There's really nowhere to go here, you know. This is...

These are big, vast, empty expanses.

No place to find petrol or a charge.

Those bikes, the range has been... It's been wide, you know.

And every day is an experiment out here.

It's really... You have no idea.

Winds, Jesus.

It's all we need.

I can't see how we're gonna get through this one.

I'm at the point now where I'm just... I don't think I'm gonna make it.

Let's get behind that Sprinter.

- Right, Ewan? - Yeah. Okay.

The boys are right behind you,

so don't brake under any circumstances.

They are very, very close behind you.

Look at that. How dangerous is that?

A foot off his back bumper to try and reduce the wind resistance.

We told them in that van not to brake under any circumstances.

Totally crazy.

- Totally crazy! - Crazy! What are we doing?

Ewan is literally 6 inches off your back bumper,

so keep it dead, dead smooth.

We are in cruise control and not braking.

So the guys are drafting behind the Sprinter van that we have.

And Russ is even taking some of the wind resistance off the left too.

It's like driving in a vortex. No winds.

I've had 14 miles on my range for quite a while.

I've got... Yeah, 16. So it's working.