It was supposed to be an easy day, Jenn gets a
6am bus, I sleep in til 8 then get on Sixto after a coffee, head south-east out of town and follow the
Dakar track of a few days earlier in reverse. There's a rusty sign on the dusty road out of town saying 208km's to
Tupiza, my destination. The weather starts off well and I have the road to myself for the first hour until I meet a broken down minibus who I can't help out. The road turns to long stretches of ripio, nothing around me but alpacas, vicunas, shrubs and red sandy desert. When I turn the engine off for a drink break, the world is dead silent.
I cross a river where a truck sits half way in waiting to be rescued as he's
bogged, there's a few tiny communities, mostly just half finished adobe structures and the odd child playing by the roadside.There's short patches of drizzle between sunny moments and sections of the road turns to sand dunes.
I stop in Atocha for a soup lunch then shortly after the flat desert gives way for canyons. The light rain persists, before I pass a couple of bikers heading in the other direction. I turn a corner through the canyon and immediate approach a downhill section, it's wet and despite travelling reasonably slow I lose control and slide across the road for several metres before Sixto drops to his left and I'm sent over the handlebars ten metres or so and land heavily on the right side of my upper body. It all happens so quick so once I gather my thoughts I pick myself up, Sixto's still running which is a good sign and my body feels ok. My helmet visor is partially cracked and wearing wet weather gear for most of the day I have mud along one side of my body. I soon realise I can't move my right arm, I can't lift it. I wander around for a short while, turn the ignition off but can't lift the bike up. The arm gets stiffer.
About five minutes later a four door pick up truck comes down the hill and stops a few metres in front on Sixto. A man in his 40's gets out to see that I'm ok, I say I'm fine but indicate how I can't move my arm much. He encourages me to make some movements but we see that something has happened to it. He offers to take me into town and explains ingeniously to me that he's gonna back his pick up truck against the bank then push Sixto into the back and take him with us. ''Thanks but it's too heavy to push and I can't help you'' I say but he called out for a middle-aged woman from the truck who gets out and nursing my arm I watch them pick up my motorbike from a slippery road, push him through a patch of shrubs and then onto the tray of his truck as if sent here to help me. Shortly after a car passes from the other direction. A man gets out to see if I'm ok, now sitting on the edge of the road, trying to find a comfortable position to rest my arm as the pain gets stronger. He also offers us extra ropes to tie up Sixto. Off he goes and as we're nearly ready to leave for the town another car passes, this time with a comforting Argentinian couple and an American. They want to know what happened but by this point I just want to sit in my misery and be taken to the hospital. They kindly make me a sling and offer me an airplane pillow to rest my arm on along with a bag of painkillers and a protein bar.
Soon after we're on our way to Tupiza, it's 30km's away and probably the longest hour of my life. Between the coming and going of sharp pain, moans and cursing I get to know my saviour, Alfredo who happens to be the mayor of the town I stopped to have lunch in earlier. He's a very generous man who assures me I'll get looked after well in Tupiza. We eventually arrive at the public hospital where the emergency room inject me with some painkillers and organise some X-rays. Jenn meets me at the hospital. The x-rays confirm a dislocation of the shoulder and fractured arm. The doctor says I'll need to see a specialist to have my shoulder put back into place, two hours have passed by now and the pain is getting worse, luckily there is an orthopaedic trauma doctor in the small town.
Alfredo, Jenn and I jump back in the truck and drive over to the doctor's surgery moments before he's closing up for the day. Dr. Pinosa attends to me straight away, asks what happened, quickly reviews the x-rays then lies me down on the bed and somehow gets me to outstretch my arm. He puts a sheet around my left shoulder and tells Alfredo to pull it away from my body while he spends the next half hour pulling my right arm with all his force away from my body. The pain reaches a new level, Jenn later tells me that the bunch of hardened Bolivian women in the waiting room were having a good laugh at my expense at the weakness of men as I groaned my way through the pulling and stretching of my arm. The nurse was called in on three occasions to inject more painkillers into my arms. The doctor later mentioned I'd been given 8mg of Diazepam and was shocked that I hadn't reduced anxiousness and become drowsy with the first 2mg. After half a hour, he had made enough progress to reach over and knock my shoulder back into place. The pain disappeared instantly. Fuck! What an afternoon! I was given a sling to wear for three weeks and told not to ride for a month. The doctor recommended I get an MRI scan to see if there was further damage to tendons and ligaments.
I stop in Atocha for a soup lunch then shortly after the flat desert gives way for canyons. The light rain persists, before I pass a couple of bikers heading in the other direction. I turn a corner through the canyon and immediate approach a downhill section, it's wet and despite travelling reasonably slow I lose control and slide across the road for several metres before Sixto drops to his left and I'm sent over the handlebars ten metres or so and land heavily on the right side of my upper body. It all happens so quick so once I gather my thoughts I pick myself up, Sixto's still running which is a good sign and my body feels ok. My helmet visor is partially cracked and wearing wet weather gear for most of the day I have mud along one side of my body. I soon realise I can't move my right arm, I can't lift it. I wander around for a short while, turn the ignition off but can't lift the bike up. The arm gets stiffer.
About five minutes later a four door pick up truck comes down the hill and stops a few metres in front on Sixto. A man in his 40's gets out to see that I'm ok, I say I'm fine but indicate how I can't move my arm much. He encourages me to make some movements but we see that something has happened to it. He offers to take me into town and explains ingeniously to me that he's gonna back his pick up truck against the bank then push Sixto into the back and take him with us. ''Thanks but it's too heavy to push and I can't help you'' I say but he called out for a middle-aged woman from the truck who gets out and nursing my arm I watch them pick up my motorbike from a slippery road, push him through a patch of shrubs and then onto the tray of his truck as if sent here to help me. Shortly after a car passes from the other direction. A man gets out to see if I'm ok, now sitting on the edge of the road, trying to find a comfortable position to rest my arm as the pain gets stronger. He also offers us extra ropes to tie up Sixto. Off he goes and as we're nearly ready to leave for the town another car passes, this time with a comforting Argentinian couple and an American. They want to know what happened but by this point I just want to sit in my misery and be taken to the hospital. They kindly make me a sling and offer me an airplane pillow to rest my arm on along with a bag of painkillers and a protein bar.
Soon after we're on our way to Tupiza, it's 30km's away and probably the longest hour of my life. Between the coming and going of sharp pain, moans and cursing I get to know my saviour, Alfredo who happens to be the mayor of the town I stopped to have lunch in earlier. He's a very generous man who assures me I'll get looked after well in Tupiza. We eventually arrive at the public hospital where the emergency room inject me with some painkillers and organise some X-rays. Jenn meets me at the hospital. The x-rays confirm a dislocation of the shoulder and fractured arm. The doctor says I'll need to see a specialist to have my shoulder put back into place, two hours have passed by now and the pain is getting worse, luckily there is an orthopaedic trauma doctor in the small town.
Alfredo, Jenn and I jump back in the truck and drive over to the doctor's surgery moments before he's closing up for the day. Dr. Pinosa attends to me straight away, asks what happened, quickly reviews the x-rays then lies me down on the bed and somehow gets me to outstretch my arm. He puts a sheet around my left shoulder and tells Alfredo to pull it away from my body while he spends the next half hour pulling my right arm with all his force away from my body. The pain reaches a new level, Jenn later tells me that the bunch of hardened Bolivian women in the waiting room were having a good laugh at my expense at the weakness of men as I groaned my way through the pulling and stretching of my arm. The nurse was called in on three occasions to inject more painkillers into my arms. The doctor later mentioned I'd been given 8mg of Diazepam and was shocked that I hadn't reduced anxiousness and become drowsy with the first 2mg. After half a hour, he had made enough progress to reach over and knock my shoulder back into place. The pain disappeared instantly. Fuck! What an afternoon! I was given a sling to wear for three weeks and told not to ride for a month. The doctor recommended I get an MRI scan to see if there was further damage to tendons and ligaments.
To finish the afternoon off, Alfredo qickly gets some guys nearby to help him unload Sixto where I have him parked inside the hotel for the next month. The following day I manage to have a mechanic sent across to the hotel and he helps me out with fixing a few things. Lucky there was no mechanical damage from the fall, just a bent brake lever and cracked light of which I have sourced replacements in Santiago as well as a bent foot pedal, damaged stand spring, dented light case and cracked mirror arm. I plan to return once Jenn leaves when my shoulder should be well on the way to full recovery after the orthopaedic's advice. We rest here for a few days before heading into Northern Argentina to find a hospital with MRI scanning facilities. Not sure how I'll cope without Sixto for the first time in nine months but looking forward to arriving in a developed country after the past couple months.
