The welcome was magnificent but the toll of our first experience on unpaved roads was alarming: nine

The welcome was magnificent but the toll of our first experience on unpaved roads was alarming: nine spills in a single day. Alberto came out unscathed but the cylinder trapped my foot and scorched it, leaving an unpleasant souvenir for a long time because the wound didn't heal.A heavy downpour forced us to seek shelter at an estancia, but to reach it we had to go 300 metres up a muddy track which sent us flying another couple of times. Alberto fought a stubborn duel with the sand which he insists he won. The truth is that we found ourselves resting comfortably on our backsides in the sand six times before we finally we got out on to the flat.Setting off again, I took the controls and accelerated to make up for lost time.

A fine sand covered part of the bend and, wham: the worst crash of our whole expedition. The bike, with its badly distributed load, kept leaping out of control and spinning over. Alberto says (a bit mischievously, I feel) that you don't need very sensitive fingers to weigh up 29 carats of my love.CUTTING THE LAST TIESNecochea, 14 JanuaryWE FINALLY left at three in the afternoon, under a blazing sun which was even hotter by the time we reached the sand dunes round Medanos. I remembered Alberto's exhortation: "Get back the bracelet or you're not who you think you are."Her hands disappeared in the hollow of mine "Chichina, that bracelet...

Can I take it to guide me and remind me of you?"Poor thing! I know the gold didn't matter, despite what they say: her fingers were merely weighing up the love that made me ask for it At least, that's what I honestly think. [Che was meant to be saying goodbye to his girlfriend, Chichina, but it was proving a difficult passion to shrug off.]Alberto saw the danger and was already imagining himself alone on the highways and byways of America, but he said nothing The tug of war was between her and me. For a moment Otero Silva's poem rang in my ears as I left, I thought, victorious:I heard on the boatWet feet splashingAnd felt faces dusk with hungerMy heart a pendulum between her and the streetWhat strength broke me free from her eyesLoose from her armsShe stood tears clouding her griefBehind rain and window paneBut unable to cry: WaitI'll go with you.The two days I'd planned stretched like elastic into eight, and with the bitter-sweet taste of the good-bye mingling with my inveterate halitosis I finally felt myself wafted away on the winds of adventure towards worlds which I fancied stranger than they were, in situations I imagined much more normal than they turned out to be.But a man in love (Alberto used a juicier, less literary word) is in no condition to listen to that kind of signal; in the great belly of the Buick the bourgeois side of my universe was still under construction. Alberto's brothers joined us and a round of mate sealed our pact not to give up until our dream was a reality.

Next came the tedious business of chasing visas, but all we could see was the dusty road ahead and us on our bike devouring kilometres in the flight northward.ROMANTIC INTERLUDEMiramar, 13 January 1952IT ISN'T really the purpose of this diary to recount the days in Miramar where the trip hung in the balance, in a cocoon subordinate to the word which consents and ties. And suddenly, slipping in as if part of our fantasy, came the question: "Why don't we go to North America?""North America? How?""On La Poderosa, man."That's how the trip came about, and it never deviated from the general principle laid down then: improvisation. I'd also had to quit my job but, unlike him, I was happy to leave. Still, I was restless too, mainly because I was dreamer and a free spirit; I was fed up with medical school, hospitals and exams.Our fantasising took us to faraway places, sailing tropical seas, travelling through Asia. Each will receive a bottle of champagne, as will this week's winners.