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The sixth episode of the fourteenth series of Top Gear aired on the 27th of December, 2009. It features James, Jeremy, and Richard travelling 1,600 km through South America from the rainforests of Pacific coast of Chile. The presenters used second hand off-road vehicles, bought locally off the internet in Bolivia for less than £3,500 each.

Route[]

The three presenters started at a riverside in the Amazon jungle where a towed river raft left their cars: a Range Rover, a Suzuki SJ 40, and a Toyota Land Cruiser (the presenters were supposed to have been helicoptered in to the location, but Jeremy said that the helicopter had crashed before filming, necessitating a boat trip up the river). The trio were originally left on the bank with nothing. Richard remarked on the other two's inappropriate clothing and they all revealed their phobias. Richard is terrified of insects, James is scared of heights and Jeremy, manual labour, something James says is just 'bone idleness.' After doing nothing for a long time, a raft finally arrives with their cars. The driver of the raft only parks it vaguely near the bank, so, at that point, they cannot disembark.

Top gear bolivia 2

Jeremy stuck in the Bolivian river

While trying to move the raft, Jeremy started to sink into the mud in the river and so Richard had to pull him out with Jeremy's Range Rover. They had trouble getting the cars off the raft, as Richard's car wouldn't start and the raft was too small for Jeremy to give him a push-start. It was not until the next morning that James realised that some of the planks were long enough to make a ramp off the raft. James tried to get off the raft first, but got stuck up a small hill just after the ramp. As James was blocking the path, they had to get a third plank to get Jeremy off the raft. He managed, and also pulled James's Suzuki up the hill, and into a log. Jeremy also had to tow Richard off the raft, and then give him a pull-start. For the first section of the journey, they were forced to make a route by slashing undergrowth and went along logging trails, encountering snakes and insects. During this segment, several fan blades were broken off Jeremy's engine fan, later leading to him cutting holes in the bonnet for additional ventilation. Jeremy tried to drive across a small gully, but failed. James tried to winch him out, but ended up pulling his own vehicle into the gully, so Richard had to winch both of their vehicles back to the starting point. A chainsaw and rope were used to make a bridge out of the trunks of four young trees to complete the crossing.

Top gear bolivia river

The presenters after crossing the river.

For the next section, the cars underwent minor modifications to cross a river, including non-standard use of certain products: Tampax tampons to waterproof a fuel tank cap, and Vaseline and condoms to waterproof parts of the engine. Richard got through the river without problems. Jeremy, however, stalled, so James had to drive around him, and he got stuck. As Richard was winching James out, Jeremy got his car started without any problems, which seriously annoyed James. In the director's cut, they encounter a tree fall in the middle of the road, which Richard and James work at with machetes for 'two hours.'Jeremy promptly comes in with the chainsaw which gets stuck. After sawing through the log, he starts to saw at James' car. James threatens him with his machete which almost starts a chainsaw-machete fight between them, at which point, the chainsaw falters.

They then climbed into the Andes to La Paz along the Yungas Road, a road also known as the 'Death Road' due to its narrowness and sheer drops. Due to James's fear of heights, he warned the other two not to perform their usual running gag of running into the back of his car (Richard had repeatedly rammed James several times before the warning). Jeremy then sarcastically asked him if he (James) would like him (Jeremy) to hit the back of his car, to which James said no and told him "That he would cut his ******* head off" if he did. Unfortunately, just a few miles up the road, a momentary lapse in concentration caused Jeremy to hit the back of James' car by accident. James stopped and angrily told Jeremy that he is about to be "Macheteed to Death", holding a machete near Jeremy's face. Jeremy was able to pacify James and walked back to Richard to regale him with the tale of how James almost killed him. Further down the road, James stopped with a mechanical problem and, keeping in with the code of the 'Top Gear brotherhood', Jeremy left James and Richard to fend for themselves. With Jeremy far ahead, Richard drove into a ditch to avoid a passing bus, and found out that James's car's winch was broken, and required the assistance of some angry locals. Elsewhere, Jeremy was placed in extreme danger when he met a car coming the other way on a particularly narrow section of the road, and the edge of the road ledge started to crumble under his wheels. Near the end of the section, Jeremy held a brief memorial service for Richard and James, jokingly suggesting that they must be dead. He put two makeshift crosses up, labelling one 'Ted Nugent' and the other 'Ray Mears'. Jeremy had a near-death on Death Road.

They modified their cars in La Paz. Jeremy and Richard fitted much bigger wheels and tyres on their cars, which had a negative effect on their performance, because it geared up the cars too much for their gearboxes. Richard also got rid of the roof, and replaced it with a lighted rollbar. James simply 'mended' his car aswell as fitted a rollbar. Afterwards, they crossed the Altiplano. They had a portable GPS with an altitude readout. They tried to take a straight route into Chile over the Guallatiri active volcano; the green parts on this volcano landscape are volcanic deposit, not vegetation. This attempt was defeated by weakness and a drunken-type feeling after about 16,000 feet caused by severe hypoxia, the result of being at such a high altitude.

Tg chile

Top Gear shortly before the Chilean border

They had each taken a Viagra tablet to try to prevent high altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE) from altitude hypoxia. Altitude hypoxia also much reduced the cars' effective power, which meant James's car could produce less than 20 bhp. On the way, they passed at least two active volcanic steam vents. At 17,200 feet altitude (5.243 km, where the air pressure was about half an atmosphere), they stopped and appraised their current medical state. All three were displaying clear signs of altitude sickness and as the road was continuing to climb, Jeremy indicated plainly that he highly doubted that either the cars or the three of them would survive climbing any higher. The trio decided to turn back and take a lower route. During the climb, they used a pulse oximeter to read their blood oxygen saturation, which sometimes was down to 84%, a value which in normal life would recommend admission to hospital.

On the final leg of their journey the propshaft on Richard's Toyota drops off and the rear diff had exploded, with Jeremy once again not stopping to help James and Richard converted the Toyota to front wheel drive only. A few miles from the end of their journey, the route took them down a very steep sand dune to reach the Pacific coast, on Caleta Los Verdes, some 20 km south of Iquique. They initially decided to practise on a less steep dune. Just prior to starting their practice run, Richard got out to talk to Jeremy, 'forgetting' that his handbrake was broken and that he had left the Toyota in neutral. A hand can be seen through the Toyota window letting go of the car at the rear, causing it to begin moving forward. The Toyota began rolling down the dune driverless and rolled over, losing a wheel in the process. The broken wheel hub meant the end for the Toyota, it was now all down to Jeremy and James to complete the dangerous descent to the coastline. Despite struggling to keep their cars under control and running down the dune at high speed, both made it to the bottom. During that, The tailgate on the Range Rover opened because it was bent. Luckily nothing fell out because the stuff was held on with green rope. Richard meanwhile ran down the dune but tripped and rolled over in the process.

Although Richard was forced to admit the defeat of the Toyota Land Cruiser that he lovingly referred to as "The Donkey", he still argued that he had chosen wisely. Jeremy observed that James's Suzuki had completed the journey, but it had been a very rough ride; James agreed, saying, "The ride is rotten". Due to the Suzuki's hard ride and the Toyota failing to reach their final destination, Jeremy declared that although the Range Rover was the most unreliable car in the world, it had proven itself to be the most reliable car in the world and with agreement from his colleagues, Clarkson declared that the winning car was the Range Rover.

Although it was not mentioned on the show, the three can be seen passing along Lago Chungara (approx 4600 m in elevation), and the Parinacota volcano was seen near this lake in the National Parque Lauca. These came into view just before the three began their drive up the Guallatiri volcano. This episode is regarded by the presenters as the best in show history.

Cars[]

Image Vehicle Driver
Suzuki
Suzuki Jimmny James May
RR-1
Range Rover Jeremy Clarkson
Land Cruiser
Toyota Land Cruiser Richard Hammond

Trivia[]

  • This is the first special where not all three cars completed the journey. At the last hurdle Richard Hammond's Toyota Land Cruiser rolled down an embankment, rolled over and lost a wheel in the process. Ironically it wouldn't be until the Nepal Special 10 years later and The Grand Tour's Madagascar Special 11 years later where another car (ironically the one driven by Richard Hammond) would not complete the journey.


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