0500, Sunday 15 January 2012, Tortel, southern Chile, S 47°48 30, W 73°32. 20.

I’ve just crawled out of bed. Can’t sleep. I’m writing emails in my sleep that shoot round and round in my head. Piles of dishes collect, stuff slumps onto the floor.

All I can think about is the Berghaus Challenge  and whether we’re closing on the front runners.

We won’t find out until 1300 hours today, when we have a two hour slot to send and receive emails and check out the website. The link ashore is painfully slow, so we’re tapping emails offline aboard Lista Light.

We will scuttle off to the only guest house in town with wifi and watch emails slowly shuffle places with one another. Webpages fall on their faces, facebook takes seemingly endless amounts of time to appear.

It’s exasperating.

We’re the only challengers in the competition whose project is dedicated to wildlife and wild places. But what’s so frustrating is that we’re currently in one of those wild places and so our ability to cement support is incredibly restricted.

But, we are receiving an amazing response from our family and friends. Your support is invaluable.

We’re determined to win this first challenge. It will give our project such a boost. We currently have a heap of goodwill (and some sceptics!) but no grants, sponsorship or donations. No matter how lean we make the expedition budget (we’re self-supported, carrying a tent, stove and eating from the side of the road) without a decent wedge of cash we cannot have the maximum impact.

So if you haven’t already, please vote today for the 5000 mile project, it only takes 15 seconds. Please support our crazy venture to run 15-25 miles a day through some of the most dangerous countries in the world, in blistering heat and rain, over mountain passes and through rainforest, for the some of the last remaining wildlife and wild places.

Thank you

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