Wednesday, April 10, 2013

BUENOS AIRES APRIL 2013

29/3/2013

   Meticulous planning had me arriving on Good Friday and sitting out the holidays waiting for the bike. Need to get more wt off, 19 hr flight squashed between the arm rests is not the most comfortable way to travel and having to be greased up to squeeze into a Buenos Aires Taxi has motivated me to slim down.
  A lot of reading and listening had me think that Buenos Aires was a sort of war zone with muggers lining up to take turns on the tourists.
  Discovered why the hotel was so reasonably priced.To be fair, a smaller person would have been able to fit in the room together with the baggage and it was clean.



30/3/2013



 Breakfast buffet was worth the price of the room alone.
 Turns out there is such a thing as a free lunch. At least when the restaurant accepts dollars at 50% more than the official exchange rate there is.
 Nice to have a sleep in the afternoon, especially after eating a char-grilled cow. It's fairly obvious that this is not the place to lose wt or expect my gout to go away.



3/4/2013



 Good news, bike loaded in Capetown.
 Bad news, bike off loaded in Johannesburg

 Promised now for Friday 5th.meaning clearance on Monday 8th.

 Discovered that floods were devastating the city, I guess I was just in the right place as apart from a bit of rain there was nothing untoward in central Buenos Aires.




5/4/2013



 Visited Javier and Sandra at Dakar Motos to check all in order for getting the bike tomorrow. 



vaya con dios





8/4/13



  After a weekend involving Salsa, meat, tango, meat, cemetery and more meat arrived at the airport to clear the bike.The whole process was painless and the value of using somebody who knows what they are doing and what is required was obvious.The bike was cleared in a couple of hours.

  Followed Javier back to their place.I hadn't realised how fast my heart could beat without having a heart attack. Threading through the Buenos Aires traffic is exhilerating to say the least, luckily my speedo was not working but I do know that nobody was going faster.My hands could be prised free of the bars after about ten minutes and with clean underwear I was good to go.

 Many thanks to Javier and Sandra for all the help.Once again no matter how impressive the landscapes,  people  leave the lasting impressions.