May 18, 2010

Wow. Return day is finally here.

How do I feel?
Nervous, excited, ready.

There’s a momentum that is created when you travel and you sort of get caught up in it.  I’ve been going through the motions of coming home without thinking about how I *feel* about it too much.

Mentally I’ve been “done” with this trip the whole time here at Dakar Motos. I’ve been on the internet lots reconnecting with old friends, catching up on the blog, and making arrangements, connections, and plans for once I am back in the USA.

I booked an overnight flight may 18th, which gets me into Seattle Wednesday the 19th at 10:30 am.

The morning is spent visiting with some other motorbike travelers that came in late yesterday, a little bit of internet, and a bunch of packing. I don’t have much stuff, but it’s heavy (I am carrying an extra chain and sprockets Joanjo brought to Buenos Aires for me from Quito). I leave for the airport about 3:00 since I have to take a series of trains, buses and shuttles to get to the International Airport.

Up, up and away the flight leaves more or less on time, and wow. I am really going back.

Welcome to the Coolest Zoo I have ever been to.

I walk past this at the entry…

And go straight to the Tigers!

Tigers!

Is this cool or WHAT!

I was in with the elephants all of about 1 minute when they broke out (see the tine electric wide holding them in place?) and the  guy shouted for me to get out of the elephant area. I wasn’t too concerned for my welfare, as the poor beasts really just wanted some fresh grass an trotted away. Pretty cool, but being underfoot would not have been.

Next I visited the camels. I declined a ride on one, instead I opted for petting and feeding them. Thanks, Carolyn, for the introduction to them in Texas. I wasn’t scared when they sniffed me real up close and personal.

No too much excitement here…so I didn’t go in.

Ducks bathing in the buffalo water…

This gal cracked me up…a little disheveled are we?

The on to the BIG tigers!

These are the two year olds…6 tigers with 1 lioness thrown into the mix.

Seems innocent enough in the picture…

But then the female lioness started growling and rubbing on me like a house cat. Now unlike a house cat, this lioness rubbed on my HIPS and not my ankles…further, I did not understand the grumbling noises she was making…Further, the handler kept telling her to knock it off.

OKAY, ENOUGH FOR ME! I asked to be let out of the cage before some instinct of mine, or worse, theirs, took over and things got ugly.

But dang! Talk about a once in a lifetime experience!

OK, so on to the bears:

I took a whole bunch of pictures of them, but mostly had fun feeding them raisins.

What a day!

If you ever get to Buenos Aires, make it a point to go to the Lujan Zoo. It’s an hour and a half out of town, but there’s a bus, and  it is so worthwhile. Try to hit it on a weekday, too. I was able to spend an hour in with the 6 month old tigers, whereas marty went on a weekend and spent 5 minutes in with them.

http://www.zoolujan.com/

http://rumbum.com/1009-argentinian-shakedown

May 9, 2010

Breakfast! (Included in the spendy room rate)

Get this: the waitress comes by and asks if I want coffee. of course! (Although I never exactly know the country’s customs with regards to coffee–it’s always an experience the first few days  figuring out how to achieve strong, yummy coffee. Home run on the first Argentinian morning…the waitress has a pot of steaming black coffee in one hand, and a pot of steaming hot milk in the other. Hot Milk? I think I like Argentina!

OK, so I am basically just passing through Argentina…I consider whether to take 2 days and ride up to Iguazu Falls…and because I am having some irregular email correspondence With Sandra at Dakar Motos (who is supposedly going to help me ship my bike back to the USA), I decide to be safer than sorrier and just

Apparently, Route 14 in N Argentina is known for the police scam…unfortunately I fell into it. I’d  been so proud of my mordida-evasion (bribe-evasion) techniques in Peru, I was caught  completely off guard and didn’t realize I was getting stung!

So they flagged me to pull over, saying I was riding without my front headlight. Now, for anyone who has traveled in Latin America *everyone* travels without their headlight!!! I mean, in every other country, people were flashing me that my headlight was *ON*!!! Apparently it’s the law to ride with your headlight ON and technically, at that moment, my headlight was NOT on, because it was cold and I was running my heated hand grips. I was having problems with the Denali lights–the fuse box had a loose connection and they’d flicker on and off.

Anyway, good cop  makes nice nice with me, I think I am getting off the hook, then he refers me to bad cop.  Bad cop never takes his dark sunglasses off. bad cop is ALL bad cop, telling me how horrible I am for breaking the law, etc.  Tells me that I should know to ride with my lights on since I am from the USA. basically, he goes round and round with me. The are doing a whopping business here, lots of folks with no headlights or other terrible sins.

writing th

I tell him I want to see the book, where it is in writing that drivers need to operate a vehicle with their headlight on.  I make a big production of taking a picture of it (I’m a journalist after all!)

Next he goes into this elaborate fine calculation, punching numbers like crazy into a calculator. The numbers seems steep, but I still think if I am patient and act dumb enough (my latest trick since I’m well past the point where I can pretend not to understand him).

Well, he finally touches on my Achilles heel…I can pay the fine here, roadside, or they will tow the bike and I can pay an ever larger fine wherever they tow it to.

Two days ago I was robbed, and I’m making a beeline to Buenos Aires to end my trip…and this dude tells me that they are going to tow my bike. ARGH! I FELL FOR IT!!!

They got me for $100.
(When I got to dakar Motos in Buenos Aires other travelers told me they’d gone through the same deal with the same cops, and basically they just waited for the cops to get tired of them. they refused to pay roadside, waited for the bikes to be towed, which never happened, and finally got the cops to write them paper tickets and ride away.)

I am told they are not allowed to collect fees roadside, bt evidently these particular cops make a handsome living at it. They are so well set up that they even have a briefcase full of money so they can make change. Such effective businessmen, you can pay in US dollars OR Argentinian pesos.

I stood there for quite some time taking pictures of other people passing through without lights, and there were plenty. The cops preyed on obvious tourists and old people, from what i could tell of the people they pulled over. I stayed a while and even took pictures of what they were doing, but when I started talking to someone else that got pulled over, they got really upset. I just wanted to see what the other guys’ fine was. Never did find out.

Bummer. Bummer Bummer. Hindsight (which is usually 20/20) says I would have been better off of they’d impounded my vehicle…I ended up paying $1500 to get my bike back to the USA.

<>

I cut my losses and moved on. More flat and straight highway to Buenos Aires.

Here’s a pic of me trying to get the Dakar Motos way-point into  my GPS.

It’s almost dark as I enter the City. Sheesh, My Garmin 60 Cx doesn’t calculate quick enough, and i miss my exit. It was an absolute nightmare trying to get to Dakar Motos. I finally stopped at a taxi stand and asked for directions. I despise cities.

But I roll in (coming the wrong way down their one-way street) and get a nice welcome from the man himself–Javier.

Justin, the fellow that zip tied my broken fingers together in Cuzco,  is there waiting for him BMW to arrive (the shippers sent his 800GS around the world without him!) There are also two Swedes Jonas and Roberto (Swedes are the BEST! the joke became).

Ah. Nice to be in the final stretch.

10 days before  my flight.

May 8, 2010

Believe me, I was eager to get everything all set and get out of Posadas (Paraguay) after being robbed.  Big Bridge separating the two countries.

One of the MANY things I enjoy abut traveling on a motorbike is all the, er, liberties you can take.

Take this line, for instance…loooooooooooooooooooooooooong. With a motorbike? PASS THEM ALL! Ha! Shaved an hour off my border crossing, and at that point I was just feeling ornery enough to not give a hoot…

Well, here’s a darned civilized way to cross a border…nice orderly lines (except those crazy motorbikes that pass everyone), everyone waiting their turn rather than cleverly cutting each other in line, etc.

Welcome to Argentina! Welcome to order. Welcome to a funny accent that takes a bit to train your ears to.  Welcome to high prices!

Welcome to flat, straight roads.

Welcome to…………………

……………………………………………………………….PARILLA!

Parilla is loosely translated as Bar-B-Que (although without the BBQ sauce).

Oofa, I did not realize that this on was all-you-can-eat. I got STUFFED!!!

No more pics that day, I was in a just-been-robbed funk.

http://rumbum.com/1138-the-kindness-of-strangers

May 6, 2010

I’d spent about 4 hours on the internet last night, then finished off a cheesy novel in my room reading until the wee hours. Next morning I went to breakfast a little on the late side, wrote some emails over coffee, then went out to my bike.

It was something like out of a bad movie…all my panniers were open, and I just stood there staring at it for a few moments…how could my panniers be open when I had not been out to the bike yet…

then it hit me: I WAS ROBBED!

I ran back into the hotel and told the front desk guy to call the police. he didn’t rather he followed me out to the bike, which I’d parked in the hotel parking lot, where the owner was just pulling in. SHE told him to call the cops and he finally did. Then she yelled at ME!

I guess I can say they were nice robbers because they left my credit cards and my passport…but they stole all the souvenirs I’d bought for people back home, plus my cold weather clothing, plus some cool tools, PLUS about $1000 in cash. Everyone asks why I had that much cash on the bike, and it was because I needed $1500+ cash for shipping the bike back…and the ATMs would only give me $190/day for some reason, so I was stockpiling. At any other point in the trip the most they would have gotten was less than $200.

Why did I have the cash on the bike? Because two travelers had told me how their hotel rooms were robbed. I had the money split between my person, my luggage, and on the bike. Ugh. What a blow. I spent the day filing a ‘denuncio‘ with the police, getting my locks fixed, canceling my credit cards (I did not realize yet that I still had the credit cards) and getting the bike locks fixed since I did not want to go through the border with an UN-lockable bike.

At one point the police got a call from the hotel owner and we went back to the hotel–it looked like the robbers tried to take my goody bag an throw it over the fence to hide the evidence, but it got caught in the barbed wire so the bag fell back into the back lot of the “secure” parking lot. Here’s what I found:

The nice guy at the locksmith charged me $6 to fix all three locks…it took him two hours because he had to go all over town to find cylinders that were close. He still had to drill out the locks so the new cylinders would fit!

Here I am at the police station:

)(*(*^&*&%$$%$#@!!!!!!!

Leaving town (finally!)

Leaving Paraguay:

May 4, 2010

Well, it’s never a good time to get a flat tire, but at least I knew what to do when it happened. Check out this bolt I picked up about 40 miles after leaving Tebicuary…

That bolt was 4″ long, and the entire thing was embedded in my tire. The rear tube was absolute toast, and so I got to use the spare I’d carried for about 19,000 miles!

In hindsight I wish I had more pictures…I rolled the bike off the road and started to work…only to realize I’d set up shop in the sand and the bike was sinking…and I had no way of breaking the bead of the rear tire since I oul not get enough leverage off my center stand with it in the sand…

…along came a very nice gentleman on a MINT 250…he offered to help, and I quite surprised him when I not only knew what I was about changing the tire but also when I asked if we could use HIS bike to break the bead…

After he helped me to change the tire, he commented on how dirty my bike was, and INSISTED that I take care of it and get it  washed. Funny guy. So I paid tribute to him by washing it.

Did I mention my savior’s name? Miguelangelo. Michael, the Angel.

SO after that  it was almost dark. The only hotel in town was a LOVE HOTEL. Ha! The proprietors did not know what to make of me, but they let me stay all night. First night in a round bed!!!

May 5, 2010

I woke up to rain. Downpour. Wet-you-through kind of rain. I waited an hour, then another,  but it wasn’t letting up, and I was quite certain that I did not want to pay for this hotel room by the hour, so I packed up and took off. Ugh. My panniers leak, my Scorpion riding suit leaks, my boots leak, I am NOT happy riding in rain. o much for seeing the Animal park, and several other points of interest I wanted to see in Paraguay.

It cleared a little after 2:00, so I stopped and had some lunch. I think it was chicken.

My horn had died again (the first one quit, the second one rattled off the bike, the third one quit, so now I was needing horn #4. I really like my old, LOUD on, but I thought this one might be overkill…

The owner of the auto shop was eating something yummy looking, and I asked where I could get ine (I assumed he’d purchased the parfait across the street at the ice cream shop). nope, he went in the back and served me up one for myself.

Ice Cream AND Auto parts?

YUM!

Here’s his shop…if you ever make it there be sure to ask for your ice cream too!

Next stop, gas.
Remember I spoke about the tea the Paraguayans drink? EVERYONE carries their terere…and the convenience shops at gas stations? They take it seriously too. Here’s a pic of everything they had on the shelf:

oops, sorry this pic is upside down…but they even have hot water machines at the gas stations for your terere!!!

I rode to Encarnacion, the border town where I would cross into Argentina…I decided to spend the night there since I did not want to cross the border late afternoon.

http://rumbum.com/1122-detours-to-machu-picchu

May 3, 2010

It was a lovely, and long, and rather hot ride to Tebicuary. Robert Rolón  had invite me to stay with his family there, and tour the sugar can mill he worked at. I was really impressed my the countryside–gone was the dismal, trash-strewn roadside, but clean, kept, and with large ranches proudly displaying their names and the products they produced. German influence  meets Latin America, and it kept me wondering why other areas I’d traveled through had such a hard time keeping themselves organized and clean, when Paraguay, the poorest country in South America, was so neat and orderly.

Because I love bathroom humor.  But really.  Just WHAT was I supposed to do with this hose?

Mennonites.

Note to self: NO MORE BEEF!!!

I got completely and utterly turned around in Villarica. I was supposed to meet up with the folks that I had dinner with in Concepcion, but that went out the window with my 5 laps of Villarica. I ended up asking a taxi driver how to get out of town, and he was nice enough to lead me (for free) to the highway. Sheesha. I was in a state by the time I left town.

I got to Roberto’s late, and he’d arranged for me to speak at the local high school. So he bundled his family into the car and I followed them on the bike to the school where I met with about 50+ kids in two separate groups. We talked about cancer prevention, supporting your loved ones through a diagnosis, a bit about my travels, and about wearing all your protective gear while riding a motorbike.  It’s a real problem in Paraguay ALL the kids seem to have a scooter, and so few wear any protective gear at all.

May 4, 2010

Roberto and his family are so lovely–I was so tired that night as we went to bed about midnight. The poor people kept the house and kids so quiet in the morning that I slept until 9:30!!! I was mortified, but I guess I was in sore need of a good bed and a restful place to sleep.

Here’s the little one with her Terere:

A tour of the sugar mill:

On-site church

Cane Trucks waiting to gain entry into the mill.

LUNCH!

I got a late start that day — I think I left around 2 or 3. Hindsight says I really should have stayed over another night, but I did not want to be a burden on the family. Plus, I counted the days and I still had much of Paraguay I wanted to see. Too bad, because things went from bad to worse the  next few days.