Driving around

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Argentina is the world's 8th largest country and definitely a step up from Peru and Bolivia, even my stomach seems to think so.
Driving in from the mayhem at the border where you're shuffelled here and there and sweating away, A strange feeling after having been on the high plains of the Andes for a couple of weeks, sweating that is.
Jujuy for the night, then on to Salta and then maybe the vineyards of Cafayate.
Many restaurants in Jujuy were closed due to it being Sunday so I had a crappy meal and half a bottle of decent wine and when I payed that, I realized that Argie is not only big it's expensive as well, may be I should go back to Bolivia.
A good night's sleep and a crappy continental breakfast later I was ready to go to Salta on with the ATTGATT and take out the bike from the hotels' foyer and get going.
So there I was ready to rock'n roll, and the bike was as dead as a door nail,very easy not to laugh.
I borrowed a little carpet from the hotel and crept a around on the ground trying to jury rig a pair of jumper cables, had I bothered to read the manual that comes with the bike I would have saved me a lot of swearing.
In the end with the help of some Bolivians living in the same hotel we got it running and then of to Salta who has a KTM shop, I was going there anyway to fix a leaking seal on the front suspension.
The bike started well and so no need for a new battery.
I went a got a room in a hostel that must have been the noisiest place on earth, well they did stop singing a 4 am.
Trotted off to the workshop only to be confronted with a non starting bike, intercourse!
Ordered a new battery and spent some time cleaning the bike and then left to get out of their hair.
Got a new very nice room that's not in a hostel for less than the hostel, but here's no one to chat with if one feels inclined but then again there will be no ruccous until 4 am or so I hope.
Moped around Salta for a while but it's to hot, so I'm sitting in my mini room waiting for the sun to get over the yard arm so that I can have a drop of grog.
Next morning I picked up my bike and spent the contents of my wallet to bail it out, no leaking fork and a brand new battery.
It ran like the wind yet again, Cafayate where I was 2 years ago with my daughter was the next stop.
The road between Cafayate and Salta is very nice indeed and the difference between being caged in a car and crusing along in the open air is quite big and in the favour of being on the bike, I must admit that my company was better the last time.
Had a so so lunch in Cafayate and a better dinner and got an invitation to a barbecue in Brazil from a bunch of Brazilian bikers, so then I had a new goal on this trip.
After having consulted every one and their dog I decided to do a semi mad dash down to Cordoba, the stop over on the way to see the Argie bloke I travelled with for a couple of days in Bolivia.
It started out nice and cool, the valley of Tafi is really nice and going down into the valley on the east side of the ever present Andes had me leaving the nice and relatively cool temperatures.
Going south east I passed Tucuman and Santiago del Estero, every thing turned flat and hotter than the place where they send motor bike riders to.
When I stopped for lunch it was well over 40 C according to the locals.
All in all it was a 700 + km ride and on the last half of it it wanted to ride without all my gear, buck naked would have been nice, but ATTGATT is my way of doing it.
I hit the motorway as to get going as fast as possible and as the land is as flat as can be there nothing worth seeing, the last couple of hours were really a pain in the arse.
No service stop on the motor way either, I went 280 km with not so much as a petrol station.
The idiot light went on telling me that with in 50 klicks I'd be out of petrol when finally I saw the Argentinia YPF sign which equals petrol and a brief moment in the shade.
I splashed myself wih water in the toilet but that only lasted about 5 mins..
Central Cordoba was nice enough and the first beer went down like nectar from heaven, nice girls walked by, the girls in Argie are a big step up from Bolivia.
I washed my shirt and my under wear in my room and itt's incredible how dirty you get on along ride, some days my face is nice and black from dust and diesel fumes, they would definitely not me have sit in the front of the bus back in the old apartheid days in South Africa.
I over slept so my 6 o'clock get away was a no no, 380 km in the wrong direction to see Nacho down on his farm in the heart of the soy and corn growing district, incredibly it turned even flatter, Ruler straight roads and enless horizons, BORING!
I stopped to buy some chain lube in a shop on the way and as I payed two boys came in and high fived me, the kids really love the big bikes as many bikes in Argie are small single cylinder Chinese POS.
The grin on their faces was like the sun when I started up and revved it a bit, I 'm sorry that I didn't take a pic but my feeble brain was rather on it's melting point.
I got to the farm and was greeted and received like royalty, incredible hospitality and good food and plonk and to top that fruit salad for desert, Yihaa!
I could have stayed a week.
Well I didn't had to get a move on, well not really but still i didn't want outstay my welcome.
The sky was dodgy and according to me it was going to rain and for once mother nature and I agreed, soon enough It started to piss down, rain gear on but that doesn't help with the leaking boots, eventually it did as it nirmally does, it stopped raining, a quick lunch and hit the road again.
The bike didn't feel as it normally does and WTF, a FLAT!!!.
I stopped by the road side and got all my repair stuff out and changed the tube.
I had asked a guy i saw down by a house if there was a tyre repair shop by and the said yes and that he would take me there a soon as he had finished his lunch.
I was toiling away on the bike when he came trotting up indicating a garden chair that he had put up in the shade under a tree for me and that in 10min we would be off to the tyre guy.
You meet some incredible friendly and helpful people some times, note to self be onto others as this guy was to me.
Soon I had a whole family with friends swarming around the bike and as my air compressor is a bit feeble he took me to see man about a tyre but not before I had washed up.
And then they wanted me to have some food as well, and while we saw the tyre guy the rest of the family sat watch on my bike and all my gear.
Bad tube patched and then a Choripan which is like a hot dog but for the fact that this was a real home made Argie chorizo in a piece of bread and a that , two of them..
So i sat there for a while and ate my choripan and chatted with them, really nice people, they were descedants of German immigrants from Volga and spoke a bit of German
Encounters like that really makes your day, and a bit more.
My stopping point was to be in Federal, and a big steak to top of my lunch and the choripans.
And a beer, well maybe two, make that three a nice uneven number.
Rehydrated I returned to my extremely small room to write this nonsense.
The rest of the trip up to the Brazilian border was just a big bore flat as a pancake and hot as hlle, just boring and a nice cold to go with it, sneezing away inside the helmet and feeling miserable, getting a cold when it's 40C some degrees sounds a bit stupid.
Any way I holed up in the hotel in Santo Tome' not wanting to move an inch more, 2.5 cm for those who are metric.
Some Brazilians who sat in the lounge saw my sweaty mug and poured me a beer, I must have had a face on!

And then bless them, another one.

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Photos

IMG_0221
The Devil's throat