Two Wheels Good...

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Ahh, faithful blogees, at last I can start reporting on things bike again!!......but no photos to record the more intense moments...and it was intense!...after a few false starts and an aborted visit to the warehouse in the port town....about an hours drive from Caracas...on Tuesday...we got off to a bad start yesterday (Wednesday for us)....our driver arrived at 8am to take us back down to the port place....Guaia(?) .....after about 20 kms the freight guy texts us to say he's in traffic, on his way to Caracas...whaaa?..so we have to return to town.....so we meet with our freight guy, his lawyer chica and a import/customs/hot shot/freight guy and they thrash around for an hour or 2...with brief translations in English for us...its like those movies where there's a huge long stretch of dialogue and the sub-title just says....Yes, let's do it....or similar...anyway, the guy agrees to drop his fees and we hunt around and scrape together 620 bucks for him...at least he gave us a good rate!...the 'official' rate to the $US is 2,400 B but the unofficial rate is better and he gave us 2,550.....so that's a little saving....and its off to the warehouse again.
I had noticed a few days ago...one of those inconsequential little things....I've only got a couple of days of visa left!!!......so we call in to the airport which is near the port in the hope of finding an imigration person...Alfredo, our freight mate, and I wander around following the usual precise, but inaccurate, directions, and finally get to big steel doors that only open inwards....and we're on the inside...prising them open we find ourselves in the baggage hall...no-one in sight (well, almost) 6 huge new baggage carousels, lying still, eerily quiet, deserted dutyfree shops, all the officials' booths empty...there's a couple of guards lounging in the corner and a lone cleaner, swinging his polyvac lazily across the already gleaming floor...this place is totally brand new...so we explain to the guard that I want an extension on my visa and need the imigration office....heads are scratched, brows furrowed...so the guard chats to the cleaner, the cleaner drops his polisher handle and wanders off, we wait....then the cleaner comes back with an imigration guy!!...unbelievable...... and goes back to his cleaning!...the imigration guy tells me my original should be good for 90 days anyway!!...I point out its got 30 days written on the arrival slip...he pulls out his pen and write '90 dias' on the form, and on my passport stamp...and thats it!...no signature or anything official.....could've done it myself!!
So we get to the warehouse and our babies...Grant and I fire ours up...no problemas...Ted turns on his ignition and gasoline spurts out from under the tank...oh fcuk!!...we determine that some turkey in Panama, trying to drain the tank has just busted a fuel line...and right on a really simple clip-apart junction bizzo....faarrcckkk...anyway, on the off chance I have a dig thru' the spares bag and what do you know!!...more thanks to Gail and Steve for the service day and spares bag!! at BMW Mulgrave!!....
However, and there's always a 'however'...how do we get the old one off?...the hose clamps have been put on by some enormous machine, pinching them so tight you can't imagine...we get one clip off...then can't even budge the junction bizzo which is locked in like a regular hose attachment, you know?, those little backwards facing ridges?...that really lock in ?..well, just like that but worse!.....
Fortunately, and there's hopefully always a 'fortunately'..the 'World's Strongest Man' just happens to work in the warehouse, as by now we've attracted quite a crowd...so this giant of a man, fingers like tree trunks, can't believe he can be working on something so small....and this bit is right in under the tank so no room to play about.....he crouches down and starts pulling on the bits, great rolls of muscle up his back right up to the muscular folds where head meets back...the classic rugby 'no-neck' look.....sweating and grunting...I'm waiting for the tank to get wrenched off the frame....
and off it comes!...and the next clip...and the other half....crikey, this guy's on a roll...I hand him the new part and he promptly shoves the wrong bit in the wrong hose...jesus wept!.....
...another 15 minutes of straining and he gets it off and puts the right one in...and we have hose clamps...tighten it all up ....done!!....then its just minor stuff.....a few more long waits for 'another' signature...then we find we're out of fuel...the panamaniacs have drained the tanks...somehow!...we try not to think of what they might have done...strange whining noises from the bikes...omg!....
Alfredo's offsider, who constantly gets around on his little scooter, like a mosquito buzzing around, crazy, I think he sleeps on his scooter, he can go anywhere on it...and does...so he goes and gets some gas and we join a queue of 500 trucks...all monsters with containers on board...all motionless, waiting, endlessly, looks like some of them have been in line for weeks.....cobwebs on the wheels!!....we are allowed to sneak thru to the head of the queue...and wait there for another hour while the officials have a party!!....they're all crooks and corrupt as buggery according to the locals...
..So finally we get thru, square away with Alfredo who has worked his arse off for us and also gave us as good a deal as possible...certainly without him we wouldn't have had a chance of getting thru it all!!.
Then the ride back to Crackarse, first 20 kms on a quasi freeway, dodging the cars dodging the trucks dodging the buses dodging the other cars...indicators? what indicators?...then we hit the city nightmare...day and night always chockers!...but, like all the bikes, altho' they're mainly small bikes and scooters, we head down the suicide lane between the cars.....
...they have a very economical system to get more cars on the roads....no lane marking!!...so as many cars abreast as possible...whoo hoo....
...altho' on this major network the lanes were marked so we split them, lights flashing, horn blaring...just like all the bikes, especially the cops!...and eventually get back to the hotel...

Fantastic getting back on the road and we hit the hotel in v high spirits...and go out to celebrate Ted's birthday...what a way to spend it?...but a happy ending(?)

The German Continental people came good with the tyres they promised...bolt out of the blue, pleasant surprise...yadda yadda, but of course then we find the tyres are stuck in fcuking customs!...aaarrgghhh...but they'll be free on Friday!...so we're gonna hit the road and get out of here for the weekend, come back on Monday and get the tyres fitted...then head off for points east and down towards Brasil...oh yeah, I got the visa out of them!

So that's it for another day, week, whatever...just realised that it was fingernail cutting day again.....we've just wasted about 5 weeks!...but not all is lost...I've been trying to write something a bit more organised and Grant's been back to his sketches which you can find here...check 'em out! http://homepage.mac.com/gforbes3 and Ted's photos at www.tedgrambeau.com or via the Ripcurl homepage....hasta luego.....now I feel a bit flat...don't know what happened...better go and get on the beast and get going...Love to you all...

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