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Published: September 28th 2006
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Nick's animal magnetism
...the young lady on the right (Emily) is a vet, hence her interest. Kristina:
Wednesday afternoon in BA - a dog barking somewhere, lots of beeping and shouting noises from the street oustide. Yes, we made it to Eric's and Emily's, eventually!!!! After spending about 10 hours at the "beautiful" Cargo Terminal.... I'm sure Nick will tell you all about his "affairs" with the local custom officials but as a conclusion I can confirm that he charmed them and we got our bike from the warehouse and it is parked downstairs as I speak. I was very impressed with Nick's surgeon-like assembling technique. After all, we only had 1 hour to get all the bits and pieces together before they closed the warehouse.
To top it all off, we had our first SA adventure on our way to Eric's house. The airport is in a not-very-nice part of BA and apparently a wrong turn can take you straight to the local "hood". Therefore, we decided that I will take a taxi and Nick will follow me on the bike. I followed Eric's advice and went back to the passenger terminal and walked straight to the Ezieza taxi booth. I paid for the ride in advance and a porter was supposed to take me to
These are not steaks...
...they are protein-based flagstones. the taxi. I explained to her (the porter) that the taxi should swing by the petrol station 100 meters from the terminal so that Nick can follow us. She insisted that I would walk to the petrol station (with all our luggage) and the taxi would pick me up from there; she was very worried that the booth-lady was not aware of such "detour" (!!!! 100 meters!!!!) So there I was, pushing a massive trolley with all our stuff, on the road, cars swinging by from both sides. The porter walked with me, to see if Nick really exists or did I make it all up. She saw Nick, I "parked" my trolley next to him and she ran back to the terminal to send the taxi to us. "Don't go anywhere!" she said. Where should we go? In about 1min time there was a taxi next to us. We were impressed by the speed of the service. I jumped in and he took us to our desitnation, he even paid for Nick's toll road fee. We got to Emily's and he helped me to carry everything to the house and shook everyone's hand, wishing us a good journey etc. And then he would just stand there. We asked what was the matter (as I had paid for everything in advance) and he asked for a payment. It seems that we had been over-eager with thet quality of the taxi service and he was just a random taxi passing the petrol station, offering us a ride - we took him as the Ezieza car... Stupid foreigners! So we had to pay once more for the ride. Lesson learnt.
Nick:
I take it all back: ignore any remarks made in my last entry about the ease with which one can negotiate the Argentine customs process!! It would appear that having visited 3 of the 4 offices involved in clearing customs in under 2 hours is not a good indication of one's progress as, I was soon to realise, one does need to return to the same offices on numerous occasions. Numerous. I strongly suspect that the rate of cardiovascular complications in the Buenos Aires Cargo terminal is somewaht low, as not only did I acheive my recommended quota of 10000 steps a day I, in fact doubled it, all by walking from one office to the next, to the previous etc. It should be noted at this stage these offices are next to one another: I think you get the idea...
In their defence, the people working there were both patient and helpful and it would appear a brit who can only understand one word in three, who knows nothing about football, reassembling a motorbike in a cargo warehouse is quite entertaining. So, after 7 hours of bureaucracy the bike was finally released from Customs I was able to ride it away, for 150 meters to the nearest petrol station for the above fiasco to then unfold.
Another point of note: Riding an unevenly loaded motorbike, down the motorway, at night, following the taxi driver who has your girlfriend as a passenger, and exhibits a penchant for swerving, is a very good way of staving off the fatigue of having slept for 3 hrs out of the last 44, and hence, sail into ones fourth wind of the day.... The evening finished of with faultless hospitality from Eric and Emily (ie they had a cold brewsky in the fridge waiting for us), followed by a meal in a restaurant that specialised in meat..... I can only say that the steak I had was the size and shape of a sofa cushion, although it was far tastier and is, I'm told, a lot more fire retardant... With that much protein in my system, I was de-aminating for England. We went to bed at 4am GMT and I slept quite deeply!
This morning we had a VERY strong cup of coffee, twitched a bit, then had another. We then took a taxi ride with a taxi driver who regularly got out to ask directions and finally made it to our news friend's establishment at Dakar Motos, BA: an outfit set-up to supply, help and service all the needs of the overlander bike traveller. Sandra and Javier welcomed us despite the fact that, not having called them after leaving the airport, they spent the night thinking we were in a ditch, somewhere. once forgiven we were given ... a cup of strong coffee: BRING IT ON!!! We then chatted whilst I let off some energy by bench-pressing motorbikes. A discussion regarding our planned trip suggests our route is pants and we should completely re-plan. As Sandra pointed out a good traveller must adapt.... It would appear that despite having some major top spots to visit the route between each that we have chosen is not the most interesting, so we may be crossing over to the east flank of the Andes further to the north than we had planned: we shall see!!
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Dave
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Befriend strange men in cars (home from home Kris!), ride motorbike with sleep deprivation, eat large quantities of meat, drink, sleep and embibe coffee...... trying to pretend it wasn't all planned - you know what you're doing! - how much are flights? Big love Dave