2-13-06

What a beautiful morning today. I wanted to find a bolt to replace the one I borrowed from Jim as it really was too small. We started out at the Honda shop but that was a worthless attempt. While I was in the Honda shop Jim was asked by a radio man if he and I would be interviewed on the radio. Sure, he said, and he went on the radio live and gave a description of our travels. The guy came over to me and started asking me questions and wanted me to talk on the little cell phone that was plugged in live to the radio but all I could say was ‘tengo mal oido’ which means I cant hear sh+t.
Jim radio X

He did point us to a shop he called a bolt shop just down the street. I thought, yah, sure, a bolt shop in this little town but when we went down the street here is this little shop with a big bolt for a sign hanging over the door. Too, much I thought. I took the bolt out and went in and with lots of gestures and sign language, got a bolt somewhat longer and a little fatter. I had to check a couple of them for size before I got the right one. Meanwhile, Jim finishes talking with several people who just pop up and want to talk. This happens everywhere we stop. Jim came in and I was able to get a locking nut and washer. I did have to make a few drawings, my mechanical drawing skills came in handy, but I also got four new bolts that will hold the saddlebags on if they should break or come loose again. I never did understand if they were hardened ones or just soft ones. Either way at least I have four new ones with washers and self-locking nuts. They appear to be good ones. This town is one of the first real farm towns we have been in for quite a while. There was a Massey and a John Deere store as well as several other types of farm equipment stores. It was nice to be in farm country again.
We finally blasted out of town and made it down the road to a piss stop or gas stop and Jim noticed one of his bolts that hold on his foot peg was gone. Fortunately the bolt I had given him back that he had in his pocket, fit. How is that for luck? That is the way things are. Aint life great?
I had been looking for oil for the oil change I needed but had only found 15x40 in all the gas stations I tried. In that little town we found a oil store and dropped in to check it out. They had the 20x50 I needed and it appears to be good oil. Jim bought a quart too as his bike is using oil. After over 60 thousand miles, I guess it has reason to get a little thirsty.
Jim got to thinking about his oil and decided to do an oil change too. He was able to find some more oil at a gas station but they couldn’t find a pan to drain our oil into so off we went.
I saw a small mechanic outfit along the road and stopped and told Jim that I would like to see if we could change our oil there. We pulled in and this guy with a great big belly, two teeth and a bunch of tattoos came out and shook hands all around. When Jim asked him if we could change oil there he said sure. He moved his car out and we moved our bikes in. it turns out he is a motorcycle man and was tickled that we had stopped. While Jim was changing his oil I asked him about his motorcycle and he took me over to the other shop and showed me a Honda 500 that he has set up for racing. He then took me over to his house and showed me a table filled with big trophies that he had won on motorcycles. Way cool……
He told Jim that we could use any of his tools and let us have the shop. When we were done I took over twenty pesos and had a hell of a time getting him to take it. I just talked to him in English and he talked Spanish and we both understood. We both talk bikes and the breed.
We rode through miles and miles of big farmland today. It is like riding through the heartland of the US. Miles and miles of corn and soybeans. There was some cattle grazing and I did see what I think was a group of cows being grazed intensively. It was hard to tell at that distance. There is supposed to be a lot of beef grazers down here that are doing the intensive rotational grazing method.
I really don’t like riding through this area of big farms as I know they are all chemical outfits. When you see a field of several hundred acres and there is not one weed in it you know that some hard chemistry is going on. I did see a couple of spray planes passing over.
I got to one area and couldn’t figure out why all the leaves were gone off the corn. I was wondering if they somehow grazed it off and then I noticed that across the highway the leaves were stripped off the soybeans. I stopped Jim and pointed out that they must have gotten a hell of a hail storm that ran right through there. Jim is not a farmer and he doesn’t see those sorts of things. I hope he doesn’t get too pissed at me for pointing out all the farm stuff that I see along the way.
We didn’t make a lot of miles today with the bolt stuff and oil changes but it was a good day to ride. it is getting a lot warmer up here and it is getting darker sooner too. We were up town and ordering supper and Jim pointed out that it was 8;30 and when we were in Ushuaia it was getting dark at 11;00. when we get to the equator again it will be getting dark at six and getting light at six, year round.
We think the town is San Lorenzo and it is like the other towns that we have been to up here in Argentina. It doesn’t get going until nine at night. There is the most amazing array of motorcycles, motor scooters, bicycles, cars, trucks and all charging down the road looking for a little space to get in to. Many of the cars and lots of the scooters drive with no lights. The cars drive with parking lights mostly and even the cops drive with parking lights. We ate out on the sidewalk and ever now and then some guys would see our bikes and come over and talk bikes and traveling. Jim really has a wonderful time talking with them. his Spanish is really getting good even though they speak differently down here than they do in Mexico and Central America. He says that their pronunciation is different and in some areas they talk so fast he cant understand them. He is so good with people and everyone seems to just love him. When I come out of the restroom at a gas station, women and men asking questions and having a good time will often surround him. I am not much on people but Jim loves ‘em.
We stopped at an internet shop on the way back to the hotel but there were several young kids we didn’t like the looks of hanging around and Jim stayed outside while I read a couple of quick emails. I didn’t get a chance to answer them as I didn’t want to keep him waiting. I like to give a quick response if I can, as I really appreciate you folks taking the time to write me and let me know what is happening in your life. It is SO good to get your letters even if it is just to say hi and you enjoyed a photo.

2-14-06

this morning I took this photo of some type of flowering bush outside the hotel.
Flowering bush X

We had a nice ride today through some nice country. the big farms sort of played out and we started getting into smaller farms and often broken country with grazing and brush and some trees. There have always been trees but they are ones that have been planted as wind breaks or firewood forests. There sure is a lot of eucalyptus grown in south America. I guess it grows well in many places and makes wonderful wood, or at least some varieties do. There have been all along the highway spots where they have small wood lots growing, Jim says that they are called Descanso on the little road side signs.
Descanso X

We see many people stopped using them as parks. On Sunday there were lots of folks out along the road with picnic gear and camp chairs in these spots. Most of the right of way is taken up with farm crops, mostly soybeans and some sunflowers.
The trucks around here are mostly single axel type but they pull enormous trailers with them. I tried to get a photo of one of the nicer older Mercedes Benz trucks but when you want one, there are none around. This is one of the newer trucks and a large one with one of the trailers with three axels. It seems like some of the trucks are even smaller with bigger trailers than this.
Truck trailer X

There are a few log trucks and I got a nice shot of this load coming through.
Log truck X
We were stopped at a pay booth on this expressway and met this old guy on a scooter. He gave Jim detailed instructions on how to get to the road we wanted. I know he gave good directions, but sometimes those details get a little complicated especially when given rapidly in Spanish. We made it through the maze of highways and across the river by going under a river in a long tunnel. Wow, what a trip this is turning out to be….. We are off the main tourist path and we both sure do like the towns we are going through. I will say again that most folks are white European types and from what one of my friends says, that is because in 1905 or so, the Indians were hunted down and killed. That could certainly be the reason, I don’t know.
We didn’t make it very far today. We stopped in a gas station just on the outskirts of Federal to get gas and a drink. It turned out everybody there wanted to talk and look at bikes. There was one van filled with maybe two or three families that were very interesting. The mother and daughter of one family came over and were very friendly to say the least. I didn’t get a photo of the daughter (wow) but her mother was such a trip and here is a photo of her. She is an old hippie and evidently the dad is an old hippie too. They have this wonderful custom of kissing the cheek and hugging every chance they get. We both got hugged and kissed several times. The daughter came back and gave Jim a couple of CD’s that have some heavy metal music on them, or at least he thinks it is, not sure just what is on them but they sure did want us to have them. we don’t have any way of listening to them.
Music chick mom X

With this introduction to the town and by looking at the map it was going to be several hours to the next town, we decided to call it a day and got a nice room at a small hotel. We took a cruise through town and really liked it. these small towns are clean and the people very friendly. It feels safe too, unlike the larger towns.

I saw a field of corn being combined with an old combine where the guy was sitting out in the open, but when I got turned around and came back to get a photo, it was too far away for a good photo. I will put it in anyway to let the farmers know that harvest season is on down here. I see lots of trucks at the grain terminals unloading but not sure what they are unloading. I see a lot of silage corn being cut but the beans are still green and doing well. I think the season is really long here and they may even be double cropping some.
Combine X
2-15-06

We are in Posada for the evening. It was a nice ride this morning when it was cool, but soon it got hot. We traveled well until we came to a policia check point. The policeman there stopped us which was unusual as they usually just wave us through. He wanted our drivers license and told us to go over to the little shack he had by the side of the road. What the??? We did as directed and when he got us in the little shack he started in on Jim that we had supposedly ran the last check point and gone over 40 kph when we did. We adamantly insisted that we had not because the cop at the last station had just waved us through. He told Jim that the fine would be 760 pesos or something close to that. That comes out to over two hundred dollars!!!! Jim talked and talked and I jumped in there and talked English with a few little Spanish words thrown in but it wasn’t looking good. He finally did come down to 325 pesos for both of us after talking for a while on the little cell phone with maybe his boss, who knows? Things were not going on real well as far as I could understand so I attempted to offer that we pay 100 pesos for the ticket and produced a 100 peso bill after telling him that we didn’t have much dinero and needed some for food and gasoline. Flopping the hundred on the desk surprised him and Jim immeadeately begain assuring him that this was not money that we wanted to pay under the table, this was all the money that we could afford to pay for the infraction of the law that we broke. He went over it several times assuring him that we knew he was very professional and this was not a bribe but what we could pay for the ticket he was going to write. Well, he seemed to relax at that and finally decided after looking at a chart of fines that 110 pesos would be enough to pay the fine. Whew, that was a close one. I have an idea if you try to bribe a policeman you are in big trouble here.
Slick Jim had the cop write out the ticket in my name because as he explained to the cop he was a professional and it wouldn’t look good on his driving record. So now I am officially registered as a law breaker in Argentina. After we left and I was headed down the road I got really pissed off and thought of all the shit things I should do but when we stopped next, Jim eased me down telling me that, hey, we just drove 17,000 miles and broke almost every rule in the book, drove up one way streets the wrong way, passed thousands of cars and trucks on double yellow lines, drove most of those miles way over the speed limit, etc, etc, etc. It cost us about $17 each.,so I guess for a dollar a thousand miles, the fine wasn’t too bad.

We went through miles and miles of grazing land in the morning and it got into more and more tree farming in the afternoon.
Road forest X
There was an area in there that was very hot and seemed dry as there was little farming going on. In that area were cattle with long ears like they had Brahma blood in them. in most other areas the cattle were Herefords and other English type breeds. As we got close to Pasada the country has become a little hilly and it gets more rain I think. The cattle look very good.
We went by several sawmills on our trip and this is the first chance I have had to get a photo of one of the teepee burners that they use to burn scrap. There were these type of burners when I was a kid in lumber country but they were made out of steel. This one and several others I have seen are made out of brick. They were not using this one at this time but were just burning a lot of scrap in the yard. It was really smoky there.
TeePee X