TravellingStrom

Tuesday – DakarMotos, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Some bad news, worse news, some better news and some real good news

So, over the past few days we have had a number of travellers come through the doors. Two Austrians, they are waiting for their bikes to get through customs and are staying at the hotel around the corner, a couple of Canadians who were dealing with two bikes which have not arrived after being flown from Miami, apparently a very bad place to ship from, I have no idea where they are staying. There is also a couple staying here from Germany who had flown into Ecuador with two bikes a few months back, Tobias and Christine. Just as they crossed the border into Peru, a pig ran in front of Christine and she crashed and broke a wrist. Her bike was shipped home and they continued south two up. Well, this Saturday morning was her birthday, so Tobias slipped down to the bakery early and grabbed some cake for a surprise, before she woke up 🙂

After a lounging, cake eating breakfast, I had bugger all to do, not much money in hand and with the credit card issue out there, I needed to conserve what I had for the moment. So, it was a lazy day and I stayed away from the bike, read a book and went and got sore hands and arms again. What I mean by that is, I wondered up the supermarket and carried beer back in plastic bags, of course I had to balance the load so I had enough for two bags 😉 Now, on the way there I noticed once again this old Ford truck, do you reckon it is worth stealing?

Well, apparently they do, cos check this out 🙂

So, the day passed and so did Sunday, because it rained, and rained and rained! In fact we were going to go to the markets and Tango place down town, but that was off the cards, just another day stuck at home, checking the internet forums, reading a book or two and planning a few things for justin, you know Just In Case things go bad over the next week. I had been keeping an eye on my Mastercard via the net and hoping nothing else would happen. All I knew was that the only purchase that should come out over the weekend was my new panniers from Happy Trails, I had an email confirmation from them on the actual amount, so I needed that to go through before I cancelled the card. And of course before then I needed some cash out of it, if there was any left!

Anyway, another day passed and this evening I was by my lonesome, I got a late invite to dinner but declined, I was a bit grumpy and no fun, so they all headed out for a dinner around 10pm, these late dinners are becoming way too late for me 🙂

Monday was a nothing day really, but I did find my Mastercard was down again and although I intended to call my bank via Skype, I had to wait overnight because the companies name was not in the statement column and I was still waiting for parts and getting a tad depressed. Ken and Carol repayed the dinner from last night with a good old meat stew dinner out the back yard, so that was all good 🙂

So, Tuesday dawned and it was a bastard of a start to the day, things were getting worse on the Mastercard front. I phoned my bank back home via Skype and asked what transactions were sitting there waiting to go through, well there was another $4500 worth of stuff ready to come through on top of the other $1500 that had gone though already, so that was it, cancel the damm card, I had no choice by now 😦 I stayed on the phone and in the end we worked out that I could apply for an emergency card so after some more chit chat with some lady in the states, I was to expect a phone call within 4 hours to confirm that my bank had authorised the new card. So, that may happen, but I have to wait. In the meantime I was intending to go into town to go find some bar clamps, I took one off of the Vstrom 1000 that was here, just for size and that was when Javier found a couple in a drawer that would and did work, a slightly different colour, but they work, so finally a smile on my dial 🙂

OK, no need to go to town, next job was to get one of the dogbone links off and see what we could do. So, I did that and gave Javier the dimensions I needed to get the bike back to factory specs, basically he had to make them 10mm shorter which will raise the bike 25mm in height.

He started to work on that, meanwhile the backyard was growing mushrooms, another couple from Canada, Glenn and Cheri turned up yesterday and also camped 🙂

The next job for me then was to get all my photos on DVD and down to the post office, I had not wanted to send them from Chile or Bolivia and so I headed to the post office again and through some type of demonstration at the railway station, some very loud drums and no speeches so I have not much idea what it is all about, except maybe exploitation and salaries may be mentioned on the banners.

It was a waste of time going to the post office, because I made the mistake of NOT taking my passport and the customs dragon would not allow me to send them, so that would mean another trip back tomorrow! By the time I returned to the workshop, Javier was on the finishing touches to my new links, goodonya m8 🙂

So, once these were installed I then remembered that with the bike lowered, I had ground away part of the sidestand, so Javier then added some fill weld to that part and a quick squirt of paint and it is also good to go back on, the bike is just about ready go, so today may end in a good way. 🙂 [With the bike lowered and the sidestand unchanged, it makes the bike stand up more vertical and it is more prone to falling over, without my help I mean 🙂 ]

So, things were picking up, the bike buyer had emailed and said the funds should be in my account over the next day or so, the bike is 99.9% ready to go and all we have to do is a border crossing in the next few days to do the ‘paperwork’ side of things 😉 More on that when it is all completed and I am on my way 🙂 I had also contacted Mastercard and the new card is authorised and should arrive by Friday, oh well, if it gets through customs I should be OK, I won’t hold my breath. A quiet night with a few beers, nothing different there then and tomorrow, I think I may become a tourist finally 🙂

Day –0 miles and km
Trip – 54,042 miles and 86,972 km

Cheers
TravellingStrom

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