It’s ten days in, and I’m at Posadas, on the Argentine-Paraguay border around 1000 miles north of Buenos Aires.
How's it going so far? Well, to explain that I’ll indulge in my love of explaining things through the power of THREE - or in this case, through The Good, The Bad and Ugly.
The Good
Buenos Aires - Pretty cool. Frantic, hot (28C at 8 in the morning hot), beautiful but gritty and with a slight melancholic feel to it, BA pretty much lived up to expectations as being the ‘Paris of the South’, but as though Paris hadn’t changed since the late ‘80s in a edgy kind of way. Don't half like their policemen, mind - they're everywhere.
BIG country - Now I’ve done some big miles before but Argentina is BIGGGGG. Big in the way that a fat man who can eat ten super-sized Argentine steaks without them even touching the sides is big. The first 400 miles on multi-lane highways reminded me that you don’t so much see a country as you pass it by, if you travel that way. But as the road narrows and the hard shoulder drops away, although the riding is pretty mundane you find yourself seeing and experiencing so much more - and that means big panoramic views of the marshy plains of north Argentina. This is big cattle grazing country with crazy looking trees and lots of people on horses.
Wild camping - First crack at this on Sunday night, thanks to ‘Danny’ (not convinced by his claim to that distinctly English sounding name) the Argentine farm worker who let me pitch my tent in his front yard…not before I almost pitched in the family cesspit, mind. I was kept company by a pack of dogs barking all night, a whole orchestra of different types of wildlife making noises that a can’t really describe…and a cracking view of the stars. Check out the photos I've posted at the same time as this.
Eight - the number of (unsolicited) thumbs up from other drivers I got on the first 200 miles on Friday, from BA to Rosario. Always nice.
The Bad
The Three Second Rule - Lesson numero uno for Argentine driving when it comes to crossroads with traffic lights - when the lights turn green, always wait 3 seconds because Jose, in his blacked-out Merc, Manuel on this 150cc moped (helmet perched on the top of head to fulfil some kind of vague legal requirement, cigarette hanging out the side of mouth. Shorts and vest as riding gear) and Pablo with his horse and cart will ALWAYS run the red-light. Funny thing is, the locals also seem to jump the red light BEFORE it turns to green too. Yet it still all works out. Kind of.
Las Malvinas/Falkland Islands - Yep, they are still peeved about these. And I mean REALLY peeved. I thought that this might be one of those ‘I bet when you turn up, it won’t be half a big a deal as people make it out to be’ things. Ooooh no. In BA, there’s a seemingly permanent encampment of war veterans in the main square (Plaza de Mayo). Plaza de San Martin, the other main square near the centre, hosts a war memorial as big as any you’ll see. Graffiti urges ‘FUERA INGLESES DE MALVINAS’ (Get the English out of the Falklands)
It doesn’t stop there - head out of town, and the overhead motorway signs don’t just point towards towns 5, 50 or 500km away…they include signs for ‘3,500km a Las Malvinas’, complete with silhouettes of the islands.
As Sandra, who helped me handle the paperwork for importing the bike, said - for her generation, due to conscription they all knew someone who fought, was wounded or died in the 1982 conflict. It shows.
Wild camping (again) - Embarrassed by my cack-handed effort of putting up my tent in front of Danny (see above), I didn’t bother putting a groundsheet down. I got a bitten by ants. A lot. Ah well - the stars were worth it.
The Ugly
Bidet - Well. You might want to stop reading here if you’re eating your dinner. But I’ve never really HAD to use a bidet before, something that’s pretty much obligatory in the north of the country here where you’re not allow to chuck paper down the loo. What order to do you it in? Wipe and wash? Wash and wipe?! How much should you wipe, if you wipe first - you don’t want to leave a load of stinking paper in the bin, after all?! I’ll stop there….
Erm…no thanks - First time I pulled off the Autopista into a queue of traffic, I was greeted by a group of very turned-out young gentlemen, dressed identically in military style outfits complete with Ray Bans, 'asking' for 500 pesos. After playing the dumb Englishman and offering a meagre 30 pesos, and not wanting to open my wallet that was stuffed full of dollars from collecting the bike from the airport, me and young Barney got the hell out of there before the conversation continued.
Lo sentimos, no entiendo español... - My Spanish is pretty ugly. In fact, no, its worse than that - it's non-existent. Still, no better way to learn than to enforce your own brand of self-taught Spanish on the locals. To start off with it was a slow, frustrating and, to be honest, lonely experience (due to the lack of English spoken generally) but one which is now proving pretty rewarding, especially now I've learnt the basics and can get by pretty well.
Where next? Well, I’m headed to see the famous Iguazu Falls on the Argentine-Brazil border and then on to Rio….where, so I’ve been told, it will soon be carnival time.