Like waking from a nightmare, you hopefully remember that we’d left you stranded in Puerto Madryn Argentina at the end of Day 23 of the Ultimate South America. And to make the nightmare worse, you just have to get back on to continue the northward push from A (Argentina) to B (Brazil) rather than relax and lounge around in the numerous beach hut bars. FOMO is a powerful tool.
Patagonia didn’t die easy. After leaving Puerto Madryn a few trees would appear, then just give up and we were back to windswept plains garnished with the odd bunch of rheas. Guanaco were the first to go, in fact we saw just one solitary creature on Day 24. Another feature of Day 24 was 666 km, the number of the beastly motorcyclist riding a Harley Davidson without a muffler as mentioned in Revelation. This is the biggest day we’ve ever ridden with Compass and we’ve only done a few longer, but there isn’t much to stop at in this part of Argentina, and at least the average speeds are high. Excitingly the direction turns from north to slightly east, and this is the definitive Patagonia coup de grace. Trees and green Pampas grass have never been so longed for.
Into our town of Bahia Blanca, we managed to work our way around protests and into the hotel. Still problems with siesta Argentina, everything was closed until 5 pm so the sweat-driven thirst took a while to be quenched. Food options were checked out, a family restaurant with a Scottish name was chosen because we knew we’d be definitely mixing with the locals in there. No Grande Mac surprisingly – we thought it was a requirement in all Scottish name restaurants even if called something else. Dinner translated to a quarter pounder with queso, and medium fritas.
Day 25 was to Azul and into a real estancia just outside town. Like most agricultural land, the original settlers got the good bits and the farmhouse showed just how good this land was – terrazzo and mosaiced floors, big pool, loads of rooms and huge chandeliers and green lush grass everywhere. Into town for a nice lunch after getting hopelessly lost, then to the supermarket/tobacco shop for supplies, and back to the farm. When we returned my headlight would not turn off, so lots of mucking around with electrical wiring and pulling of fuses figured out the likely cause to be something wrong with the motorcycle. That’s about as close as I could get. Emails back to Australia didn’t help much but a problem shared is still a problem. Day 26 I got up early, wiggled a few wires and put fuses back in and the problem was solved. The cause had been definitely something wrong with the motorcycle.
Heading off, the plan was to get into Buenos Aires around lunch-time to avoid peak-hour traffic snarls. Unfortunately, we’d forgotten about siesta which creates two lots of going to work and going home periods, so the city was gridlocked. Luckily it was really hot so we could sit sweltering in the unmoving mess just to make it even more fun. Getting into the hotel, Mick was across the street and back with beers just in time to save us from certain death by overheating. Showered and lunched, it was a wander about the city trying to remember if we’d been to this part in our previous visit in 2015 – not likely was the conclusion.
Day 27 was an excellent tour of the city led by Juan’s brother who like Juan is a native and knowledgeable Buenos Aires history buff. Reeking Miasmas was a better description in the olden days with a malaria and yellow fever main course following the usual entrée of typhoid, cholera, and smallpox. Beautiful Airs certainly sounds better for the south-westerly mobile Spaniard looking in the Madrid real estate agent’s window but was actually a sailor’s description of the winds leading into the port. Past the Boca Juniors soccer stadium south of the city, a famous Argentinian club. Interestingly soccer club names often have English words like Juniors just to give more credibility for those playing the English game. Then into the tourist hot-spot-by-day-certain-death-by-night Caminito. Having been relieved of a large amount of paper to get photos of Cindy dancing the Tango, we were off past some statues of kangaroos which our guide swore he’d never seen before, and into the famous Recoleta cemetery.
Spending up big on the family tomb was an important social standing advertisement for the Buenos Airesians. It wasn’t like a housing development – being completely different from the neighbours was essential. Last time we were here in 2015 we’d wandered about for ages trying without success to find the most famous person – Eva Peron, but this time we had a guide so no problems. The Perons still have a big influence on political life and many are either pro-Peron or anti-Peron.
More wandering after the tour to get a 12mm and 13mm spanner for chain adjustment, no longer considered by Triumph to be something that can be done except by highly qualified technicians back at the dealer a mere 12,355 km away, and off to a dinner and Tango show. “Kill me now” was my thought when heading to this, but it was fantastic. Highly professional dancers gave a Tango progress through time from the early days when it was socially unacceptable and only practiced for rough sailors down on the docks to the modern version. All that was lacking was a Rampaging Roy Slaven and HG Nelson form of commentary; “He’s doing the Office Christmas Party hands”, “She’s thrown the leg up into a Peek-a-Boo”, “They move from the Chaperone’s Not Looking into the classic Let’s Keep the Light On”. Great entertainment. Buenos Aires was a definite highlight.
Day 28 was yet another big riding day of nearly 500km. Getting out of Buenos Aires went against the first peak hour traffic so no worries, then the slog up the big river country and the flat agricultural plains to Chajari and the Buenos Aguas hotel, when reminded that Aguas means Waters one gets the gist of the marketing focus. Day 29 was even more kilometres and also not very interesting riding but we were still revelling in simply being out of Patagonia. Hotel Cuatro Pinos in Obera was the destination, when reminded that Cuatro means four we were wondering where that was heading until discovering that Pinos means Pines. Rather than Pinots. Nice recovery. Day 30 was the B part of the A to B; Brazil. Plan was to do the 250-odd kilometres to the border early, fill up with cheap Argentinian fuel, and waltz across into Foz – no visa required. It went well, and I’d even earned gratitude for life from a Brazilian couple in a car for plugging a puncture in their tyre, until we got to the Brazil side. We were already sweat drenched from having to queue for ages to get out of Argentina with crossing on a public holiday long weekend never recommended. The immigration took 1 minute, but the Aduana (customs) for getting the bikes into Brazil took about 1½ very hot hours.
All hot experiences come to an end, and we were into Foz and the hotel for a late all-you-can-eat buffet lunch. Servers bearing every variety of meat on skewers were constantly trying to fit more on the plates, making dinner that day or the next completely un-necessary but a lie-down essential. Day 31 was Iguazu Falls, last of our three big ones with Niagara and Victoria, all inconveniently with borders running through the falls. Up the road, we were confusingly dropped off at a bird park, but decided that we’d wander across the road to get a helicopter view which is important at Iguazu because they are spread out into a whole heap of separate falls.
Then the trip to the lookouts and platforms on the Brazilian side, accompanied by seemingly half of South America. Crowds were seething on every platform, but when in a place you may never return to the only option is to dive in and swim upstream. The selfie crowd were there in abundance, and once in a decent selfie spot they can be very difficult to shift. Even worse were the romantic backstory couples, the glamorous photoee stands next to the railing with the perfect scene behind and the partner photoer tries to get a series of posed shots while a constant stream of people want to get between them. Result is a rugby scrum with a bit of hip and shoulder applied to the weaklings to get through.
Up for lunch and Iguazu was done. As per South American tradition, lunch was so huge and so late that after we woke from our siesta we decided a wander up to the supermercado for bikkies, cheese, and ham would finish the day. The supermercado was enormous, with aisles full of beer and wine and just about anything else needed or simply wanted, including shoe glue to make another repair on the riding boot soles.
Day 32 was Iguazu Falls from the Argentinian side for most, but a few of us had bike servicing and general administration and laundry duties to attend to. The service place was Pico Motors just around the corner, nominally a Yamaha dealer but with vast experience of other brands. Storm Boy was getting full service, and we decided that Cindy’s would wait until we got back to Foz in a couple of weeks as it wasn’t yet due. Ride Leader JC and I and a Pico Motors chap moved all the bikes around to the dealer, then left them to it.
I decided to get some more Brazilian Reals, a normal currency experience after Argentina, so wandered about the town unsuccessfully looking for a bank with an ATM, while Cindy decided the legendary bargains available over in Paraguay must be explored. Paraguay is virtually free access from Brazil at Foz, and virtually means only her taxi driver noted her passport number before they swanned across the border. The expected tax-free top brands factory outlet shopping didn’t actually exist, unless one was looking for bedding and chandeliers, so after a quick disappointed look back she came. At about 4pm I went back over to collect Storm Boy, with resultant deep regret for everyone who hadn’t had a service – he was gleaming and perfect. Dinner was at yet another all-you-can-eat buffet, luckily lunch had been 2 leftover biscuits with ham and cheese each.
Day 33, OMG a third of the way through, started a new long term direction trend in South America – east. We only had west to try now. And it was a big starting commute east with over 600km to do, one quickly gets an understanding that Brazil is bigger than Australia, having just come from Argentina which is only a bit smaller. Brazil has a lot of trucks, and all of them were leaving Foz at the same time as us, it was lane filtering, lane splitting, riding down the side and through the grass to get through the stationary or barely moving madness. At first it is a bit scary, but once a few awesome moves with the ends of the handlebars or panniers a poofteenth from trucks either side the adrenalin kicks in and no-one wants it to end.
The target was the Campo Largo Hotel, the only other truly memorable thing about this day was that the Campo Largo Hotel was nowhere near where the Campo Largo Hotel was. Arriving into a yet-to-be-completed Campo Largo Hotel, there was some wild GPS hotel location guesswork and random meanderings before happily spotting a wildly signalling riding colleague in the back streets. Never mind, a few beers and gin tonics calmed the fevered brows.
Day 34 was another big day of around 500 km, but getting onto the coast at lunchtime so more like expectations for this part of Brazil. A bit of excitement was the road became a bit winding, ending about 10 straight days of straights. Even more excitement was the beach picnic, especially for those lucky few who managed to find the picnic spot. It was rather hot, so we kept up the fluids in the shade before the support vehicle arrived bearing the lunch. The beach was fairly unusual in that high tide went all the way up to the road, and so no soft sand. The local kiosk owner was asked – would anyone get excited if someone were to ride on the beach? Not if you weren’t out there too long, nor ran over a child was the answer. She didn’t actually say anything about running over a child, but it was assumed to be counter to good beach riding practice. So onto the beach down a rocky slope, and some hooning was done. For the first time in a long time I was able to practice my slide turns on the perfect surface, got to about a 60° turn by the end, not great but OK. Once a few laps had been done, back up the slope and parked as though nothing had happened.
Into Bertioga, Cindy and I were there fractionally too late to take advantage of the wonderful beach bars, all of whom close well before sunset. We consulted Maps.Me, a mere 2 kilometres up the beach was a bar/restaurant, if one could hurdle the creeks coming down into the Atlantic. We hurdled and marched. No-one was around, but like all sagas no-one wants to nearly get there before turning around. Then a glorious sight – a bar and restaurant appeared, and we wandered through the high security gate. A comment here on language; Brazilians speak Portuguese, not Spanish. I was at Hola (Hello), and Obrigato (Thank You) level, and could spice things up using Colin Firth’s Love Actually dialog of Boa Noite (Good Night). Cindy as a natural-born woman had to use Obrigata. A natural-born lady was at the gate and said a lot of Portuguese words, none of which were Hola, Obrigata, or Boa Noite, but the gist seemed to be that we weren’t hotel guests, didn’t have a wrist band, so couldn’t come in. Obrigato and Obrigata through clenched teeth, we marched a long way back to town. First restaurant had lots of stuff on the menu but had run out of everything except beer. Eventually the stars aligned, and we ended up in an excellent Sushi restaurant, who charged by food weight. This is a cost trap for people with eyes much bigger than their stomachs, of which the party contains one.
Another hot and sweaty dawn broke on Day 35 with the endpoint of the resort town of Paraty, not to be confused with the equally nice resort town of Parity. The road was fabulous endless twisties east along the coast, with occasional highlights such as Brazil’s only nuclear power station. Heavy rains had caused a lot of landslides and many deaths almost exactly a year previously, and we were mixed up in the works trying to fix the mess and stabilise the slopes. With the GPS apparently set to find every sea-side town with cobbled streets and swarming tourists, it was a slow trip which needed a few quenching stops. Eventually we came down out of the hills and along a cool tree tunnel which went for a long way.
The hotel was near the centre of the very old town, which was designed to flood once a month at the full moon high tide and wash away the accumulated rubbish. Luckily we weren’t there for this, as we had a boat trip and diving/swimming voyage planned for Day 36. On arrival at the docks, there was an enormous fleet of party boats, fortunately ours was full of more mature types such as ourselves rather than young and interesting people. Having watched another boat run over its own dinghy during the race out from the harbour, the fun tone for the day was set and the fleet followed much the same route around the beautiful islands, dropping us off for swimming and snorkelling and watching the young and interesting people on the other boats four times. The fish were in abundance, the snorkelling was first class, as was the hot lunch of “fish of the backyard” – chicken.
Back in after a wonderful day, we rounded it out with a German restaurant meal and beers and wines. The nerves were building a bit though, the following day we would be tackling the entry into Rio de Janeiro. We were over 10,000km in by now, had experience of large South American city traffic, however this was going to be next level.
And that is the start of the next part of the South American story.
travellingbennetts 