Well folk´s we are still alive,just.
After meeting up in outrageously busy Buenous Aries we hung around for three days watching the rain tumble down and getting used to being in Sth America.Part of the process was to fit in with thier late night social patterns.I mean,who has dinner at 10pm and then goes out for a quiet drink or two at midnight while they wait for the nightclubs to get busy at 2am.The whole of freaking Argentina,that´s who!!!I mean really,we went out to a really cool bar area and then before you can say "no mas cerveza pour favour".It´s 4am and we are in a line-up for a night club.At 4am!!!!!!My god,the place was packed and all 2000 of then were either off there faces,selling the stuff that got them off thier faces,or having sex in the toilets.Now I like to think I´ve been around but boys,do not try and sell me drugs while I´m standing at the urinal and while I´m very flattered,no I don´t want to go into a cubicle with you for a while!All this chaos is going on while a very erotic stage show is being acted out at on end of the huge club involving assorted oversized,blow-up sex toys.I won´t even mention the drag queens,who by the way, Curtis thought were pretty hot ´til I pointed out a thing or two that are not standard issue on women! I left him to his devices and escaped at about 6.30am.Very early by Argie standards when they consider 9am to be acceptable.No wonder the bloody backpackers sleep all day.The bloody vampires!
A couple of drunken nights later and we were indeed prepared for St Patricks day in Buenous Aires and the block party that was planned.It was thought that if we hooped it up on St Paddies day then we could sleep in on the Sat and ride out on the quiet Sunday streets and into the Argie countryside.With that in mind many glasses were raised at the hostel before the short trip to the street party.Luckily,I decided to stay home as I was well and truly gooned and though the better of staggering around this huge metropolis at night(though we did test that theory out on our first day).Curtis headed off with some of our packbacker mates and had a riot and was missing in action ´til mid morning. I caught up with him a rode around the city for about five hours.Very cool place is Buenos Aires,lot´s of character,lot´s of parks,lot´s of huge statues and a church on every second corner.If it weren´t for all the dog shit and trash everywhere it would be truly liveable.
Sunday dawned and we were finally off on our ride of a lifeime.As planned the streets were very quiet and we made great time through the suburbs,that was until we got lost.Luckily we hooked up with a couple of local cyclists out on thier Sunday ride and they rode with us and showed us the way to the highway north to Rosario 300k(183 miles away).I wil admit to really struggling to keep up with Curtis and would soon learn one of my biggest lessons in bike touring.Don´t ride a mountain bike with fat nobby tyres(f$%king idiot)!I did manage to keep going and followed Curtis´smoking trail ´til the 80k(50 mile)mark where I saw him in the distance surrounded by a bunch of people and two small motorbikes.I thought that he must have stopped to wait for me and some people just wanted to chat to him at the side of the road.How wrong could I be?By the time I got there Curtis was being screamed at by an irate Argentinian and his friend one of which had a bloody nose and a few cuts on is head.At the side of the road was a woman holding her small child both of whom were crying and a second lady and her kid arriving back from a local roadside restaurant with a bucket of water and some rags to clean the group up with.It was then that I noticed the damage to Curtis´trailer and bike.The rear wheel was completely buckled and the fenders on his bike had been damaged as well.Apparently one of the motorbikes, laden with a helmetless husband,wife and little child had run into the back of Curtis´trailer at full speed without seeing it.They all hit the ground hard and it was lucky that no-one was hurt really badly-or worse.How they hit a stationary bike on the shoulder of a three lane highway on a blue sky day without a curve in sight is beyond me but hey,we are gringos´ so no matter what you say we are in the wrong!
I was very impressed at how Curtis held his cool as one guy constantly kicked the crap out of his bike and got in his face with abuse but what can you do.After a long time of my trying to cool the dude down by apologising profusely he started to calm down enough for me to convince him that maybe he should be spending more time taking his family to the doctor than abusing Curtis.He finally colected his family and headed home but not before issuing a chilling warning in Spanish that even I could understand."Your route goes through our neighbourhood!""Great",I thought,"now we have a whole village on the lookout for us."I conviced Curtis that we needed to get off the road and out of site NOW!!We sought refuge in an Howard Johson Hotel carpark while Curtis spent a couple of hours trying to fix his wheel enough for us to ride back to Buenos Aires to get a new one.Talk about a tough first day.It was about to get even more bizzar!
After repairing the wheel enough to ride with and thanking the assorted families in the hotel car park that had offered all kinds of assistance we turned south and headed back toward Buenous Aires.With 80k(50miles)to go and the light fading badly it was always going to be a losing race against time and with 40k(25miles) to go I called it quits and asked Curtis if we could stop and find somewhere to sleep for the night.As luck would have it,off to the side of the highway just where we were there was a big neon sign advertising an hotel.Quite surprising considering we were in the middle of nowhere.We went to check it out and found a very strange place with high brick walls and every window closed up tight with thick wooden shutters.We rode on into the drive through reception(should have had some clue by now)and asked the guy at the window if there was a room with two beds for us for one night.Well the look he gave us should have given it away but we were tired and too out of it to play Sherlock Holmes so when he suggested that maybe we should find a tourist hotel instead we just asked if he could find us one.He couldn´t and then I guess he felt sorry for us and told us that there was a room that we could have but it only had a king size bed in it.Hell we would be camping together so who cared.We would take it.No worries,but he would have to charge us for two turns which amounted to 70 Pesos($23US).Two turns,what the!!!!Then the penny dropped,it was a love hotel or as the brochure in the room said "The Passion Hotel".By this time all I wanted to do was eat and sleep so we took the room which was,I must say very nice indeed.Great big bed,lots of mirrors,nice stereo and of course porn on the T.V.It was the condoms on the bedside table that freaked me out a bit.What ever happened to mints on the pillow?
We headed off to find some food but realised that we didn´t have a key for our room.Then again who needs a key when you aren't supposed to be leaving the room `til your business is done.We must have been the first people ever to go out during our "paid time".One thing that did have us puzzled was the car alarm that went off every hour.Then we realised that it wasn´t a car alarm but a buzzer to keep the punters aware each time an hour ticked away.I got used to the buzzer but didn't get used to the sound of the wildlife in the next rooms.Just say YES,YES,YES, really fast and with passion and you will get the picture only this time say it in Spanish.SI!SI!SI!.At one stage I heard two different females wailing away-lucky bastard!!!!I couldn't have performed anyway too damn tired and sore.
So on day one we,got lost and got found again.Got hit by a motorcycle and threatened with the wrath of an entre village.Rode 120k(75miles).Stayed at our first love hotel(my first anyway).What did we achieve?Well we spent a lot of time going nowhere and a lot of money not getting laid.Just a normal day for me really.Lets see what tomorrow brings.
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