Bolivia to Argentina - EP. 25 - Motorbiking solo
Just a little stop just beside the road, lots of llamas just everywhere. There's a couple that just walked away, over there. Actually I had llama for dinner as well last night, I would recommend; it was delicious! Llamas, llamas, llamas in the distance. Hundreds of them, maybe even thousands So there's a lot of stuff like this, I just always wonder if someone's still lives there. They look like they're falling apart There's a few more over there as well. There's a lot of stuff like this on the
road and I wonder if anybody lives there or how long it's been since they left This mountain keeps getting bigger and bigger. Let's get closer. I'm not making good progress today in Bolivia, because I keep stopping because it is so beautiful here, have a look! So this is what riding at elevation is like. We're at four kilometers and we have a few little cows over there as well. That's the one side of the highway, and then we walk across the other side and this is what it looks like over there and sadly a lot of garbage here too which is disappointing. This is amazingly beautiful! Hey little cow, how are you?
Look over there, the two little ones, so cute. Bolivia, Bolivia, you are beautiful! That's the road we're going down Honestly, it's hard to get some distance done in Bolivia, because the scenery keeps changing, and it's different every time and just beautiful as well. Here have a look! Once again it's warm and I found a cool cactus! There it is, how cool is that. I just wandered off the
road a little bit, just checking what's all growing here. It's not much, we're I think, just below the tree line border right now, we're just over three kilometers, because I actually see some trees. When you're at four kilometers, there are no trees. So here's the last bit of Bolivia, because we are
about 50 kilometers from the border with Argentina, so it keeps changing of course. We have a cemetery, we have a valley in the middle of all the rocks and mountains. Once again we're at borders, we're kind of in no man's land, in between Bolivia and Argentina I got an exit stamp for Bolivia and now we're going to get an entry stamp for Argentina So, this is the bridge, I guess that is the border and a big lineup of cars that are going to be searched, so let's see how that goes for me So, I literally had the worst possible timing to arrive in Humahuaca, which is the first town in Argentina that I'm staying at tonight, and so this road that you're seeing here, I mean it's dry right now, when I arrived here two hours ago, this was a river basically. I had to drive in the dark in the rain for about an hour, I didn't really expect that but by then I was kind of committed so I kind of had to go and, but at least it's dry again, so hopefully in the morning I get to check out what this place really looks like and enjoy it a bit. So today is our first dinner in Argentina and I'm working hard, as you can see, we're making videos and we're having llama medallions with potatoes and herbs for dinner, delicious! Well, this looks a lot better by daylight and with sunlight this was one of the roads that was just a river yesterday. I don't know if they have a sewer here but, you know, I was just hoping for no potholes because there's no way you could see them Anyway, we're gonna look for some breakfast and then carry on So this is the first town that we made it to in Argentina, Humahuaca and this is some sort of square with some sort of big ass sculpture in the back. Everybody's setting up
for their market activities everywhere in town. Except me, because I'm leaving again for the next place Welcome to Salta! So that's where I was just filming from and now we're down on the square, that's fenced off or something There's my hotel and we're just having dinner Yeah, the square is not that interesting So I'm not sure exactly what I ordered but it's called locro and it is Argentinian and it looks like this all kinds of meats basically in a stew, and I'm having my first Argentinian Malbec in Argentina as you can see, it's made at elevation Next, we finished our appetizer and now we are going for our first steak in Argentina, Lomo Adobe, delicious! Ok, this is my waiter, and your name is? I'm Federico, how are you? Federico, what is this on my table? On your table you have a dessert called [___] with several sweets that are special to Salta let's talk about this one first this is a mousse here we have a 'dulce desayote' with fruit amongst other things here we have cheese with honey here we have a salteno, which is a tart with milk and nuts and here we have another type of mousse Please enjoy ok, muchas gracias senor So, you ask, what does Argentina look like. Well, I've been driving about 500 kilometers today and this is what I've mostly been looking at, have a look. It's highway, it looks like the Netherlands, flat with some mountains in the background, and that's it. So, in the end nothing too noteworthy, just stopped by the side of the highway because I can at least see a little bit, we're on our way to Cordoba which is another 20 kilometers and that's we're gonna spend the night and have the bike looked at in the morning, because because this tire is at the end and needs to be replaced, and I think the rear is coming up as well fortunately I have new ones! So, we're in Cordoba in Argentina and as I first drove through this town it seemed like it was just dead, everything was shut down, nothing was open, but now I found the right place to go, I suppose, first let's check out this church Made it outside of this church again and this is what I was meaning it is packed with people behind me, and I don't know what they're doing here, it's Sunday and they're all very young people seemingly, but yeah, it's better than when it's dead in case you thought that was the only part, look at that beautiful church in the background by the way but there are more people here, behind me, they're just everywhere, so but you want to see that beautiful church of course and I want to see some food, I need food, I'm hungry That is my dessert So, we're back at my favorite church in Cordoba, I will be leaving here again today, I have to do a brief stop at BMW, to get some more oil and then I'm going to continue on to Rosario. I've been told that
that's a bit of a dangerous place but then again, so is Buenos Aires and that's often the case with the big cities, so I'm just going to be cautious and stay in a good area and then all should be well but yeah, this place, when I entered yesterday everything seemed very dead, I got to this area that's kind of around this church and it was packed with young people, now it's a little quieter but it's a really nice vibe, of course it's warm, which is very enjoyable but yeah there's patios, there's coffee shops, there's lots of good food so I'm enjoying this vibe, I'm enjoying this vibe So, this is the last bit. I was in Rosario last night, which is the hometown of Lionel Messi Some of you might have heard from him, about him, and now I'm here, just at this little eatery / drinkery, right by the side of the highway. You know, and if they don't have an actual exit [from the highway], then they just create one because that over there is the exit that I took to get here and I'm just having a little bite, and I'm 100 kilometers away from Buenos Aires, which is kind of strange because that's my first objective to make it there, because my 'support crew', my buddies from Holland, are arriving there in a couple days, or a few days and yeah let's not jinx it, knock it off, but I have just 100 kilometers to go and then I should be there oh and by the way if you wonder if wearing white is a good idea while riding a bike... probably not,
but it's my only clean t-shirt left, so in Buenos Aires we can finally do some laundry again too So on we go, we're gonna have a beer and some empanadas and oh [ __ ] and a piece of meat, look at this! That is what is waiting for me, all right, let's try it. All right ready for the last bit to Buenos Aires, 110 kilometers to go I think, something like that and then time for the bike to get some service, new tires, new oil, there's some oil respiration if you want to call it that, and then the boys come this weekend so wish me luck on the last bit So, we made it to Buenos Aires, to Bremen Motorrad and there's the Beast, it's gonna get some new shoes. That is Gaston, who's checking out the bike making sure everything is attached, and he's just gonna take it to the back let's run after him and see where he goes Cool, well, I'm just going to follow him, he's already been inspecting the bike a little but he's gonna inspect it a little more, do some work, clean it, clean all the salt off and oh, look at this, there is the shop for the bike so time for new tires Bremen BMW in Buenos Aires the bike's in the shop, old tire is gonna go, the new tire is going to go on same in the back, lefty is going on and righty is coming off so we're once again at BMW, there's the Beast in the back, and they just were doing a service they put my new tires on and then they cleaned the bike and then they noticed that the oil was kind of the color of like a cafe latte, so brown, that is obviously not good, so what seems to be the case is that the refrigerant fluid is somehow getting into the engine mixing with the oil, so now first they told me that it would take 15 days to fix this which is a bit of a problem because my Dutch buddies Sven and Jan Boyen are just on their way here tomorrow and two days later or one day later even we're supposed to be going down to Ushuaia Here's the bike, it looks like it's back in Mexico
2023-04-28 17:28
