Lobsters to Llamas, Maritimes to Argentina

Congrats on the accomplishment man. You have prevailed through all the trials and tribulations and should feel deeply satisfied. We armchair riders are sorry to realize this trip is drawing to a close.

I want to ask you what GPS are you using? I have seen several times where it was sending you in the wrong direction, I want to know what to avoid when I buy a new one.

Haven't you ever heard of a ZUMO Tour??

After your PM I decided I better check back in on your ride report (I haven't signed on to ADV in a month due to a busy work/family schedule). :eek1 I really enjoyed catching up on your adventures! It was a fun way to pass a lazy afternoon.
Travel safe.

Thanks Buddy!

I still feel like I have a long way to go. It's about 1400kms to Buenos Aires, then a 13 hour flight, counting a stop in Lima then A ride home from Miami via Key West, lots more reading to come.

It's supposed to be 35C here today. and only 24 tomorrow. I'm not sure I want to ride in 35 degree heat if I don't have to. I may wait one more day to head toward BA if this place has a room available.

Dwight

Hey Ray

Glad you're caught up. There sure has been a lot of riding since we met in Louisiana. I figure I have done at least 26,000 kms since I left home.

Dwight

My GPS is a Zumo but in fairness to it, the biggest screw up was in Bolivia, which I had no GPS mapping for. It still shows main roads, just not much detail. So what I did that day was pick a city on the Chilean Coast and asked it to get me there. That's when the big screw up happened.


I like my Zumo. It is easy to see day or night. Easy to operate with gloves on and impervious to rain.

If I was doing this trip again and what I advise to anyone that's thinking of riding down here is buy individual large scale maps for each country. They are great for when you are sitting in the hostal or hotel room trying to figure out what to do next. Keep them all in baggies in a binder and they should survive quite nicely.

I have a map book of South America and it's OK but it's a poor substitute for individual maps. I came to find out my book doesn't even have route numbers on it.

Dwight

I love my Zumo but it is far from perfect. No GPS is. Can't blame it for not having the maps but often it will guide you along an odd path/route that you later shake your head at. Just be thankful your digitizer didn't go on you. That's another thread.

Stop and smell the flowers, take your time and revel in what you've done. Even if you arrive in Miami early March you'll still have to deal with weather and cold as you get close to home. As an ATC, you know what "get-home-itus" is. I am an AME and have waited for a missing aircraft more than once. But enough about that.

Again, thanks so much for taking the time on your RR. I hope to leave this fall and will reread your report and map your route before I customize my trip.

If it's not too personal, I'd be interested in a final rough tally of expenses. Not the bike cost and prep but for all the necessities along the way. Maybe you don't want to know. I'm not looking to camp out and skimp on everything but your style would suit me.

Ride safe.

I do know what get home itis is and I am aware of that. This portion of the ride is not particularly scenic. It's pretty much pool table flat and there is a lot of corn ans sugar cane grown here. So I'm boogying for BA. I'm about 400 kms SE of Salta now, I think the town is called Rio Honda. I got into a motel here just ahead of the rain. I was very lucky. Nice place with covered parking, hot shower, internet, flat screen TV, King size bed and A/C (It's so hot here it's crazy, or it was, the rain has cooled it off a bit.) all for $32.00

I am looking forward to having a chance to look around Buenos Aires. I'm not really looking forward to all the associated paperwork and loading of the bike etc. I will be very happy to get my bike back in Miami and have all that behind me. I know 1st of March is a crazy time to try and reach NB so I plan to go as far as possible. I have friends in Maryland, with a garage and friends in NH with a garage. So It will be a balancing act between weather and time.

As for costs I really don't keep a running log. I do try and keep it reasonable. Once you leave the USA your costs drop significantly. I don't care much for dorm rooms in Hostals, I'm a very light sleeper and I just don't find I get the rest I need, so I try and get private rooms. The cost of that varies country to country and place to place but I would hazard a guess at $25/night on average or about $750/month. In Chile things were a lot more!!! I averaged $70/night there for accommodation, and that was trying to find cheap places! That's why I only stayed 4 nights in Chile. Food is cheap about $6 for the average supper. Most places have a free breakfast. I just get a snack for lunch. Water, Cokes, beer, everything is much cheaper that Canada. Boris and I hit one place in Bogata where beer was 75 cents but I would say a beer is usually $1.00 sometime $2.00. I was getting 1000ml beers in that very nice place in Salta for $6.00 or just over $2.00 a beer.

I stayed in the Cabana on the beach in Mexico for $8/ night! That was the best deal anywhere!

I reccomend Soejrd Bakkers book about cheap places to stay in Mexico and Central America. You can find it here on ADVrider and you will save the money it costs in the first couple nights. He has been traveling Mexico and Cetral America for years and he has compiled a book of motorcycle friendly, cheap places to stay.

The big costs, Flights. $900 for the bike Panama City to Bogata, my flight was an additional $400

Buenos Aires to Miami, $1500 for the bike and another $1300 for me. OUCH!

Next trip I do I will stay in Mexico. There is so much to see there, the food is good and you don't have to fly anywhere. It is a little sketchier than the other countries, but I had no problems. Don't ride after about 3PM, know where you're going to stay and stay there early. Keep a low profile. You will be fine. Mexico is an unbelievably beautiful Country and i want to see more.


Kedgi

Yesterday my last day in Salta I went for a walk around and enjoyed the sights and outstanding weather. It was 32 and sunny all day.

I made a point of finding Casa Moderna. I was dying for something good to eat. They were closed for their Vacation...Oh No!



So I had a pizza across the street. Not so good but I ate it.

You see lots of these cool little Fiat 600's still running around town.




Up by the main square the prison service was displaying toys and furnishings made by inmates. It was all for sale. They do some very nice work.













Leaving Salta this morning I climbed a large hill and shot these views of the city










It was friggen hot today! Must have been close to 100 as I rode through ranch and farm country, South East of Salta






I tried to find shade when I stopped.















I had been watching clouds build in the mountains South and West of me in the heat all afternoon, I thought I was going to get wet but I wasn't expecting this....a dust storm!



I was really lucky. I only rode through that, with it's tremendous winds for about 10 K before I came upon a hotel

I parked the bike under cover in their cochera, got my room and the sky opened up! Thunder, lightening, heavy rain. I can't believe I found such a nice place in the nick of time.



Kedgi

Blizzard warning in New Brunswick,plows have been pulled from the roads.Think it is a touch nicer where you are at. Been great following your trip.

I don't miss the snow. I was just talking to Angele, she and my friend Tommy are going out with the tractor to clear snow this morning.

Today, here in Rio Honda, Argentina, the weather has turned to steady rain and a forecast high of 24. It's about 18 this morning. I have decided to wait out the rain. The forecast is for sunny pleasant weather the rest of the week. I don't see any point in riding across Argentina in the rain, not seeing anything if I can sit tight for a day and avoid it.

It gets so hot here that on all the hills on the road, where the big trucks are making climbs the road has deep deep groves from their tires. I don't think I want to negotiate the grooves today in the rain. I have seen grooves like that in NB, especially that section of highway 11/15 near the Moncton Airport. The grooves here, however are so deep it's like a 6" curb on either side of the groove. You really got to pay attention. If there's a big hole in front of you, you can't ride out of the groove, you just have to slow down, add rain to that......that's why I'm sitting here. I'll try to remember to take a picture tomorrow to show you how bad they are.

Thanks for reading!

Kedgi

Hey Kedg.....have you had many people asking about living in Canada on your travels down south?? The ole maple leaf on your pannier sticks out nicely

I really kind of lucked in when I found that Maple Leaf Sticker. Fit my panier just perfectly and it is the first thing people see.

I have had so many questions about my trip when i stop anywhere, I'm getting so I can answer most of them in Spanish, or at least something the Spanish speakers can understand.

One of the things I like best about solo travel, is that you are approachable when you stop. People will walk over at gas stations and restaurants for example and talk to a solo rider. You meet a ton of people. Some people, down here especially, are too shy to talk, so I started writing the names of the countries I've been through on my windshield. That breaks the shyness barrier. I start talking to them while they are reading the list. It works really well.

When I bought gas today, the girl at the cash in the store, wanted to know where I was from. So many are shy to ask but she just blurted it right out. I don't think they see a lot of out of country travelers here in this town. I told her as best as I could in Spanish about my trip. She had enough English to wish me "Good Luck" when I left. Nice!

Something else that I learned by reading ADVrider a great ice breaker, when you can't speak the language and are sitting around, like I am today at this hotel, is to have a few pictures of home on your computer. I showed the ladies working here today the pictures i posted at the start of this ride report of, me and Angele, ( Mi Espousa) our house and the tons of snow that Shediac gets. Even though you can't really have a conversation the people like to see the pictures from Canada and they get a much better sense of who you are. It really works well. They seem to feel then that they at least know something about you and you are no longer just some guy sitting around the hotel.

Kedgi

I just had a meal, that was kind of a beef stew and it was really good. I'm just hanging out at the motel here today and there is just me, and the family that owns the place. It is still too early in the day for most travelers to check in.

The Mom made a beef stew, sort of, it had a corn meal base, similar to eating a cross between cornmeal and cream of wheat, the beef was really good! One of the better meals of my trip. I really lucked in when I found this place. Very kind people.

I went out this afternoon and filled the bike with gas and had a brief ride around this little town, It's still raining so I only went for a few minutes. There are dozens of motels here. It is a Spa type area.

This morning when I woke up, oddly enough, the swimming pool was empty. It had been full, and warm last night. This morning they cleaned the pool. Then they started filling it with hot water out of a big fire hose type of fixture. Turns out we are in some kind of geo-thermal area. All the hotels have pools. That's the big attraction here. The name of the town is Termas de Rio Honda.

if you keep going south to the valle de Calamuchita in a small place where there is a dam at Embalse del Rio Tercero you may pay a visit to a nuclear power house built by AECL (I believe you know what that means Atomic Energy of Canada Limited) in the 1980's. It's a nice place for camping on the lake.

I hope that's not the dam that recently failed. My buddy Franki, who's way ahead of me now, almost down to the tip, told me that a dam near Mendoza had failed and they had water issues for 100 miles around.

Dwight

Are you shipping everything - including yourself to Miami then heading south? The weather has been nice in KW but chilly up north lows in 40s, I heard Daytona was pretty cool with rain. Poor esposo Angele shoveling snow...we're sending more that way 6-8 " here by Friday morning. Midwest sucks this winter.

...uh, make that esposa...

big diff

Hehe One of the things I like best about Angele....she's a girl! hehe