The weather has done us proud at last and for our last day in Brazil the Sun came out and even the rain had held off. But what a palaver to get the paper work stamped. The signs clearly marked our route through town and out to the Uruguayan border and so before long and accompanied by a few toots from enthusiastic motorist we found the border and customs, but try as we might could for the life of us see the Brazilian customs which we needed to get stamped out. 15 minutes of wondering round like a numpty I finally found out that the Brazilian customs was inside the Central Policia building back on the other side of town. Terriffic. Suited and booted again, we started up the bikes and rode in a circle until finally finding the small white office.

With our exit paperwork finally in order we headed back through the morning traffic to the Uruguayan passport control. Things were on a ‘go-slow’. We weren’t able to get our passport’s stamped for entry until the Aduana (customs) guy had cleared our vehicle for entry. The customs guy hadn’t pitched for work this morning. “maybe he come’s later”, the disinterested passport girl mentioned off-hand. And so we waited. An hour later and sporting his new haircut, Mr Ponsy customs guy decideds to show for work and at last we can get our paperwork sorted and crack on. The whole system…just makes you smile.

Whhooooohoooo!!! Hello Uruguay. With the weather still holding we opened up the bikes on the fast, smooth new asphalt and made up for lost time. With a few stops for coffee and bum breaks on route we painlessly exited Uruguay and re-entered Argentina by 6:00pm and had stopped for fuel in a YPF service station in Colon.

A familiar face was purposely approaching our table as we finished the last few sips of our coffee. Jorge, the owner of the La Aldea, where we’d been given a cabin last ime on our ride North had been passing and spotted the bikes outside. We quickly swapped a few of travels stories as he excitedly recanted his own recent bike trip to Machu Pichu. With the bill paid and gassed up we were soon heading back down the familiar dirt track following Jorge in his truck and getting ourselves sorted at La Aldea (find it at GPS: S32 20.723 W58 09.592) next to the Rio Uruguay. The place was ‘jumping’ families had set up camp here for weeks to enjoy the summer heat and swim in the river. Very different to our last visit when we were the only guests.

With a cold cerveca in hand we watch the Sun set over the Rio Urugauy and headed off for an early night.

Both of us were so excited this morning about the thought of being back in Buenos Aires, the city where our South American adventure had started. We were also looking forward to seeing Javier and Sandra at Dakar Motos. Our luck was holding as the dark heavy cloud held back the torrent that we knew was coming. The 219 miles passed relatively easily and by mid-afternoon we’d once again joined the hectic traffic of a major city and were heading down Ave Liberatador to find BMW Sergio Trepat and Ricardo, who we’d not heard from for a while.

Finding Trepat took longer than we’d imagined as we’d forgotten the building mnumbers start from the centre of the Avenue and run in opposite directions. An hour after entering BA we parked up outside the sales office enjoying coffee with Charles. Ricardo had left BMW Trepat some months ago, well that at least answered the lack of email question we’d been asking ourselves. We’d been emailing his work address. Charles and Ricardo were friends and with a phone call made 15 minutes later Ricardo’s ever grinning face was strolling through the doors of his old office. “Where have you been!?”, he exclaimed happily, arms raised. We caught up and chatted for 45 minutes and have arranged to meet up for dinner in a few days.

Dakar Motos seemed to have more bikes in it than last time. Sandra and Javier’s warm hugs made us feel welcome and before long we were swapping stories. The two impressive African Twin’s parked up inside the door belonged to Martin and Katja who’d been travelling for almost 2 years and were making preparation to fly themselves and the bikes back home.

Conversation, beer and pizza rounded off, what for us, had been a day of re-acquaintances and excitement. We finally slid off to bed at around 2:00am

Here’s one of my favourites from Alan. Martin had had a bad spill on his bike and was getting himself and bike back to BA on a truck. With some time to kill Alan decides to ride alone for a few days. So stopping for a night in a budget hotel, Alan happily recounts that he’s in the room on his ‘tod’ and being a bloke fancies doing something…’blokey’. Well the 3 porn channels do seem rather heavily advertised. So here’s his choice…channel :1 regular porn. Channel 2: hard core porn. Or channel 3, which is described as ‘disabled porn’. “Well I’ll have a bit of that” Alan tells us very matter of fact. “Never seen disabled porn. I’m in the room alone, no one will know…well you would wouldn’t you”, he continues now grinning like a school boy.

He continues…“I thought well I imagined lots of heavy breathing, rampant clashing of wheel chairs and bizarre action with consenting adults with no-legs. I figured, hey if they’re sick enough to make I’m sick enough to watch it”. The rest of us by now are in hysterics.

“So…I’m a bit excited by the propsect as you can imagine, and settled back for a fun-packed evening with my lesser abled humping buddies”. Martin, Katja, Lisa, Sandra, Javier and I are all now laughing aloud and wondering how this story can get worse or for that matter where it’s going.

“So with the remote control firmly grasped in my sweaty palm, I select chanel 3…” Alan’s now in full flow but pauses….”so what happened” Javier asked impatiently. “Nothing” Alan replies. “Ablsoultely friggin nothing…the screen just went blank”. “It took me ten minutes of thumping the TV in strategic places and a phone call to reception to work out that channel 3 was to ‘DISABLE’ the porn. I’d turned off all access to the sweaty channels”. Alan still going…”I even asked if I could change rooms, but the sodding hotel was full”. By now we were on the floor rolling with laughter. We still can’t believe he told us the story, most of us would have kept that one to ourselves.

So bad taste stories aside what else have we been up too? With the bike unloaded and following a quick inspection of my shocks, a grumbling nag I’d had lingering in the back of my mind was confirmed…both the front and back shocks were doing pretty much nothing and needed servicing. With both the shocks out, I ended up giving them to one of Javier’s friends, a professional suspension builder who does most of the work for the pro-motorcross teams who are based in or around BA. Brought back a few days later, he’d confirmed that both the shock’s had little or no oil inside and that neither had any nitrogen. Only the over-sized springs had been doing anything.

In fact both the bikes needd a little moreTLC than we’d first realised. Lisa’s left hand heated handlebar grip hadn’t worked for months…certainly post Amazonia. Not that we need it now….but later on in the Andes. Side stands needed straightening, missing nuts and bolts replaced.

Now I know that the diary has been behind of late but I’ve not strayed far from the computer. I started building Dakar Motos a new web site and although I won’t finish it before we have to leave for Mendoza and the BBC thing, I’m pretty sure I can get it done within a few days of getting back and before we head South down the Ruta 3.

With my Ohlins back and re-installed on Tinks, I had the chance for a quick test ride before we showered down, made ourselves presentable. With Martin and Katja leaving soon a farewell dinner was in order so with 5kg of prime beef (cost £2.20) and a host of other ingredients, Lisa set about cooking up a monster curry. We figured there’d be at least some left over…nope nothing, the lot went.

Tuesday the 24th we enjoyed a some what less hectic a night, having accepted an invitation to dinner with Ricardo and Matu. Lisa had even managed to borrow a black pair of dress shoes to compliment her small black dress she’d ben carrying. A really good evening and know I know Lisa enjoyed feeling feminine for a night at least.

So it was time to head West and our meeting with the BBC. Even after the plethora of emails that we’d received from Will (the producer) we are still a little uncertain as to what it is they want to film, I guess we’ll find out soon enough.

For no other reason than disorganisation we’d left Dakar motos and Buenos Aires much later than we’d expected and had become tangled in the chaotic traffic that uses the ring road to circumnavigate the city. Off the Pan-americana we’d picked up the Ave General Paz but had completely missed the huge turning onto the Routa 7, which would take us all the way across Argentina to Mendoza. And so some time later we’d managed to get ourselves lost and only with the help of some good directions from pedestrians, had we found our way back on the Ave General Paz, where we picked up the 7. What a lot of fannying around.

What a dull day. With patchy weather and intermittent rain we’d managed to get much further than we thought and had covered 519 miles to the small town of San Luis, only 126 miles East of Mendoza. We’d been warned by Alan and Martin as to how long, straight and dull the road is, but…bloody hell. This is a road so straight it would make the Romans proud. It just seemed to go on forever. Nothing as far the eye could see other than farmed land. Not a hill or an incline in sight. We both battled with our concentration. Lisa was battling to stay awake. At one point I’d shouted over the intercom to Lisa and she accelerated hard towards the back-end of a large truck. Shouting a warning got a reaction. “What the hell are you doing”? I shouted over the airways to Lisa. “I don’t know… I was totally unaware that he was there”!! came the reply. It was time for a break. If this carried on, we would’nt make Mendoza alive and so at the next services we parked up at downed the strongest coffee we could find.

With sore bums and tired eyes we pulled off the 7 and found San Luis centro easily enough and had haggled a reasonable price with a hotel with secure parking (hotel San Luis – find it GPS: S33 17.984 W66 20.694). We’d asked a few locals about camping and drawn a blank.

We’d looked forward to being in Mendoza for so long. We’d meant to have been here in November of last year to give a presentation at the first South American BMW-Motorrad bike meet, but that had all fallen through after my disagreement with a certain Amazonian bridge and Lisa being hostess to the mostest with her malaria parasites! To be here at last felt great.

Wide, tree-lined avenues give the whole place a very European feel and the well attended cafés serving fresh brewed cappuchinos added the finishing touch.

We needed to some prep before Will and ‘Beeb’ arrived as to where and when we could ride. Ricardo back in BA had already primed Jorge the Sales Manager at BMW Mendoza to expect us, and so with the GPS coordinates locked into the Garmin 20 minutes after reaching Mendoza we were sat with Jorge discussing routes and mountain passes. Maps and routes and ideas all got exchanged and by late afternoon we knew we’d found a kindred spirit in Jorge…this guys lives for motorbikes. We’d already accepted the kind invitation from Jorge to stay with his family unitll Will arrived and so when BMW shut-up-shop we followed our new host the 15 km back to his home and was introduced to his wife, Mercedes (what a great name!) and two children.

It’s still very humbling to be taken in by complete strangers…to be welcomed into a family like old friends. It would be great to think that UK familes would offer the kind of generosity and trust we’ve been offered time and time again by families in Africa and now South America?