2ridetheworld.com : diary

28-10-2005:Brazil


The centre was closed today as it was a Governement holiday (there do seem tobe a lot of these). So we went into town and got some supplies of soft drinks and managed to get a DVD shop to loan us some DVDs. Thereis nothing to do in the evenings here but watch crappy Brazilian soaps and be attacked by huge bugs and mozzies and moths with a wing size the same as a bic pen!
29-10-2005
Quiet day again. Worked on Lisa’s electrics as the guys in Yamaha hadn’t put things back right and speedo, etc didn’t work.
30-10-2005
Sunday and everything was quiet. We worked on the diary. Lisa’s coming down with something and is feeling pretty crapy. With the centre still pretty empty ‘we’, yep that’s the royal we…OK, Lisa took advantage of the large kitchen and knocked up somesort of curry with what was on hand and some of the remaining ingredients in our panniers. It was nice to have different flavours. After reading a couple of really useful post on changing the rear wheel bearing on www.advrider.com I’ve started prepareing the parts for fitment of the new bearing. The new bearing will have to be heated ‘extremely hot’ to get it to go onto the crown gear centre. Following advice from advrider.com I ended up putting the whole crown gear in the freezer, yep, the freezer. Between the frozen crown gear and the heated new bearing it should make locating the new bearing that much easier…we’ll see? I had at look at what my Haynes manual says about changing the bearing…it simply read ‘this procedure is beyond the scope of this mannual’…great, that’s useful.
31-10-2005
After a flying visit to Ji-PiranaToday we managed to pick up the new bearing from the post office and by mid afternoon the the new bearing and seal were in place. The final drive was back together and the rear wheel back on. I’d have got it done sooner but I ended up having to rest every 20 minutes. The pain in my neck and back is getting to me and there’s no way I can risk takeing any more anti-inflamatories or pain killers. I’m already taking way past the advised doseage. All I want is to get to Sao Paulo and have someone look at my neck. It’s not getting any better. Trying to sort out the machanics with only one hand working would have been funny if it hadn’t ben so painful. With the bike on the mend I’m now keen to get to a hospital in Sao Paulo and find out what’s wrong. With the pain not getting any better I think it may be more tha a few pulled muscles…we’ll see. I could just be getting soft inmy old age? Well, my neck is the other reason I’m not writing much.
01-11-2005
Spent theday getting both the bikes sorted. We’ll leave tomorrow and get an early start.
02-11-2005
Long day. We’ve stopped just outside Cuiaba. Hotel Amazonia. Not writing much, tired and in too much pain.
03-11-2005
Lisa writes: back on the road........got the prob with Simon's bike sorted....well not completley as we don't think its accepted enough oil but at least its on and we can get on. Me (Lisa) been suffering from bad headache which I can’t get rid of…..all day every day!arrggg So now we are limping towards Sao Paulo where we will meet the very nice and kind Mr BMW Brazil who has been looking after us from afar and is planning all the new bits for Simon's bike. His rear sub-frame has cracked in two places as well. My bike and me BTW are fine and no damage....well the front of my 'cockpit' did fall off the other day as I had managed to break the main metal frame attaching the front of the bike to the main frame. Today we are still knackerd as we have put in well over 500 miles in order to get to SP ASAP. We started this am at 5:30 am and hauled ourselves off the bikes at 6:30pm. A bit concerned at the amount of painkillers Simon is having to take but our aim is to get both him and his bike sorted once in SP. After all repairs - human and mechanical - are complete we will be moving onto Mendoza in Argentina as we have been invited to give a presentation at the 1st Annual BMW meet. Arrived in Campo Grande. We spent more than we should o a hotel as Simon couldn’t carry on any more. There was no way we could ride around the city trying to find something, so we just stopped at the first decent looking one.
04-11-2005
Well…umm, the day didn’t quit go as planned. We’re are back at the hotel we stayed in last night. With an early start and the bikes loaded we set off for what we planned was to be our last long ride. We’d hoped to put in one last long ride and get to Sao Paulo. Didn’t happen. We ended up leaving the hotel in the pouring rain at 6:00am. Not the most of auspicious of starts. Five minutes later and we were battling with the city traffic. Having battled rush hour traffic we were finally escaping the crowds of cars and belching trucks and had managed to clear the city limits, when on a long uphill section of tar, ‘Tinkerbelle’ , spluttered, misfired and simply stalled….AAAAAARRRRGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! It was raining heavily. ‘Blah, blah, blah,…strip the bike in the pouring rain…bollocks, shit, bollocks, this is getting ridiculous. Avoid the traffic hurtling towards us…and finally after 5 hours of getting nowhere with the bike, resign ourselves to somehow finding a way to get us and the bike back to Campo Grande. Lisa writes: Simon´s bike died again in the pouring rain in the middle of nowhere, and we´d only done about 60 odd KM. It took us till 6:30 to get back to the hotel as we needed a pick-up truck to get his bike in....cost us 100 reals. So we are back at the hotel that´s not cheap but it does have very good secure parking...and is cheaper than most here in Campo Grande! We have called nice Mr BMW man Brazil - again - and he is sending transport to pick us up!!! and take us to Sao Paulo - where Simon´s bike can get a really good ´seeing to´. Don´t know about cost etc...but we need to do it..so no choice. Hotel is the Brumado and is in Campo Grande - MS (Mato Grosso du Sul) –very nice.
05 to 06-11-2005
We're exhausted. Up in the room and reception had called to telll us that ’Sergio’, the driver sent by Andres Fuse (BMW Motorrad Brazil’s General Manager) to pick us up had arrived. A few minutes later and we were in the lobby and shaking hands. Although Niether Lisa or I wanted to arrive in Sao Paulo by truck if we’re honest we are incedibley thankful. I already had serious concerns about how much further I could ride. Right now I just want to know what I’ve done to myself. Sergio was great and 40 minutes after our introduction, he’d reversed his large pick up truck to the Hotel and secured both the bikes down with dozens of webbing straps. We were off. We ended up stopping only twice and by 4:00am on the morning of the 6th, we had reached the centre of Sao Paulo and had covered 1,100KM. My back and neck were killing me. I’d not taken the painkillers as regulary and the pain was being worsened by my stationary seated position for so long in the trucks cab. We’d visited to dodgy looking but ‘cheap’ hire by the hour hotels before finding and settling on ‘Formula 1’ a cheap but clean chain in Brazil. We’ve not moved much today, tomorrow we’ll start getting ourselves sorted.
07-11-2005
Sorry we’re not going to write much, Lisa’s pretty tired and I’m battling to type even with my good hand. Stopped by at one of the main BMW bike dealers in Sao Paulo ‘Officer BMW’. After Sergio had stored the bikes overnight we were there to meet him when he pitched up mid-morning to drop them off at officer. Looking forward to Tomorrow, we’ve spoken again to our BMW guardian angel, Andres, and we’ve arranged to meet him tomorrow. It’ll be great to be able to thank him face to face and thank him properly; it’ll also be an opportunity to get some advice about hospitals in Sao Paulo. We’re not sure how the system works here regarding treatment and claiming on our insurance?

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