San Luis to Buenoes Aires

We woke up in our room from the heat so we knew it was going to be a hot one. While waiting for Mike to get his bike loaded I noticed a water hose. As I hadn't washed the bike since someplace in Central America I grabbed a rag and went to it. Wow the bike is actually red! I also soaked my shirt and we were on our way. Shortly we stopped for breakfast, baked empanadas, and some kids immediately took an interest in the bike. We had fun playing with them and I broke out some magnets and they all started trying to "One Up" each other placing them in some unusual places, very entertaining for us. This sign is signalling that the end of the trip is in sight.

The ride across the "Pampas" part of Argentina is pretty forgettable. It resembles Central Illinois or Indiana with nothing but farm fields as far as the eye can see. We only stopped for gas, water, and to clean the shields on our helmets. It sometimes only took a half hour and all the bugs made it difficult to see.

Numa had given me instructions on how to meet up with him. He was closing on the house he is purchasing and was going to be in downtown BsAs. His best guess was that he would be done by 4 p.m. and we could meet him then at the Obelisk. The Obelisk is the very center of Buenos Aires. BsAs is a HUGE city, 13,500,000 people. and there was reason to be concerned that we may have difficulty finding our way. Numa's friends all said we would never find our way and even if we did that we would never make it on time because of the city's immensity and crazy traffic. Let it also now be known that ever since southern Peru people had been warning us on just how dangerous BsAs is and maybe to change our destination. I cannot count the number of people who made a gesture concerning BsAs in which they place their index finger under their eye and pull the skin down. This symbolizes "Keep Your Eyes Open" or "Be Very Wary". Seriously I must have had over fifty people do this when I mentioned BsAs. Probably makes a normal person take stock....

Mike and I had aimed our arrival for 3 p.m. and armed with only a phone number of Numa's buddy and instructions to meet at the obelisk we headed into the city. BsAs IS very large but I must give ourselves a pat on the back that we managed to negotiate our way and even made our self-imposed deadline. The obelisk is located right in the middle of a gigantic roundabout with at least five lanes of traffic circling it. As with many huge cities we passed through the drivers are fairly aggressive and there are a gajillion taxis vying for advantage. Once we found it we made a "Victory Lap" around it and then parked on a nearby sidewalk. Mike stayed with the bikes and I located a "Locutorio" which is a place you can make phone calls from. Sitting down in the tiny glass cube I dug out the number I had copied from Numa's email and wondered why my writing was so bad. I dialed and when someone said "Hola" I said "This is John!" Numa's friend had answered and he said "I recognize your voice". With this joking going on I knew it was going to be a good time!

Our destination reached! (Jack" stuck with me on this trip all the way down from Texas)

Woooooooo Hooooooooooo!

We went out for dinner and I saw this most unusual pizza being served to the table next to us. They were very amused at my interest and let me take a picture of it.

Then they offered me a piece! It has a fish fillet covered with what tasted like thousand island dressing. I tried to be objective when tasting it....it was VERY good!

Numa jumped on the back of the KLR and directed me to his neighborhood. It took about an hour of nasty traffic but we made it. As he had just closed on the house that afternoon we shared in his turning the key for the first time to his new place. It is located in a nice town about sixteen miles South of BsAs. We unloaded our bikes and each claimed floor space in one of the bedrooms. We had made it!!!

After cleaning up a bit we headed out on the town. You already have seen the pizza I saw so you can probably guess that it was in an Italian restaurant that we had dinner. The food was excellent and there seemed to be no end to our need to share trip experiences. After dinner we walked about the town. This is one of the outdoor cafe areas where we enjoyed ice cream.

The following evening we went out again and I brought my netbook. I Skyped Zoe and Numa enjoyed chatting with Jane, his girlfriend who lives in St. Louis.

My dear Wifey only had one request when she told me to go on this trip. That was to bring her back a pair of boots from Argentina. Fortunately we started looking immediately.

For some reason we were not having any luck in the towns surrounding where Numa lives. They kept telling us that it is summer here and no one has boots out this time of year. I can believe it as every day has been in the nineties. Since we were having no luck boot shopping in the suburbs Numa and Mike agreed to go with me into BsAs to look. I'm not sure I would have had the patience were the roles reversed. While looking we passed the "Pink House" where Argentina's president lives.

That's the Pink House was in the background.

We found some boots!

We found MORE boots!

Ok so now I had found some boots but how will I know which boot to get?

Anyone who knows me knows that I hate shopping. Maybe this is a test of my love for letting me go on this trip?
Zoe loves wild colors and fashion.

John is going into "Boot Overload!"

So I took pictures of lots of boots and decided to let Wifey decide which to get. This sounds easy but remember we are miles from where we are staying and having her decide means coming back into town again.


While walking back to train station we walked through a park which had this statue of Bacchus or drunkenness. The name of it is "Saternalia" which means September. Pretty entertaining!

These girls were from Brazil and were having fun mimicking it so I joined in.

This was my favorite part of the park.

We had taken the train into the city, actually two trains and a subway. We had not purchased round trip tickets so we could be more flexible but when we saw this we wished we had them....lines and lines of people.

So far we have spent a day and a half shopping and at least found some boots. We will see what Zoe says when she gets the pics....

Hope all is well and thank you for reading-John