Tue 24th Oct
(Thanks to Javier who has kindly let me use his pc for my first little update)
After a frantic morning running around town getting the last minute stuff done, I eventually caught my flight from Edinburgh but not before it was delayed thanks to a really well timed fire-drill just after getting through security which required emptying the entire airport on to the service area outside for about 30 minutes and then bizzarely, the whole lot of us had to go through security AGAIN. After all that, I asked at the gate when the plane would actually be leaving and was told in a tone that said 'you insincere bastard' it would be a little bit late as 15 kids in wheelchairs had to get off the plane first.

Anyway, I thankfully did meet up with Michelle & Iain in Heathrow for a flight at 7pm to Madrid. Cool ceiling in Madrid airport.

We caught the flight to BA at about midnight which had some pretty lousy air stewards. There was a right sour faced one who wouldn't give me coffee when I asked her for some and when she did, it was just the last dregs.

Nice to see a bit of Latin American humour

we can understand in Scotland

Wed 25th Oct
So.... 12 hours and no sleep later, we finally arrived in Buenos Aires at about 8.00am. And it was grey and raining and not exactly the 30 degress we were expecting but hey, we'd finally made it.
Our plan was to stay at Javier & Sandra's place,'Dakar Motos' as we'd heard nothing but good stuff about them Horizons Unlimited. And what could be easier than getting a taxi from the airport straight there, I mean we had the address written down and everything. Anyway, about 2 1/2 hours later after a tour of some of the most deprived areas of the outskirts of BA, the driver who refused to acknowldge that he was hopelessly lost, stopped to ask a few local men who had no idea where Dakar Motos was either. After a bit of pestering from us, he gave in a called Javier. After a couple of more calls, BA's shittest taxi driver stopped at some lights when we spotted a guy on an Africa Twin. As we hadn't seen a single big bike on our tour so far, we new this guy would be bound to know how to get to Dakar so we drove over to him, and who should it be but Javier himself. Aparently he'd gotten a bit tired of speaking to the driver and had thankfully came out to rescue us.

After a tour of the premises and gawping at all the traveller's bikes there were stored there, Javier ordered us all some great 'loma's', steak sanwiches. We all grabbed a much needed shower and headed into to town for a look around the downtown area. After getting ripped off in, ironicaly, a pirate theme bar, we headed back to Dakar and Michelle made some rather tasty enchiladas and after chatting to Tom and Christine (www.wuestenelche.de), our new German room-mates who are doing a 10 month tour of South America on a pair of Africa Twins, we got a much needed early night.










Thursday 26th October 2006
After a good sleep, and seeing it was a gorgeous day, we headed in to town and get the most cheesiest pizza we'd ever seen which consisted of cheese, more cheese and for a bit of variety, some cheese. Aparently this is how you get them here so you have to request half cheese unless you really want to throw up.






We'd arranged to meet up with Sandra at 2.00pm as she is thankfully helping us with the labourious get out bikes out of customs and went to the shipping agents office to pay $235.00 each for the handling charges and then managed to get our bike insurance all on our own. Feeling rather pleased with ourselves, we caught the tube to the San Telmo district which we liked a lot more than the hectic downtown business area. It was a lot more laid back with quaint tree lined side streets and shed loads of antiques shops.

After a bit of coffee in Plaza Dorrego, we took a stroll towards La Boca which is aparently where Tango was invented after the blokes in the brothels got bored of waiting and started dancing with each other- aparently. We passed the Boca Juniors football stadium and the area changed into colourful, tree lined streets with brightly painted houses with balconies, shutters and lots of old women with small ugly dogs.























We wound up our little tour on Caminito, which is one of those streets they put on postcards. It was actually a little bit touristy though and the smell at the port reminded me of the crap farms (waste water treatment plants) we had to do surveys of so we headed back to Dakar where Tom & Christine had made one of the best lasagne we'd ever tasted.

After setting some of the greatest minds I know the task of working out what above message and rather nifty drawing on my mate Cal's send-off card actually meant, more than one person has now reached the conclusion that it actually means "I hear you saw off 6 or 7 months with a bike". Cal- we salute you!

Anyway, Friday's leaving party was so sucessful that instead of getting on with clearing my entire flat of all my worldly possessions, I spent most of saturday lying on the sofa doing my best 'Barry White' impersonation down the phone to people. I even brought my camera out especially but decided I'd rather concentrate on guaranteeing the rest of the weekend would be a right-off by drinking for 11 hours straight than taking pictures. Oh well, one day I'll learn not to do that. Thanks again to George for providing us with a great meal and for all my mates and family that turned up- I do believe a great night was had by all!

Somehow on Saturday though, I managed to buy the double mattress I needed to get for the spare room for the incoming tenants. I say 'somehow' as it took a few attempts to actually get to Ikea. I'd borrowed some straps to tie the mattress to the roof of the car (cheers Colin) however in my fuzzy state, I drove all the way to Ikea and then realised I'd left them in the office. I thoroughly recommend not having a hangover when going to Ikea on a Saturday, especially when you have to go there more by necessitiy than choice. Incredibly, when I got back to the flat, the mattress was even still attached to the roof of the car- amazing.

So as it turned out Sunday was actually the big flat clearing day, and thanks to Iain, my sister Anne and aunt Sheila (who kindly offered the use of her attic space to store my stuff- I think she's regretting that now!) my flat is now pretty much deviod of all my things except furniture.


So all that's left to do tomorrow is clean the entire flat, cart all the remaining bits and pieces including my trip luggage over to my mums place, hand back what remains of my company car to the office and go and get a devils haircut.

Oh, and remember to get on the plane on tuesday!

Bye Bike!


Well this is a week late so shoot me. After a very tedious motorway-based ride down from Edinburgh to London last week and a couple of good piss ups, we took the bikes to Ideal Forwarding in Essex on Monday. For someone used to Scottish traffic, the London stuff was something else, apparently a moped rider dies every day in London and I can see why. Riding a lardy GS through that lot with even wider metal boxes certainly makes for an entertaining ride. In fact there's nothing quite like several 'near-death experiences' to keep you on your toes.

So after taking off my screen and lowering the handlebars, and virtually no paperwork we left the bikes and our hard luggage to be crated up by people who seem to know what they're doing. They are due to sail on 5 October and all going well, should arrive in Buenos Aires 19 days later, roughly when we do.

I still haven't got a tenant to rent my flat but with just over three weeks to go, I'm quietly confident it will sort itself out any day now... so no pressure then.

Hmm, I'm crap at doing these updates aren't I? I'll get better though I'm sure.

Last week it was my mums birthday and we were lucky enough to get the use of a holiday house in Boat of Garten from one of her friends. Mum and Anne went up on the thursday while I took the bike up on Friday night.

Apart from being a nice place to stay for a couple of days, I took the opportunity to do a spot of last minute bike checks in advance of the fast aproaching'big shipment'. I've pretty much got all the spares, tools and fitted all the bits and pieces I'm going to fit now so am now just looking forward to catching up with Michelle and Iain next weekend and seeing Iain's brand new bike which should arrive any day now (so no pressure in getting it ready then!). After a uncharacteristicaly warm day and a bit of canoeing on Loch Morlich, we ended the day with a fantastic meal at The Boat restaurant, which served a wine called 'Tierra del Fuego'. a good sign if ever there was one.

When I got back to Edinburgh on Sunday night, I figured I'd better get my luggage sorted out a little bit more and this is the result. Now what have I left out...?

Ps It's 10 years to the day since I passed my bike test- yay!

And erm, 36 years to the day since Jimi Hendrix choked on vomit (his own)- Boo!

Scottish (very) Mini Rideout 31.8.06

So the original plan was to get a couple of days camping on the west coast but thanks to the Scottish weather, that was never going to happen and a suitable backup plan materialised in the form of a night in St Andrews at Mike Anderson's place. Matt Cartney and myself rode up on thursday taking in the sights of the East Neuk of Fife on the way up. After a few beers in town, lots of great stories and some rather good spag bol at Mike's place, Matt had to head home but Mike and I ended up going through several bottles of vin rouge while looking over maps of South and Central america until about 02.30am. Mike gave me loads of great tips and advice on where to go as he's done it all before, and in fact the next day he was heading off down south in advance of shipping out to Buenos Aires a month before Iain, Michelle and myself head out there.

So all in all, a good night was had and many thanks to Mike and his generous hospitality.

Trail-Rides Wales 27.08.06


Well I think it's about time I actually posted something so here goes. When I met up with Michelle and Iain at the HU meet in Ripley, we had such a good weekend that we all decided it would be a good idea to get a camping weekend in before the 'Big Trip'. After a bit of faffing with various dates and deciding to tie in the weekend with a bit of off-roading practice, we settled on Wales where 'Trail-Rides Wales' (http://www.trailrides-wales.com) are based.

Unfortunately Iain was serving time in DIY Gaol getting his flat ready for letting (something I actually need to do myself but think fitting bathrooms is a bit more involved than clearing out cupboards) so I headed down to Devils Bridge campsite to meet up with Michelle who got there about 2 hours before me. After some dodgy fish and chips, a few beers with a group of Harley riders from Grimsby and brushing my teeth with foot cream in the dark, it was off to bed.

So on sunday morning, we set off for the trail ride meeting point at some unpronounceable forestry car park not too far from the campsite. As we were using our own bikes, apart from an Africa Twin, looking around at rest of the lighter machines with knobblies on, we started to get a little bit apprehensive. And as it turned out, we were right to. The morning started off with a group of around 8 or so riders lead by Colin and we headed off up the track into the hills.

It became quickly apparent that the Tourance tires we both had on really didn't get on with the mud/wet grass of which there was quite a bit but on the gravel, they seemed fine. Anytime I came near the slidey stuff, I had to slow right down and keep my feet on the ground. The mornings route led us through valleys, up and over steep hills and along narrow tracks and the scenery was just fantastic, not that we had any time to look at it though. While the rest off the group were riding rings around us, we started feeling we were slowing them down a bit but they were great and very understanding. While I was finding it hard, Michelle had a bit more bother as the KLR is pretty lardy for a lady (despite removing some 'ballast' that morning) and unfortunately she had a one or two spills, some quite spectacular with one involving a dry stone wall which fared only marginally better than the KLR. If it wasn't for a bunch of mountain bikers stopping halfway up a steep hill track and some careless twat tearing about on a mini-moto, I reckon she'd have been fine. A lot of people would probably have given up by this point and by lunchtime when they announced that we'd be doing some of the same route in reverse, Michelle briefly thought about doing just that, but fortune shone in the offer of using a lighter Yamaha 125 with proper off road tyres for the afternoon slot and after that, there was no stopping her!

The afternoon group was slightly smaller and was led by Marianne who was great at giving us good pointers and riding tips. Something must have clicked as we both started to handle the tracks so much better than the morning and soon we were fearlessly tearing up and down with a lot more confidence. I'll admit that during the morning I was having serious doubts about the size of my bike for this trip as it seemed so ridiculously heavy, but by the afternoon I was taking it up steep slopes with rocky steps and loose gravel that I would have a job getting my mountain bike up. I still managed to drop it on a steep gravely bend though but was quietly relieved when I was able to pick it up myself, but it took a while to get going again as the rear wheel had started to spin in the gravel. The river crossings were great fun too and though we took a few photos, you'd be hard pressed to say who was who due to bow waves and spray! The rutted farm tracks were the worst but as long as you stood up on the pegs and held the bars loosely, the bike just coasted through. In the end, I was really amazed at the versatility of the GS and think I've actually found new confidence in riding it.

By the end of the day, we both had huge grins on our faces and were saying that if we can do that, the trip will be a doddle. That set the precedent for the rest of the weekend which involved kite flying in torrential rain on the beach and can honenstly say, I'm looking forward to the actual trip more than ever now.

Hold your horses- I haven't gone yet!