During the last 3 days, I revisited all my past HUBB related e-mails and have discovered 22 more requests for information regarding the purchase of a motorcycle or vehicle in Argentina by foreign tourists.

We now have 14 + 22 for a total of: 36 foreign tourists expressing interest or who have purchased a motorcycle or vehicle in Argentina.

We need only 64 more screen names of foreign tourists expressing interest in purchasing or who have already purchased a motorcycle or vehicle in Argentina. Then, I, with the able assistance of an Argentine lawmaker, will be able to convince the Argentine legislature to clarify the laws regarding a foreign tourist existing Argentina on his or her Argentine registered motorcycle or vehicle.

If you are a foreign tourist planning to visit Argentina and have any interest in purchasing a new our used Argentine registered motorcycle or vehicle, please post that interest here. Thanks

Life is good, but, not so good in Honduras. please read my Puerto Limón, Costa Rica and Honduras threads in Travellers' Advisories, Safety and Security on the Road

Ride Free, Eat, Drink, and Be Careful xfiltrate

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Motorcycle Parking Buenos Aires, Argentina
www.xfiltrate.com

Hi xfiltrate!

I'm heading out that way and am interested in purchasing a bike, a small honda, xl or xr 125/200/250.

I'm just looking into prices and things, however, i'd be looking to ride to the UK and park in a garage (ie off the road) afterwards, not sure how viable this is, just begining my research now, also depends how easy it is to sell a british bike in South africa?!

Will keep posted!

Kind regards,
Nick

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Tales from the Saddle Website
Facebook FanPage for TftS

Hi Klous-1 and a big thank you for posting your interest in purchasing a bike in Argentina. Elisa and I just returned to Buenos Aires after several months in Spain.

I am going to assume that you are heading to Argentina to purchase a motorcycle. You are #37 and now we need only 63 more foreign tourists expressing interest in purchasing a bike or a vehicle in Argentina, so we can attempt to get the exit laws changed that would enable you and every other foreign tourist who has purchased a bike in Argentina to legally exit the country.

When you do get to Buenos Aires, please contact us. Yes, if you want to park in Buenos Aires we have parking available. xfiltrate

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Motorcycle Parking Buenos Aires, Argentina
www.xfiltrate.com

Foreign tourists considering buying or selling in Argentina or Chile, should also read the another thread. This is an ongoing discussion of the complications and risks of selling foreign registered vehicles.

Selling US registered bike in Argentina/Chile? ( 1 2)

South and Central America and Mexico

The above thread might be very interesting to foreign tourists considering selling or buying a foreign registered bike in Argentina or Chile.

Meanwhile, We are still collecting screen names and approximate date of purchase of foreign tourists might be interested in buying an Argentine registered vehicle or motorcycle. We now have 39 such foreign tourists listed (2 new ones from Spain this morning!) and need only 61 more to approach the Argentine legislature regarding a clarification of the law and regulations regarding the export of Argentine registered vehicles or motorcycles, by foreign tourists, for the purpose touring South America and then returning to Argentina and selling or storing the vehicle or motorcycle.

To all, the clarification of regulations making it possible for a foreign tourist to temporarily export an Argentine purchased and registered motorcycle for the purpose of touring other south American countries is an achievable goal. We need your help.

Eat, Drink, and Be Careful xfiltrate

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Motorcycle Parking Buenos Aires, Argentina
www.xfiltrate.com

seems way too complicated

Applying us american lobbying technics to argentine reality imho have very few chances to work. Like most latin countries, nepotism gets you anything while legal processes get lost into bureacratic mazes.

Your best chance is to know somebody who knows somebody who knows the one temporarely in charge of ruling that area. Or you can block the Libertador Avenue for one month in hope of a governement reaction, but your 100 virtual signatures wont help much in that matter.

Vorteks and all, the 100 screen names are for the benefit of those will will benefit from a review and change of the export regulations. Aside from foreign tourists who want to buy new or used in Buenos Aires and tour other South American countries, a review and "clarification" of the export regulations smells very good to several local motorcycle dealers I have approached.

The 100 screen names, a fraction of the increase in potential new/used sales in the future, are the carrot I am using to gain grass roots business support. I agree that the 100 screen names alone, without the support of local businesses, might not have much effect on an unvested politician.

And, I take you point of "knowing someone who knows someone etc.", I do know someone who knows thousands of people, and I will enlist his aid very shortly. Stay tuned.

Regarding the extension of the Temporary Vehicle Import Permit from 8 months to ONE YEAR, I am very happy to report that several high powered despachantes (read: hard balling with the big boys) "import brokers" here in Buenos Aires are connected to the highest level of Argentine government and my most recent report is that this change is already, or soon will be, in the works, and it might/will probably be that foreign registered motorcycles will be allowed ONE year temporary import to Argentina, and the 8 months for vehicles will remain the same. Oh, the wonders of government, God Bless the red tape, it sometimes serves the cause of freedom.

The National Geographic documentary "The Ride," (played locally on TV) Che's "Motorcycle Diaries," (Che is a national hero of Argentina) Ewen and Charley adventures (humorous) and Grant and Susan's "The Achievable Dream" (BUY A COPY NOW on HU Home Page) have all been cards I have played locally. And, last but not least, there is the beloved "DAKAR"..... earlier this year, and next.... (rivaling the gaucho in popularity)

Thanks for your input. We are about to launch these 2 ideas big time, please do stay tuned and keep the ideas coming.

Eat , Drink and Be Careful xfiltrate

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Motorcycle Parking Buenos Aires, Argentina
www.xfiltrate.com

Che is a hero just for communist, not for all of Argentinian. He was a terrorist.

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Ya verás como quieren en Chile al amigo cuando es forastero (traditional song)

Jose Pedro Espinosa
Santiago, Chile

Diasdeplay, amigo, yeah but he rode a Norton...... and somehow claiming that Che is a "Provincial Hero" rather than "National Hero" seemed to dramatically under mind the truth of the matter.

2008 - Rosario, the city in Argentina where Guevara was born, recognises its most famous son on 14 June, the 80th anniversary of Guevara's birthday, with the unveiling of a 3.6 metre bronze statue of the dead revolutionary.


2000 - 'Time' magazine names Guevara as one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th Century. "Though communism may have lost its fire, he remains the potent symbol of rebellion and the alluring zeal of revolution," the magazine states.

As a National Hero of Argentina, Che is regarded as a revolutionary, not particularly a Communist. His participation in revolutionary activities pale when compared with the multitude of coups and revolutions planned and funded by intelligence agencies of the United States at the command of US and multinational corporations.

Amigo, you write from Chile.. How can you possibly believe that Capitalistic causes are not forwarded by terrorists too?

Oh yeah, Amigo, I forgot to mention the permanent and well funded museum in Alta Gracia, Argentina dedicated to Che Guevara, his ideals and his life. You might want to visit this museum to understand what Che Guevara represents to the Argentine people, and why and who hunted him down and murdered him in cold blood, in Bolivia.

Speaking of Democracy, Honduras, and...
Dear Friends,

In writing my new book Hoodwinked (Random House, November 2009 publication date), I recently visited Central America. Everyone I talked with there was convinced that the military coup that had overthrown the democratically-elected president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, had been engineered by two US companies, with CIA support. And that the US and its new president were not standing up for democracy.

Earlier in the year Chiquita Brands International Inc. (formerly United Fruit) and Dole Food Co had severely criticized Zelaya for advocating an increase of 60% in Honduras’s minimum wage, claiming that the policy would cut into corporate profits. They were joined by a coalition of textile manufacturers and exporters, companies that rely on cheap labor to work in their sweatshops.

Memories are short in the US, but not in Central America. I kept hearing people who claimed that it was a matter of record that Chiquita (United Fruit) and the CIA had toppled Guatemala’s democratically-elected president Jacobo Arbenz in 1954 and that International Telephone & Telegraph (ITT), Henry Kissinger, and the CIA had brought down Chile’s Salvador Allende in 1973. These people were certain that Haiti’s president Jean-Bertrand Aristide had been ousted by the CIA in 2004 because he proposed a minimum wage increase, like Zelaya’s.

I was told by a Panamanian bank vice president, “Every multinational knows that if Honduras raises its hourly rate, the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean will have to follow. Haiti and Honduras have always set the bottom line for minimum wages. The big companies are determined to stop what they call a ‘leftist revolt’ in this hemisphere. In throwing out Zelaya, they are sending frightening messages to all the other presidents who are trying to raise the living standards of their people.”

It did not take much imagination to envision the turmoil sweeping through every Latin American capital. There had been a collective sign of relief at Barack Obama’s election in the U.S., a sense of hope that the empire in the North would finally exhibit compassion toward its southern neighbors, that the unfair trade agreements, privatizations, draconian IMF Structural Adjustment Programs, and threats of military intervention would slow down and perhaps even fade away. Now, that optimism was turning sour.

The cozy relationship between Honduras’s military coup leaders and the corporatocracy were confirmed a couple of days after my arrival in Panama. England’s The Guardian ran an article announcing that “two of the Honduran coup government's top advisers have close ties to the US secretary of state. One is Lanny Davis, an influential lobbyist who was a personal lawyer for President Bill Clinton and also campaigned for Hillary. . . The other hired gun for the coup government that has deep Clinton ties is (lobbyist) Bennett Ratcliff.” (1)

DemocracyNow! broke the news that Chiquita was represented by a powerful Washington law firm, Covington & Burling LLP, and its consultant, McLarty Associates (2). President Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder had been a Covington partner and a defender of Chiquita when the company was accused of hiring “assassination squads” in Colombia (Chiquita was found guilty, admitting that it had paid organizations listed by the US government as terrorist groups “for protection” and agreeing in 2004 to a $25 million fine). (3) George W. Bush’s UN Ambassador, John Bolton, a former Covington lawyer, had fiercely opposed Latin American leaders who fought for their peoples’ rights to larger shares of the profits derived from their resources; after leaving the government in 2006, Bolton became involved with the Project for the New American Century, the Council for National Policy, and a number of other programs that promote corporate hegemony in Honduras and elsewhere. McLarty Vice Chairman John Negroponte was U.S. Ambassador to Honduras from 1981-1985, former Deputy Secretary of State, Director of National Intelligence, and U.S. Representative to the United Nations; he played a major role in the U.S.-backed Contra’s secret war against Nicaragua’s Sandinista government and has consistently opposed the policies of the democratically-elected pro-reform Latin American presidents. (4) These three men symbolize the insidious power of the corporatocracy, its bipartisan composition, and the fact that the Obama Administration has been sucked in.

The Los Angeles Times went to the heart of this matter when it concluded:
What happened in Honduras is a classic Latin American coup in another sense: Gen. Romeo Vasquez, who led it, is an alumnus of the United States' School of the Americas (renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation). The school is best known for producing Latin American officers who have committed major human rights abuses, including military coups. (5)

All of this leads us once again to the inevitable conclusion: you and I must change the system. The president – whether Democrat or Republican – needs us to speak out.

Chiquita, Dole and all your representatives need to hear from you. Zelaya must be reinstated.

John


Footnotes
(1) “Who's in charge of US foreign policy? The coup in Honduras has exposed divisions between Barack Obama and his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton” by Mark Weisbrot

Eat, Drink and Be Careful xfiltrate

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Motorcycle Parking Buenos Aires, Argentina
www.xfiltrate.com

I would like no political comments here Ed,a friend once told me many years,the best way to keep a friendship is to avoid talking of politics and soccer! hahahahaha
Ernesto Guevara is no hero in Argentina,is just a celebrity or fashionable icon for T-shirts and stickers.
He is of course a hughe hero and icon in cuban culture.
I am not moderator or so i am just letting know my point of view here.Ideologies......you know are fuel for long and never ending debates.
Karl

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http://vientoderipio.blogspot.com/
America is a nice continent,not a country.All people who lives in this continent are americans.Discover it in peace!

Karl, my commentary and the letter was not intended as political ramblings, but rather in the spirit of the artist, Mr Zeneri, who sculpted a 4 meter high, 3.5 ton bronze statue of Che, without weapons, from doorknobs, fire pokers, plaques, and an estimated 75,000 door keys donated from 14,000 people around Argentina and the world. People who considered Che a hero... and decided upon Rosario, Argentina as the appropriate city for the statue.

Many of the donated keys belonged to the victims of Argentina's military dictatorship of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo participated in the statue's inauguration.

And, as one who has visited Che's museum in Alta Gracia, Argentina, my commentary was an attempt to encourage fellow travelers to do the same.

Ideologies aside, Che has influenced hundreds of millions of people worldwide and more than a few Argentines.

Karl, my point is contemporary and possibly futuristic. Che was reduced to a pop culture icon once the economy of Argentina began to recover from the dictators, and indeed many Argentines blamed Argentine youth emulating Che as the trigger that allowed the dictators to crack down.

But, as the economic recovery of Argentina slows, and the politics of democratically elected leaders of other South American countries changes, many Argentines are once again looking beyond Che's berets, bumper stickers and millions of T-shirts in an attempt to discover their own identity and beliefs.

Karl please know that I do understand that heros and terrorists are created from the point of view of a particular ideology. This was my point to Diasdeplaya.

Here is my ideology and hopefully we can agree, without a never ending argument. It is OK with me if you do not agree.

A hero is someone who helps others (humanity) survive without the use of violence.

There are many brave soldiers, but as I am learning, from writers like *John Perkins (Hoodwinked) and (Confessions of an Economic Hit Man) heros are few.

Eat Drink and Be Careful xfiltrate *read letter in previous post....

www.Xfiltrate.com - Professional Motorcycle Parking - Professional Motorcycle Parking Buenos Aires, Argentina

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Motorcycle Parking Buenos Aires, Argentina
www.xfiltrate.com

Xfiltrate, if you wanted to render the original stated purpose of this thread valueless, you could not accomplish this more effectively than by diverting it into a debate over Che, capitalism, revolution, terrorism.....

If, on the other hand, you wished to pursue your avowed aim of effecting legislative change by enlisting support here on the Hubb, you'd probably resist the temptation to drag Che (or any of the rest) into the discussion.

Valued at: precisely $0.02.

Mark

Mark, it is not as if I mentioned Kraft Foods or anything Argentine decision makers don't already know, discussed and have wondered about.

And, I am not going to change anything other than increase the awareness of key people in the legislature here regarding a potential increase in tourism and motorcycle sales. My role is to be in good communication with those who might change legislation here by providing accurate data that might influence their decision.

The key players know who I am, what I stand for and who I represent. The last thing my Argentine political contacts want or need is another dumbed down self serving lackey.

No, I represent myself to them, as I am, just as I will continue to do here.

Thanks for your thoughts on the matter. And, by the way you know anyone who might want to buy new or used in Argentina? Or perhaps anyone who might want to be able to get an Argentine temporary vehicle import permit for one year instead of the current 8 months?

Eat, Drink and Be Careful xfiltrate

www.Xfiltrate.com - Professional Motorcycle Parking - Professional Motorcycle Parking Buenos Aires, Argentina

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Motorcycle Parking Buenos Aires, Argentina
www.xfiltrate.com

Have to hand it to you Ed, youre one switched on DUde

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Life is for Living - so Live

[quote=xfiltrate;260335] And, by the way you know anyone who might want to buy new or used in Argentina?

Not unless my KLR goes belly-up somewhere between here (central Chihuahua) and yon (Patagonia)......which seemed a stronger possibility last week than it does currently.

FWIW, authenticity doesn't necessarily conflict with efficiency, productivity, effectiveness or anything else worth being. But that's just my perspective.

Mark