finally, just right after the Carnival in february, I was reunited with my beloved bike.

I arrived in the town of Ouro Preto in Minas Gerais to find my bike not so well taken care of as I had hoped. it was in a rather sad state, mainly because of the bad gasoline that had crystalized and blocked the pump and carburettors. they needed to be cleaned and tuned. After weeks of waiting I got my baby on the road and headed for the Bahian coast. my goal was Caraiva, a nice little fishing village close to Poro Seguro. Crowded during Brazilian summer holidays but quiet the rest of the year. The beauty and tranquility of the place took me by surprise, and I ended up staying three weeks there, using my bike mostly for exploring nearby beaches. At one point I got it ferried over the river Caraiva, to drive along the beach to another village called Corombau, if possible even more tranquil. Nice smooth perfect ripples in the sand made me airborn with smooth soft landings in the wet sand. The scariest part was a strech where the beach was rather steeply sloping down to teh merciless tide. Letting go of the accelerator would inevitably lead to the tide taking the bike.

I got my bike from Pat and Bin, an Australian couple and they had me travelling all the way from Buenos Aires to La Serena, Chile to get it. When I finally got it my heart was jumping. My not-so-brand-new Super Tenere was ready for a new Marathon. Having already taken the previous owners all the way from Alaska to Ushuaia and back to Northern Chile I wondered if it could take much more beating.

As a good start to my travel, I decided to head for the Aguas Negras pass over to Argentina at 4700m. I really enjoyed the ride and spent two days riding up to the pass only to find out it was blocked by an avalanche. Well that was a good start I thought to myself just as I discovered the rear shock was leaking. I got back to civilization and had to ride 500kms further south to the next border crossing of Los Andes with my tail jumping all over the place. In Mendoza I got the shock fixed, and some worries were taken off my mind. From there on I really started enjoying the trip, and when I finally tore myself out of that lovely city with all it’s pleasures I started to ride southwards. I was a nice ride through the dry pampas, even though it could be dead boring at times, with infinitely straight roads.

I was happy to reach the South, only to find out I was freezing my ass off, so I decided to cross Patagonia and ride up along the coast. I did so and reached Buenos Aires in almost no time, back in the most exciting city on the continent. It’s a very dificult place to leave.

Uruguay was done in four days, I wish I could have stayed more, but I had these constant image projections in my head of Brazilian beaches, so I had to rush it. So here I am in Florianopolis, learning to surf and generally having a good beach bum time. I’m thinking about installing a rack on the bike for transporting a surf board, have any of you guys out there tried that, I’d like some suggestions on that subject. Also if somebody would like to ride with me from here and northwards, drop me a line. Some travel company would be cool on those long legs.

In a few days the beaches of Sao Paolo are waiting! Not to mention the city itself. Will it be even better than Buenos Aires? We’ll see.

Tchau