Still no motorcycles…… so we rented a car. But first with one more day in the city waiting to hear for sure about the bikes we toured some more by bus.

It was a hot day on the upper deck and traffic was really bad through the city, the headphones didn’t work and it wasn’t actually the most pleasant experience. We jumped off at one point and toured a Latin Art Museum which was actually pretty good, no pictures allowed but it focused on local South American artists and their take on modern art trends (ask Deby for more information).

We did see some protesters from the bus. 

The idea is to light truck tires on fire to stop traffic and get their point across. I never did find out what they were protesting but I’m pretty sure they weren’t environmentalists.

The bus turned and there were more roadblocks so we convinced the driver to let us off the bus and we walked back to the hotel. Later that night when we thought it was sufficiently late we walked to the waterfront for a fashionable last night in Buenos Aires dinner. The guide books and friends recommended avoiding the food in this area claiming it was overpriced and not that good, they were right on both counts. Oh well, it was a beautiful evening.

When we returned there were e-mails verifying that we wouldn’t see our motorcycles for almost another week, they should arrive on the 13th and we could pick them up on the 14th. Bummer.

The next day, Tuesday the 6th we took a cab to the regional airport and picked up an Avis rental on the one week plan. We loaded up and headed north towards Iqauzu Falls, approximately 1,000 miles away.

Along the way we stopped at a great lunch place for grilled beef, yum better than the big city. They spoke zero English but we did fine with our improving Spanish, Deby took this picture of the owners. 

Ahhh… finally a motorcycle picture in our motorcycle blog:

We met this girl travelling from Equador on a scooter! She chatted with Deby for a while but was eager to get going in the 90+ degree heat. We left her with a sticker.

We spent the first night of our journey in the small city of Concordia where we stayed in a Cabana with a welcome pool 

As usual, Deby got some reading time in. 

We knew this place was high end because they had customized shampoo. 

Not bad for the equivalent of $50 USD.

But even better look what the driveway was made of, Deby could have scooped up buckets of these agates. 

Here is a close up, those of you that know Deby can imagine her astonishment. 

But trust me this is ZERO compared to what we were to encounter later in the week.

The next day was spent doing nothing but driving. It reminded us both of trips from Wisconsin to Florida when we were kids. About the same distance but imagine doing it in the middle of summer, that’s what we were doing as we moved north towards the equator, it was getting hotter and more humid. I was actually glad we were in an air conditioned car and not on the motorcycles.

That night we saw signs for Cabanas and drove down a long dirt road. It turned out to be some kind of kids camp, there was a huge pool with hundreds of kids who were probably there for the long holiday weekend. There was one cabana left so we took it.  Here is a picture of the cabana and the mighty Toyota. 

The only food was um…. camp food for kids. It seemed appropriate after having gas station food for lunch (a common occurance on our last MotorRaid trip with the guys, made us think of you Dave, Keith, Jim and Michael). 

The next morning there was no breakfast so we managed some instant coffee and hit the road again for what would be one of the best days yet.

By mid afternoon we came to the town of Wanda. Deby had researched this place and wanted to visit the Wanda Caves …. I thought she would die, you wouldn’t believe it.

Here is a picture of the caves, we paid the 40 pesos (about $2.50) and had a personally guided tour in English. 

We kept hearing explosions, yes, they were still mining. “No problem,” said the guide, “we can go and see what they are doing”. Really! Yes! We went into the caves with all the blasting going on. Besides being loud the whole place shook. Safety Third I was thinking. This is what we went to see: 

These crystals were formed in air bubbles when the magma oozed out of the earth in this region. The magma hardened into basalt and the miners look for  these bubbles and if they are good enough cut them out. The rest are left behind for the tourists. 

We walked in the caves and stuff like this was everywhere. 

Happy campers in the caves. 

Here was the scrap pile where the local artists got materials making stuff out of the smaller pieces. 

Well, you get the idea; 

There are no words, Deby was dumbstruck. Wow.

We ended the night at another cabana which seems to be the thing around here. 

If I have my HTML correct I think you can click on any of the pictures and it should take you to my SmugMug picture page where you can see more pictures. I don’t have space to include them all here. Or here is the link: https://donnh.smugmug.com/Motorcycles/MotoRaidIII/MRIIIArgentina

Tomorrow, the famous Igauzu falls. They did not disappoint.

Thanks for following. Donn and Deby