Once around the world, once around the clock

It's been a while I know, but I thought my loyal blog followers might appreciate an update.

Whilst out on the Yamaha this afternoon it went from being a bike with a very high mileage to one with a very low mileage.

Post Script

I got back home on Saturday afternoon, I managed to last until Monday morning before I had to go out on the bike again (and you're right - that isn't High Wycombe in the picture).

On Wednesday I took the bike for an MOT test. Now obviously after more than 40,000 miles it didn't pass. So, having ridden for 11 months on bad roads, no roads, dirt, sand, mud, snow, corrugations, gravel, rocks, floods, landslides and river crossings what was the one thing it failed on? A deteriorated numberplate.

That's all folks

So if I was doing it all again what would I do differently? Well I'd take a universal sink plug with me. And that's about it. I'd try to carry less luggage but I don't know what I'd leave behind. Oh, and I wouldn't carry my water in two Fuller's London Pride water bottles. When you're riding across some of the hottest and driest places on the planet it doesn't half make you fancy a pint.

Not a good sign

And now the end is near...

Alles In Ordnung

I thought that perhaps the procedure for getting the bike back in Germany might be a little more straightforward than it had been in previous countries but it still involved going to 5 different counters in 4 different buildings.

The process starts at Cargo City South Building 501. Where is Cargo City South Building 501? Between buildings 537 and 534 of course.

Heading Home

Two days of train travel made a change, but everytime I saw a stretch of road out of the window I found myself looking at it longingly. So I decided to hire a car for the trip back to Frankfurt.

Its been a long, long time since I last drove a car and, even though it was only small, in comparison to what I´ve been used to for the last 11 months it felt like I was driving a bus.

With luck the bike and I will be reunited tomorrow morning and then I´ll start heading back to England. Which I suppose in a very roundabout way I´ve been doing ever since I left.

Zugspitze

When I left Buenos Aires the temperature was 30 degrees so minus 18 on top of Germany´s highest mountain came as a bit of a shock to the system.

Garmisch-Partenkirchen

The German Olympic team arrived in Garmisch last night. They´re sponsored by Milka, and now so am I.

Nurnberg

I stayed in Nurnberg at the start of the trip and I´ve returned for 2 very good reasons:

Unfortunately all the beer drinking has left me with no time to visit the pigeon museum, the beer glass museum or the garden shed museum. All good reasons to return I´m sure.

Waiting

The bike was meant to fly from Buenos Aires on Wednesday night but due to a problem with the paperwork it wasn´t put on the plane. The shipping agent is blaming the airline, the airline blames the shipping agent. It now won´t arrive until the middle of next week so instead of hanging around in Frankfurt I´ve decided to see a bit of Germany by train.

Frankfurt

Why Frankfurt? Well I could´ve flown straight back to England, but that seemed a little unimaginative. I chose Frankfurt because its a direct flight from Buenos Aires with Lufthansa Cargo, which has a good reputation for shipping bikes. But as it turned out it was cheaper for the bike to fly with Iberia via Madrid and more convenient for me to fly Alitalia via Rome.

Praise You

We´ve come a long, long way together
Through the hard times and the good
I have to celebrate you baby
I have to praise you like I should...

More than 40,000 miles and apart from consumables the only parts I've had to replace are the speedo cable, one oil seal and the starter switch.

Buenos Aires (again)

I´m back in Buenos Aires, which unfortunately means my time in South America is almost at an end. Tomorrow I´m going to a shipping agent to organise the bike´s return home and once I´ve done that I can book my flight.
Then again, I left my tyre inflator behind in Russia so perhaps I should just retrace my steps and go and pick it up.

I´d forgotten that Argentinians like to eat late - at 8 o´clock at night I´m tucking in to my dinner, everybody else in the restaurant is having afternoon coffee.

The Battery Saga

Yesterday the bike started with the help of a jump start. This morning that didn´t work - it needed a push start, and another one when I stopped for petrol. I tried three bike shops in Colon (where I stayed overnight) for a battery but it took another three attempts in Gualeguaychu before I finally struck lucky. The new battery didn´t solve the problem, however, and after a bit of hot-wiring the mechanic diagnosed the starter switch. Now, this being a back-street garage in rural Argentina they obviously didn´t have an original Yamaha replacement but they did have a universal switch. The only problem with that was that the connectors didn´t line-up and after half an hour of pulling wires apart he still couldn´t get it to work. Just as he was trying a second switch it struck me - "Starter switch!". I´m sure that was one of the spares I brought with me and after emptying out my pannier I found it. Now if I´d´ve been him I think at this point I would´ve been cursing the dumb Englishman who´d just produced the spare part that I´d needed 45 minutes ago but fortunately he just seemed pleased to have it. By this time there was no way of knowing how the wiring was originally and it took another 20 minutes of trial and error to work it out.
When I got the bill the battery was on there but my new Argentinian best friend wouldn´t accept anything for the hour and a half´s labour. Instead there was an exchange of gifts - I got an Argentinian sticker and he got a couple of Union Jack badges.

I wonder...

I wonder if I'll still have my lunch at petrol stations when I get back to England?

How Ungrateful

I decided to give the bike a treat and wash it yesterday afternoon. How does it repay this act of kindness? With a flat battery this morning. It had a new battery before I left, it needed a new one in Panama City and now it needs a third meaning I'm only getting six months use out of each one.

Southern Brasil

Green fields, cows, a pleasant 22 degrees. I was just thinking this could be England. Then a flamingo flew overhead to remind me it

wasn´t.

Back to Buenos Aires

I was hoping that from Rio it would be a short hop down to Sao Paulo in order to arrange the shipping of the bike back home. Unfortunately the shipping agent I´ve been in contact with has told me that the Brazilian customs procedure is a long-winded and expensive bureaucratic nightmare so I´ve decided to take a rather longer hop back to Buenos Aires and ship the bike from there instead.

Rio de Janeiro

I´ve missed the carnival by a few days but that was a conscious decision - a hotel room would´ve been 300 pounds a night and even to get a bed in a hostel dorm would´ve been 50 pounds but with a 7 night minimum stay.