Asheville to Argentina

It’s a bit discouraging. The motos are in Cali. We saw them when we went down to Copa de carga in hopes of getting on them and riding out of this big city into the mountains to the south. But hope ran head-long into reality when we were told the inspector, whose signature we need, isn’t working today. And tomorrow is Sunday, so he won’t be in. And Monday is a holiday. So we can come back on Tuesday, after getting our papers stamped at the customs office downtown, and pick up our bikes then. We tried everything we could think of including offering a “tip” to the inspector. That got his attention, but there are two more people who need to sign-off on our documents, and they aren’t available.  So we got nowhere and now we’re back in Cali for a few more days.

That makes seven days between arriving in Panama City and potentially throwing a leg over my bike in South America. Add to that the time we spent waiting for my clutch in Patulul Guatemala and San Jose Costa Rica for Shannon’s oil leak, and that’s almost three weeks of sitting around. Its left us both a bit discouraged, short tempered and antsy.

We’re trying to make the best of the situation and have left the sketchy hotel.  We’re now in a nicer place in an area of Cali called Granada. It’s more affluent here and there are a lot of restaurants, bars, galleries and shops. Its really the nicest place we’ve been since crossing into Mexico. Walking around here is interesting enough, but no matter how you slice it, its still just killing time.

We had originally planned to take a boat down the Amazon from Yurimagas Peru, out past Iquitos and on to Manaus Brazil, and from there drive south into Argentina. But with all these delays we abandoned that idea. Without the boat trip I thought we might have enough time to ride together down to Ushuaia, but even that idea seems to be slipping away as we sit flipping channels in another hotel room. I had expected shipping the bikes and customs to take a while, but I though that we would be spending this time in Quito with friends. Things didn’t work out like that and we’ve been flexible, but this pig’s going to need a lot of lipstick. So far we’ve been lucky and our down-time has allowed us to meet some great people. Lets hope that holds true for Cali.

The girls, in Copas warehouse and ready to fly

Panamas busses are cool, but not as cool as Guatemalas

Shannon, John and Jamie enjoy breakfast before we get on the plane to Columbia

The door to our seedy hotel, locked by a pipe through the handels

The bathroom door in our seedy hotel

The door to the john in Johns room

The weird box as seen from the hall. Shannon’s in the room. Anyone know why they’d have this in all the rooms?

Elvis tiles on the wall

Lenny is a white guy and has moobs.