Salta Argentina

This great image is me changing/repairing the rear tire using a pen light last night - second tire that day - a Peruvian waiting for a 30 hour bus ride to Buenos Aires came up and took control. He asked everyone we could talk to about a Gomeria - when he got the same answer three time he grabbed his roll-on and we started walking (its not far, they lied). We finally found a tire repair shop at 9 PM and convinced the owners kid to get his tools and call a taxi - tire off, another taxi & back to the shop, fix tire, call taxi, reassemble everything with pen light, oh, and I need to find a bank... Considered leaving bike but it was a really bad location and we're almost home. The peruvian missed his bus... I made it worth his time with both a lot of gratitude and something he had very little of.
Slime went into the punctured front that morning - a thorn from hell.
The border crossing could have been worse - see the line of people on the right - it goes for about 200 meters and it isn't single file (estimated wait time, 4+ hours; the argentines don't seem real motivated to expedite bolivians coming in so there was only one guy prossing passports). I found a sympathetic new-guy in the customs office who walked my passport through so he could then process the moto paperwork.
In beautiful Salta now, but after the last four days in Bolivia, Bakersfield would look heavenly.
I am going to write a little summary tomorrow from a pc.
The trip south from the border was some of the most spectacular views yet - I was here a year ago during the dry season and its like a different planet. Even Jujuy, which I was disappointed in last trip, was a joy and the old single-lane (but impeccable maintained) road between Jujuy and Salta is one of the nicest drives anywhere.
While on the road a couple guys flagged me down in a tricked out toyota 4x4 (like $50k in extras and spare parts) they said they've only seen one other american and six canadians on bikes heading south - they have been driving from utah since november. Did I mention that I finally dropped below 9000 feet for the first time since heading toward Machu Picchu in mid-Peru.
Argentina has two flavors of gas here 95 and 97 octane - all I could get 90% of the time in bolivia was 84.
I'm staying at a nice old hotel on Salta's main plaza - its tourist central, but... I'm going to put up here for a few days.
Nick
via BlackBerry