Santa Barbara to Buenos Aires, and then some...

I completed my after-burner run south; arrived MVD just after sunset. Yesterday I asked a local friend with good taste(y) to send me a couple links for a nice hotel in the city- but not downtown. He sent me a couple links, both to the same hotel... Ask and ye shall receive. Anyway, I roll into town looking like death on a cracker and I'm cruising the malicon when I see a Grand hotel - so I whip it into their entrance thinking to get directions... Not necessary, this is the place; except they have rates published at reception and I'm not paying them. I ask chico con leche at reception to make some call for me because I'm doing moto diaries and just don't need 4 stars. He does, everyplace close is sold out so he cuts the price by 50% and I move in. Yesterday I stayed in a DUMP, your basic negative one star hotel. I knew I was in trouble when I could see the bus station from my window. The first week of riding is harder than 4 hours a day in the gym! Today was ...

Montevideo or bust. Nick via BlackBerry

Got up early and checked out the mainland part of the city - blah - then I did a drive around the island: nice. The cold front was settled in with rain so I headed back south through the front and made good weather about 4PM. Still had hours more of constant construction and detours accompanied by several thousand mega trucks - pleasure touring at its finest. Made Port Happy about 8 PM and didn't feel like hotel shopping so I checked into a dive - and what a dive. Tomorrow looks bleak. I don't really want to push it to make Montevideo (725 km plus an international border and two aduanas) and none of the places in between are up for any awards. Whoa is me. Nick via BlackBerry

Today started out nice - drove around the mountain resorts, took the worlds slowest ski lift to no-where and saw a dribblong water fall and then I got stupid! I'm in Florinapolis now - what a drive... Seven hours of hell accompanied by a cold front and pouring rain forever. It felt like Guatamala all overt again. All my moto-muscles are crying. The Brazilians are doing the largest public works road project in the history of... Something. I don't want to talk about it now. Arrived Florinapolis expecting ... I don't know - something nice. Yikes! I won't say more now - so I have a chance to see it better tomorrow. Gotta go, Nick via BlackBerry

I'm up in the mountains at Gramado - beautiful! Just when I thought I was getting comfortable with the background language they went and changed it to this Dutch/Vietnam sounding noise. Actually its a very pretty language; deceptively similar to spanish but don't get your hopes up. There are lots of people who look like me here. Brazil is expensive (well, food and gas is anyway) More later Nick via BlackBerry

I wrote a long, witty blog entry - and then accidently deleted it, *±#¤! The drive up the coast of Uruguay was beautiful and uneventful - got pseudo lost as the map indicated that the bridge below could be used... Out in the middle of nowhere was a United Nations Air base and the highway was designated as an emergency landing strip - they expanded it to HUGE to accomodate cargo planes and it was fully painted as a runway. Uruguay, like Argentina features mainly meals based on beef so a good salad seems newsworthy. Heading North for a change. Nick via BlackBerry

The city was getting monotonous and I needed to get Mr. Moto's documents renewed so I'm off - this time on a loop north through Uruguay and into Brazil. I hope to visit the mountains west of Porto Alegre (Gramando) and just generally ride the coastal road via Florianopolis and as far north as, but not planning on entering, Rio. It's nice to be on the road again! Nick via BlackBerry