BsAs to MDP

It was time to leave Buenas Aires, a lovely city but time to move on. It took me longer than i thought to work out how to take my golf shoes with me but i did it!

Woke the car park attendant at 7:00 (scratched nuts as normal - his not mine). Drive out of BsAs was easy and I was soon on the road south. There was a fair bit of traffic but the road was good (too good really as it felt like cheating). It is amazing how much they like the bike - lots of waving and thumbs up. Every time you stop they ask to take pictures. I will have to stop draping myself over it my gold lame budgie smugglers.

The Bike has tyre pressure monitors and the front was reading low so i stopped at a tyre place along the way. Looked like a father and son team - 110 & 80  years old respectively. Whilst the father checked & put some air in the tyre, the son told me he had been born in the UK and was in the Royal Navy - I think he must have left his teeth onboard his last ship, well most of them. Again money is not an object to the people, i offered a few notes but he said "just one coin". The largest coin is 1 Peso - 15p and he only wanted this as a token..

The drive is across the Pampas - basically the biggest, flatest field you ever saw, with a lot of cows and horses. There was an occassional smattering of Sunflowers (just past the flowering stage which was a shame) and corn. When I say a smattering - I suppose the fields were about the size of Surrey. The farms or Estancias are absolutely enormous and miles apart. They have impressive entrances and names, obviously not as big as the ones you see in suburban Surrey but these guys only have about 20,000 acres.

As luck would have it, the road passes Fangio's hometow, Balcarce. Well sort of. On the Ruta 2 i passed this monument with a road sign saying Balcarce (no distance on the sign). So i did a u turn, took a picture and headed off., I then saw a guy at the side of the road so thought i would check i was going the right way. So in "perfect" spanish i discovered i was and it was 7 kms away. I drove on full of the joys of spring. 7 kms came and went so i started thinking about what he told me.......it wasn't 7 (seite) it was 70 (setenta). Now i am looking at my fuel gauge as i head further in to the pampas - without any cars for company (70 there 70 back).

Luckily the first thing you see in Balcarce is two Petrol stations next to each other (YPF and Shell).The bike got it's usual attenton which gave me the chance to ask directions. Balcarce is not a large town but it is real farming territory, so the drive to the Museum takes you past all manner of Agri equipment lots. I stopped to ask directions once more and i was right in front of the building! but as you can see it is not like a museum admittedly it did have some rather large flags with Fangio written on them.
 It is the best museum i have been too (been to Le Mans & Ferrari in Modena). It is really well laid out and they have "all" his cars there - Maerati 250f, 300s, 450s, Ferrari, Mercedes, Gordini, Talbot, Chevy (Alec Daly has a Chevy like these that Fangio drove). A Senna McClaren MP4, Merc Group C car and more silverware than Catlow.
 Bumped in to a petrol head (who spoke perfect English) and gave me his card - he runs a bar in Cordoba! I will have to pop in when i am in the North!
I would like to have bought all sorts of things from the shop but just havent got room for anything else (well not until i ditch the golf shoes).
Got to Mar Del Plata shortly after so i dug out my phone and tapped in the address of my hotel. well it lost the plot and sent me 20 kms in the wrong direction (20 there 20 back). I ended up turning it off and using my nose (and you know how big that is).
i went round and round - basically because i got different information from each person I asked. Then at a set of lights a Taxi driver pulled alongside, all smiles & thumbs up. Telling me wasn't good enough so he said "follow me". And bingo straight to the hotel. He parked and came over (on an very busy street). "this is my dream bike etc". The Hotel is right on the front with a 4 lane highway next to it (attractive eh?). so he talks to the doormans - just put it on the pavement "Si, si". so i part the hordes of holiday makers and park it by the revolving door ( I would have liked a picture of this, but that would have been pushing it).
Transpires they have an underground car park & the taxi driver personally leads me there.What a nice man - no money required but i did manage to give him a few pesos. 
Pisser was that it was a tight car park and I had to park on a "pavement" - hit a bollard and knocked one of the spot lights off! Should be fun trying to find Superglue, if not i have my xmas present from tom - duct tape!

Mar Del Plata - what to say? a picture paints a thousand words:i know you cant see any sand but this really is the beach, whats more this area is for the exclusive use of hotel guests. You want to see more?

I can only say it is Torrimelinos (however you spell it) meets Blackpool (I think i got this one right) on a Bank Holiday weekend. A shame but at least i have seen a different side of the Argentinians. Do you think this is what they would like to do to the Falklands?