Ourinhos to Taubate, Sunday, 10 March 2013, Day 250

Handy Bus stops for putting on waterproofs and at least daisy sort of getting a clean 🙂

It rained heavily all night but it was sort of dry when I left this morning you would think that the rain would have taken some of the heat away but it is still very hot. I am trying to get past Sao Paulo today as I do not fancy staying there as it’s a huge dangerous metropolis I am glad I am doing this on a Sunday as I cannot imagine what its like on a normal week day. The strange thing about to day coming into Sao Paulo the toll roads are now free for motorcyclist and they have small lanes at the side where bikes go through for nothing where as up till now I had spend a fortune in Brazil on tolls. All of them except one there where about 20 toll booths spread across the road I was heading for the far right as this where the bike lane usually is but as I was doing this a car started honking his horn and signalling me to go for the middle as at this one the bike lane right in the middle just to confuse us poor foreigners like me so I had to cross another 10 lanes of traffic to get to the bike lane like I said I was glad it was Sunday. As I left Sao Paulo they started charging again for motorcyclist so Philly is confused and ask an attendant why this in bad Spanish and response I got  in Portuguese but from what I can gather going into town is free for bikes going out you have to pay so I am guessing my faffing and taken my time at toll booths may have been noticed by the owners so they are not charging on the way in when I am guessing its utter chaos in morning rush hour now for the rest of country all toll roads free for motorcyclist as we are small and inefficient vehicles to process so lets do away with charging us.

Good Graffiti like it when done well.

I got lost a couple of time getting across Sao Paulo as there where huge 10 lane highways split into smaller ones all going the same way but taking different routes to get there around the various obstacles and spaghetti junction after spaghetti junction so even with my GPS I was finding it hard to navigate through this mine field.

I was heading for a place called Sao Jose dos Campus as this seemed like a big town past Sao Paulo leaving a reasonable run left to get me to Rio.

I drove around looking for a hotel and there did not seem to be any affordable ones available and if the where affordable they had no availability. It was hot again had been raining earlier in the day and it was threatening to rain again. My lonely Planet had nothing on the places I have been travelling through the last couple of days so I take a look at the map and there is another town called Taubate about 40km down the road so I have a new destination.

Yes it was Ideal.

I finally found a nice little affordable nice hotel I’m Taubate and go for a wander around town looking for food. Again this is just another ordinary Brazilian town but pleasant enough for an evening.I find a Chinese restaurant for my dinner and it has been a while since I had had  one and I ordered Singapore Noodles, which was more Indian Curry than Chinese style but it was a nice change.

     

Got back to the hotel just as it started to piss down with rain. I was sitting the kitchen/ dining room which was a building attached to the side of the house and not attached that well as it was pouring outside and water was running down the walls and across the floor so I retired to my room which was in a more waterproof part of the building 🙂

 

Trindade to Sao Paulo, Sunday, 17 March 2013,Day 257

No photos at all taken today due to extreme wet weather conditions so a random shot from yesterday!

Today I had arranged to meet Andrea and Alex in Sao Paulo and they where staying with an American Chap called Jake who they had found via ADV Riders Tent Space and I had also dropped him a line a couple of days of ago asking could I also stay at the same time and the response was sure so I had a destination back to Sao Paulo the only problem was it was pissing down with rain but I guess this is to be expected when you are staying in a rain forest. So I packed Daisy in the rain said Tata to everyone I was a bit sad to be leaving as I could have easily stayed a couple more days in this great little place but you know me onward and forward it is unlikely that I will double back but I highly recommended the Kaissara Hostel in Trindade unless you are an arse then your are not welcome 🙂

It was further and longer than I thought to Sao Paulo you probably thinking its Phillys planning and map reading gone wrong again but today I will blame the weather it never stopped raining all day and I mean raining the proper hard wet stuff I was soaking wet all day.I had to negotiate some seriously tricky roads steep winding roads with cars crawling up the hills on roads that where more like rivers than roads it would be just about ok if no traffic but a huge amount of slow stop start traffic on very steep inclines with little to no grip so Daisy clutch was given a serious workout today I am trying not to stop as when you did you had to try a cover the back brake as the front had no weight or grip on it so it would lock and then start sliding backwards and I am not very good at going backwards some say not very good in going forward either 🙂  (ABS is no good in these conditions either)

But as Daisy is fully loaded and is pretty heavy so holding her up on one leg whilst sliding backwards and trying to cover the back brake as well is very difficult so there was a lot of cursing going on in Phillys Nolan Helmet today.

Then I hit all the tolls road into Sao Paulo so I had to stop and take my sopping wet gloves of pull out my soggy wet wallet to pay the toll a slow wet and unnecessary exercise in my view but I do not have much choice.

I was a wet soggy mess when I reached Jakes flat in the Sao Paulo after getting lost on Sao Paulo’s spaghetti junctions more than once.

A quick shower and I was sort of human again and had an excellent evening with Jake and his wife Andrea and A & A and little Olivia there 2 year old daughter keeping us all entertained. A Brazilian BBQ the meat it just kept on coming all night, which was fantastic for this hungry carnivore. So a tough wet day today but it finished with excellent company and the perfect hosts so a big thank you to Jake, Andrea and Olivia for being so hospitable to this wet weary traveller it is most appreciated.

  

Views from Jakes flat only took 2 piccies today due to bad weather

So after the perfect evening after a wet day in the saddle there’s was only one casualty that being Phillys Passport I had it in its usual place in my Rukka jacket pocket but I guess today there was just to much water as it was a soggy mess a lot of the Visas are ruined I think the Brazilian one is just about legible fortunately but lots of the others are ruined so this could be a problem further down the road. Last time I ruined a passport like this I could not leave the country for 2 months until I got a new one this and this was in Hong Kong in 96 just before the handover so I am hoping it will not be the same issue here!

Sao Paulo to Curitiba, Monday, 18 March 2013, Day 258

Is this how Philly is feeling at the moment?

I had breakfast with A & A as Jake and Andrea had already gone to work. A & A heading to the airport to catch a plane to Munich to pick up Gunnar (there Daisy) to then drive to Bucharest I hope the weathers is not to bad for them and Philly is heading South destination at this stage unknown.

A & A heading back to Bucharest so yet another bye bye photo been a few hopefully there will be more 🙂

I would just like to take this opportunity to thank Jake and Andrea for being the perfect hosts to a total stranger at such short notice I am not sure you know how much I appreciate such gestures and how nice it is to stay at folks houses after you have been on the road for so long and I very much enjoyed meeting you and getting to share your bit of Brazil for an evening so for that I thank you 🙂

Daisy is looking cleaner which is a benefit of all the rain however my sheepskin is still wet and my riding kit is still damp but this will dry out on the way (Optimist). It was dull and overcast as I tried to find my way out of Sao Paulo back to the coast and before I knew it I was raining again so it looks like another wet day in the saddle and it was. It rained then stopped then rained some more  and I did not see much when it was raining it was probably a very pretty ride that I did but I was in the clouds or it was pissing down so I could not see much along the way. I had to be pretty focussed all day as roads where very greasy and treacherous when wet.

Daisy amongst the Bananas

As I was heading down the coast wet damp and not been able to see anything the thought that was going through my head was why am I doing this I should just call it quits and go home. I think I was a bit jealous of A & A who where on the plane heading home and just seen a glimpse of being at home at Jakes and Andreas and I was a bit road weary myself and it was going to be another month before I would be back in my little pad in Holland. So I was doing the calculation on how long I would need to get to Buenos Aires and could I move my flight forward could Sandra get Daisy on a plane earlier so in other words I was wet miserable lonely and I wanted to go home. But than the other side of the argument kicked in Phillip Dean Beckwith you jammy shit you are riding a wonderful motorcycle Daisy through Brazil you are going to ride down along the coast to and through Uruguay as well. You have the luxury currently of not having to work and the huge opportunity to experience stuff other folk’s just dream about and you are out there doing it now. You will be bored shitless after being back for a week wishing you where here just like how you are wishing you are back at home at the moment so in short after wallowing and feeling sorry for myself gave myself a little pep talk and at that moment the sun should have come out birds should have starting singing with nice music fading in but that did not happen it just kept on raining so I started the singing myself and I punched in Curitiba as my new destinations in my GPS as I am always happier when I have a target and it’s a good sign when Philly is singing as normally this means he is happy. About that taking it easy it was 2pm and Curitiba was 280km wet riding away so I also was happy at giving myself stupid hard stretch targets it leaves me less time for wallowing and feeling sorry for myself as I now needed to focus on the job on hand instead.

I pulled up at the place that I had punched into my GPS 4 hours ago with no feeling in my fingers as it was cold and I was soaked to the skin. I was not sure what the place I was heading for would be like but it turned to be an Hostelling International place so not to expensive and a courtyard for Daisy and a simple one bed room for Philly and across the road a shopping mall with a huge food court so in short everything I need after another long wet day in the saddle so I settle in hung up all my wet kit and went for some food and aI  wander then back to the hostel to update this and then to bed. I  had a blanket for the first time in ages it is a complete change in the weather from hot and sweaty to cold and wet so all I need is to get rid of either the sweaty and or the wet part and I would be much happier but as I have no influence on this lets just roll with punches and see what tomorrow will bring 🙂

Hopefully the sun will come out down the road and I will get to see what is hidden behind the veil of clouds and rain heres hoping 🙂

Buenos Aires to Den Haag via Istanbul Friday, 12 April 2013 to Sunday, 14 April 2013 Day 283 to Day 285

It is 30 October 2017 and its about time I finished this story before I forget entirely and I did commit to completing this so I really should bring this blog home  🙂

I woke up to horrendous screaming sound outside which went on for a while but then it stopped as quickly as it had started so I rolled over and tried to get some more sleep as I did not have to be anywhere until my plane left at 2300 this evening.

I woke up again and I saw Negrita the cat out of the corner of my eye eating from her bowl and it look like she had a bit of red wire caught on her tale that she may need some help removing.

It turned out the screaming I heard earlier was Negrita she had been attacked by something and somehow got her tail caught in something, which had stripped her tail down to bone, which looked to me like a strip of red wire! It was if like someone had taken some wire strippers to the end her tale! YUK!

Javier and Sandra took of that morning to take Negrita to the vet and I spent the morning sorting my kit. I had decided to dump a lot of kit and I should be travelling light but as mentioned before I am a hoarder and I find it difficult to throw stuff away or leave anything so of course I brought back loads of crap that was neither any use nor ornament.

My plane this evening was not until 2300 so in theory I did not have to be at the airport until 2100 so I had loads of time to kill but as you know I am paranoid about being late so I was itching to leave.

Javier and Sandra had returned from the Vet and we ordered lunch to be delivered which is a tradition here at Moto Dakar and I had ordered my last Lomito sandwich and with all the folks who were staying at Moto Dakar we had lunch in the back yard.

Talking to Adam and he tells me has more than 6,000 e-books that he had downloaded (illegally!) from the Internet and would I like a copy. It’s the end of my trip but hey why not you can never get enough reading material for my Kindle so a huge data transfer was the next exercise for the day.S

This seemed to take for ever and I was getting nervous as I needed to get to the airport (I still had loads of time spare but my being late paranoia of missing my plane was setting in) I Finally uploaded 6,469 books so plenty of reading material for the coming years!

Said goodbye to everyone then headed to the station it is about 2PM so way to early but I wanted to get moving.

I got the local train to Buenos Aires Central, as I knew I could get an airport bus from there. That was the theory!

Got to the main station of Buenos Aires and as I walked outside it was total chaos. It is normally very busy outside the station but today it was bedlam traffic in total gridlock and loads of folks on the street. Something is happening here but as yet I have no idea what it is. I make my way to the bus station treading my way through the stationery traffic I get there and I head for the ticket office and in my best Spanish I ask “one ticket to the airport por favour”. I get some response, which I could not comprehend or maybe I could, but my brain just didn’t want to accept the answer. It turned out all the main roads around Buenos Aires were being blocked and there was a huge general strike taking place. This explained the gridlock I had witnessed outside but it did not answer the question on how on earth am I going to get to the airport with all main roads being blocked in that direction and no one knew when the roads would be clear.

It was suggested I get a taxi cab as they may be able to find a route not using the main routes and I could get to the airport that way and there was to be no buses running anytime soon or today.

So I headed back into the gridlock traffic with this new plan in mind but the rest of the folks at the bus station where also using this plan and the traffic was not moving outside and very few taxis to be seen and they had the monopoly currently so this could be an expensive endeavour even if I could find an available taxi.

I went to a large hotel opposite the station and there was free taxi there I had a chat with the driver about getting to the airport he said it was possible but will take a long time I had been joined by another English Guy who was also desperate to get to the airport and we did a deal as there was no other real options and we trickled into the gridlock traffic travelling at a snails pace as the traffic was going nowhere fast. We passed the bus station and we picked up two more passenger two girls who also needed to catch a plane and we set of in the direction of the airport avoiding the main roads but as was everyone else we were not getting anywhere fast.

It was fun trip chatting to my fellow passengers playing games and generally killing time as the taxi crawled through the traffic to the airport.

I cannot remember the names of my fellow passengers but a pleasant company they were all a bit more stressed than I was as there planes were a lot earlier than mine.

We got to the airport at about 2100 my fellow passengers said goodbye rushed of to catch their planes after splitting the bill and I walked casually to the check in as I was bang on time for mine (Smug smile and happy that my paranoia about being late for train/bus/plane had kicked in as if I had left later with the view that nothing would go wrong I would have missed my plane)

Plane left Buenos Aires at 2300 so time for a McDonalds for my diner and then to the plane. We landed in Sao Paulo Brazil at 0200 to pick up more passengers and then on to Istanbul Turkey I am slowly heading in the direction of home well sort of.

Arrived in Istanbul Turkey at 2135 in the evening I have no idea what time it is in my body and my flight for Amsterdam does not leave until 0820 the following day so consider heading into Istanbul for the night or getting a Hotel here at the Airport for the night but I did not like either options so find a bench and crash for a kip and then spend the rest of the evening roaming the airport watching the clock slowly move towards my departure time.

A short flight to Amsterdam arriving at 1100 and I was back in the Netherlands. Good flight thanks to Turkish Airlines reasonable price it was cold compared to Argentina and I got the train back to The Hague and I presumed the position on my leather couch reflecting not only on this chaotic trip back from Argentina but also on the last year and what I had done. Wow 🙂