Patagonia-Bound: Buenos Aires

We approached Buenos Aires with the expectation of the shipping drudgery and killing time until our flight home. Our experience in Buenos Aires turned out just the opposite. We had a great week and thoroughly enjoyed the city. Dakar Motos was a big part of the joy, notably the warm welcome we got from Javier and Sandra, the owners, his friends and the travelers staying at the shop’s Hostel. In my opinion, and broadly speaking, Dakar Motos is the South American haven for motorcycle travelers. It is a repair shop, hostel, and hang-out all under one roof. More significantly it’s one of those rare places where motorcycle travelers feel “normal” and the reason for the trip is completely “understood”. The front of Dakar Motors

Pictured from the left are Javier, Ken, Carolyn, Andi and Sigrid.

Javier is one of those people that instantly befriends and makes you feel like you’ve known each other for years. He and Sandra, his wife, don’t seem to treat the shop as a business. It seems to be their life and Javier is quick to invite you in to it. Sandra, not pictured, helped us organize shipping the motorcycles. Sandra is one of those people you rarely met and remember forever. She is full of energy, always upbeat and has a genuine concern for helping other people.

Just to give more texture to the Dakar Moto experience I’ll describe the guest a bit more. Carolyn and Ken are from Australia. They are on the second leg of there round the world trip and have been travelling around South America since 2007. Ken and Javier had some great Dakar Race stories. I was green with envy. Of all things they kept mentioning Ricardo and his antics as they chased the race around Argentina. Sure enough it was Ricardo, from Ecuador we met in Lima and who joined us for diner. Small world. Andi and Sigrid are from Austria. They are traveling on 2 KLRs with bad shocks. They had to leave the motorcycles about 200 miles south of Buenos Aires, come to the shop to get replacement shocks and then bus back south to resume their trip. There was another guy, forgot his name, from Israel trying to sell his KLR so he could return home after touring around South America.

Leo, pictured above, from Germany shipped his African Twin from Germany to Fairbanks Alaska and rode it to Buenos Aires. He was hanging out in Buenos Aires doing odd jobs to make some money. We later found out he was a pretty good Asado cook, tango dancer, stand up comedian and chased by a numerous Argentine women. Also not pictured was Heinz from Germany. He arrived the day before we left. He was in amazingly good spirits given that he experienced the nightmare we all worry about. Sadly, he crashed in Chile destroying his motorcycle and cutting his trip short by two months. Fortunately he was not seriously injured.