Buenos Aires 2 - Troy

I have now been almost 5 days in BA and still have my bike and all my documents (ie neither has been stolen).

I will now tell the story of Neal Dawes.. U.S. American. I began my trip travelling with Neal, though due to the usual fluctuations and incumbrences of the many factors that come into play while travelling on motorbikes; we had separated in Antigua (Gutemala) then met up again in Cartagena, Colombia and rode until Cali, from whence he then continued his journey south alone.

I had been hoping, after Tutu flew out of Salta, to be able to meet up again with Neal in Buenos Aires. I contacted him but received no reply, so planned my journey down ruta 40 to Mendoza. Unfortunately I ended up getting a response from him that a couple of problems had kept him there.

I received mail from him a couple of weeks back (which I received lat cos I had been camping and had no net) that he had been in the process of leaving BA to ride to Igauzu Falls, when... I will post his mail to explain (I'm sure he would be OK with this since it could forewarn other travellers):

A really fun reminder on theft in the city. Yep, this morning while packing my bike in front of the hotel I got taken. A lady ran up to me in a panic, I turned for just a moment, to see what was wrong, turned back around tank bag is gone. Now normally this would just piss me off, unfortunatly today was tragic. I had put everthing of value in my tank bag and had it in a locker at the hostel. So for seven months made efforts to keep things separate and my docs in a zipped inside pocket. On this day I lost....

Passport w/ newly obtained Brazil Visa
Bike Title, Drivers Liscence, Import papers
Camera
Zip drive, so all photos totally gone
Spot
Guide Book
Maps

I was in a rush, was setting my tank bag on the bike and trying to get the safety strap hooked. 2 more seconds the bag would have been secured to the bike and would not have grown legs. This is a nice street at 10 am, doesn´t matter. Its so hard not to react to someone in that situation. Best to always have your stuff secure and never all in one place.

Thus I made sure that the Dingo has been securely parked, and that my docs are secure, so thanks to Neal for the heads up.

I have now spent almost 5 days in BA and though it is an amazing cosmopolitan city, it's no fun without my amigo Tim. Also I had thought the paperwork to get into Brasil might be easy here, but that isn't the case, so I will ride towards Iguazu Falls tomorrow and deal with it there, at which I have read on the net, that they can process a visa in 1 rather than 5 days.