Jan 18, 2005
No, I didn´t get very far yesterday. And now it looks like I´ll be riding back to Buenos Aires.
Once I got here, my bike started leaking a bit of oil out the differential. So I could go to Montevideo and take my chances, or go straight to Buenos Aires, where I know someone actually has the ability to repair it.
I was loading up my bike yesterday, and someone started talking to me, trying to sell me a motorcycle, figuring that if I was traveling on one, I might like to take another one with me. I told him that I was on my way to Montevideo to find a dentist, so he recommended his dentist in the next town over, then offered to put me up at his house.
There are no free lunches. I´ve seen the videos of his last four vacations, I´ve seen videos of him dressed as Santa on New Year´s Eve. I´ve seen videos of his son visiting Texas. I´ve seen videos of a marathon race, I´ve had the entire Uruguay road system explained to me. We went through the entire yellow page listings for motorcycle dealers in Montevideo, with detailed explainations about each one. I know everywhere he´s ever lived in his life. There is not a seller of motor oil in this town who doesn´t know that I´m trying to find a particular grade. I´ve turned down offers to disassemble my bike on the sidewalk in front of his house. His voice was the last thing I heard when I went to sleep, and in the morning he was waiting on the porch, with more ideas of how to fix my bike, if I could just explain to him how it is put together.
His wife doesn´t talk much.
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