february 11 - 20

on our way back to colonia, we found a nice and very cheap little campground in kiyu, the most "tranquilo-superlindo" village, we have been so far. everybody was relaxed, the girl in the supermarket or the two policemen, sittin on the porch in front of their policestation. we had a tentsite directly at the lovely beach of the rio del a plata. after building up our tent, we had a short bath in the warm water and a stroll along the shore. after watching the sunset we saw lots of "gluehwuermchen", shining like little stars and a "sternschnuppe" appeared on the sky, very romantic.

next day we brought back "el rochito" to the car rental and stayed for the rest of the day in the hostel. we could do our laundry, made a stroll through the beautiful old center of the town and had dinner in a street restaurant.


next day we took the ferry to buenos aires and arrived early, so we could walk some hours through this big city until our bus left to mendoza.

the walk to uvas hostel, where we stored our bicycles, was taking all my nerves, but the bikes were ok and all our luggage still there. we found some boxes in a supermarket and at bmw-argentina, so we could box our bikes. we had a bad peach and got "montezumas revenge" two days before our departure, so we sat almost all night long on the toilet seat and lay in bed the next day. no last bife de chorizo !!!
next morning we got our king-size-bikeboxes into the bus to santiago for 50 extra pesos each and had a long busride to chile, with a two hours stop at the border from argentina to chile in about 4000m altitude, which made us dizzy. in santiago we stored the boxes at the busterminal and had our last stay in one of the best southamerican hostels.

bike transport to the airport was not so difficult and check in was ok, but we had to pay airport taxes, which should have been included in our rtw-tickets. after a one hour delay we sat in the fat airbus, heading east to new zealand.