History - Buenos Aires and the British

I saw something unusual today [2]. In the back of Santa Domingo Church and Convent on the corner of Defensa and Av. Belgrano are five flags. I think two are Argentinian standards, but the other three are from units of the British armed forces. They date back from 1806 when the British made the first of two abortive attempts to take Buenos Aires. Despite studying the period for A Level History this was the first I'd heard of it [1]. The plaques next to two of the colours said they were for 1st and 2nd Battalion 71st Regiment, which a bit of wikipedia tells me now lies within 2 SCOTS after the various amalgamations. The third claims to be Royal Marines although it appears to be disputed as to whether they are true colours. Given the importance of the colours to a regiment and the lengths they'll go to to not lose them (or failing that, get them back) seeing two or possibly three on public display surely has to be fairly rare.

Colours of the 1st Battalion 71st Regiment

Plaque reads: "Trofeo de la reconquista de Buenos Aires. 1806. Del Primer Batallon del Regimiento 71"

Apparently the British Army spent some of their time (while trying to take the city) in an area around Retiro in and around what is now Plaza San Martin. This later became a training ground for the Argentinian army and part of the park is now home to a memorial for the 649 Argentinians that died during the Falklands War.

Memorial in Plaza San Martin 

In the centre of the city, near to the Presidential Offices in the Casa Rosa, veterans of the Falklands conflict have been camped out in the square for years (probably decades) protesting for greater benefits for those affected by the war. I think it's telling that in the UK a similar thing is also taking place with the South Atlantic Medal Association campaigning to maintain support for UK veterans (some of whom are still struggling to come to terms with their experiences) and the (at least) 95 for whom it was too much and committed suicide.

I wonder whether in thirty years time we're going to see the same thing with veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, long after it's the done thing to wear a Help for Heroes wristband?

Notes:

1. I can still remember learning about Nelson's victory in Trafalgar in 1805, bits about the Peninsula war, the introduction of Income Tax as a temporary measure by Pitt the Younger, but maybe my lack of knowledge of anything that took part in the southern hemisphere is why I got a B...
2. Update 16/4/14: It's been pointed out that there's a lot of stuff about flags here. Any similarity with Sheldon Cooper's "Fun with Flags" is purely coincidental...

La Ruta

The route is uncertain. Primarily because all of the elements in the "distance-speed-time" triangle are currently uncertain. I don't know how fast I'll travel (or how far I can cover in a day), I don't know for sure how many days I have [1] and so I don't know where I'll end up (or where I need to end up).

Attached below is a very neat drawing of the planned route, as interpreted by my 4 year old niece. Start in Buenos Aires (arriving by plane, although I can't recall if it was blue as drawn). Then on my black motorbike I'll head south through Argentina to Patagonia and the penguins, before coming back north, onto the west side of the Andes up to around Colombia, seeing guinea pigs en route.

2014 Road Trip by Izzy

Some of the things I would like to see / do on the way [2]:

• Learn Spanish (so a couple of longer stays in interesting places to have a language course and practice in between, like Valparaiso);
• See Patagonia, the penguins and the glaciers (and I think whales on the way down and back). Antarctica would be cool but I doubt I'll make it this time;
• Go to the Altaplano and salt flats;
• Visit the wine regions;
• Climb Macchu Picchu;
• Visit the Galapagos and in doing so sail across the equator;
• Drop in on a few breweries and sample the product.

Notes:

1. This depends on two things: work and the all important "savings-burn rate-time" triangle.

2. Not comprehensive and open to suggestions/recommendations as long as they're reasonable and timely (i.e. don't tell me that I "must go to somewhere in Argentina" when I'm in  Peru...).

Bike/Kit: Introducing The Bike

The Bike, gender currently tbc (1), is a Yamaha XT660Z Tenere.

I chose the Tenere because I didn't want / couldn't justify the price of a BMW, didn't trust the reliability of the Ducati (speaking from experience - the other woman in my life is a 748) or the Triumph and couldn't find an equivalent Honda or Suzuki. Although I like the idea of a KTM I didn't want to have to get a bigger bike - I went for the 660 over the 1200 Super Tenere as I'm not sure I could see the benefit in a bigger, heavier (therefore thirstier and harder to pick up) bike. That makes it sound like it was a process of elimination rather than a positive choice but (so far) I'm a big fan of the Tenere. The tank is big and it's relatively frugal so has good range. Once you swing your leg over it (it's quite tall), it's comfortable to ride and nicely balanced seated or stood. The 660 engine, although not going to win many drag races, is known for being bomb proof, and (apparently) has a low compression ratio which means it will cope better with poor quality fuel (which might be more likely in some of the places I'm going to). That's not to say that the other's aren't legitimate choices - that's not an argument I want to get into!

The bike at Dover about to make its first foreign foray

It came fitted with the "Adventure" kit which comprises panniers, hand guards, main stand and tank pad. I've made a couple of alterations / additions to this:

• Crash plate (Adventure spec) - this appeared to offer more side protection than the Yamaha or Touratech ones although there is some vibration;
• Heated grips (Oxford);
• Headlight protector (Yamaha);
• Fog lamps - left and right (Touratech);
• Auxiliary power socket (Touratech);
• Camel toe (Touratech);
• Radiator grill (Metal Mule);
• Brake fluid reservoir protector (Touratech);
• Works footpegs (Touratech);
• Screen spoiler (Touratech);
• Rectifier cover (Touratech);
• RAM bracket for GPS (RAM mount UK);
• Scottoiler vSystem with Dual injector (Scottoiler);
• Zega Pro topcase rack (Touratech) - because I wanted to future proof it so I can use one of these...;
• Input for Oxford Solariser, solar battery charger.

In terms of luggage I have:

• 2 x panniers (22ltr each, Yamaha);
• 1 x tail bag (40ltr Wolfman Expedition dry duffel);
• 1 x tank bag (12 ltr - claimed, Touratech);
• 1 x handle bar bag (Touratech).

This seems like a lot but once you include tools, spares, paperwork and camping equipment there's not a lot left for luxuries like spare socks!

A profile view, not far from Ghent in Belgium

Notes

1. I'm not sure if it'll be the stalwart male companion that digs me out of a hole or the female love that I occasionally have a shouting match with but would go to the end of the world for.

What's in a name...

Basically all the good, easy to remember URLs had gone, so I went with this one - "un diario de la motocicleta" (without the spaces), which Google translate (I didn't trust my Spanish at the time) told me was "A motorcycle diary". The reason for calling it this is because:

• It references "The motorcycle diaries" or "Diarios de motocicleta", the story of Ernesto "Che" Guevara, Alberto Granado and their single cylinder Norton 500 bike's eye-opening journey from Buenos Aires to Venezuela, although I seem to recall that the bike didn't make it to the end. I'm starting in a similar place, following a similar route and also riding a big, single cylinder bike. I think the similarities are likely to end there, I'm the other side of 30, am not a medical student hoping to work in a leper colony and don't have ambitions to appear on the walls or T-shirts of (potentially misguided) students. I also don't suggest that I'm the first person to have done this since - hence the use of the indefinite article. (1)
• The title is in Spanish, or at least Spanglish, which is one of the reasons why I'm doing the trip. As such it would be very ironic if it was wrong...
• It will be partly a diary and partly about motorbikes and occasionally (potentially frequently) neither of these things.
• It demonstrates I have a tendency to overthink things, and I'm afraid 8 hours in the saddle looking at the pampas, probably isn't going to help this.

Iain

26/02/2014

Buenos Aires (S: 34° 37.183' W: 58° 23.307')

Post-script (17/4/2014)
Before I left some people had said about the trip - "you could write a book about that". However, this is not a first step at publication, basically because it doesn't meet the criteria necessary for publication (and in some respects I hope it doesn't as that likely means something has gone badly wrong). The more time I spend here the more I realise that there are a lot more people doing this sort of trip than you might think. So, to make a book worth reading (and therefore worth publishing), it needs to be one (or ideally more than one) of the following:

• written by someone famous. Either before the trip (e.g. Ewen McGregor and Charlie Boorman) or afterwards (e.g. Che Guevara);
• written by a talented writer / journalist (e.g. Eric Newby);
• be the first, or longer, or harder (e.g. Ted Simon's Jupiter's Travels) - I've met a motorcyclist who left the UK 6 years ago, cyclists who have spent 2 and a half years cycling the length of the Americas and ridden past someone walking north on the Carratera Austral pulling a trailer heading god knows where. My couple of month bimble round bits of Latin America doesn't really cut it from this perspective;
• have a natural narrative arc, usually involving a crisis of some kind (e.g. 127 hours - I'd rather not have an experience like this, although I do have a sharper knife!).

Or you can make it up (e.g. Shantaram), but that seems rather pointless.

Notes:
1. When I wrote this I hadn't actually read it, I have now. It's a very well written book and he comes across as a pretty mature person apart from the last couple of paragraphs, but that could well have been written at a later stage (the last part of the book is much more fragmented and significantly less coherent than the rest of the book). There's also no reference to his trip to the USA which he did between leaving Venezuela and returning to Buenos Aires. I'd have been interested to see what his perspective of the USA was and the people he met there, or whether he was as prejudiced as he claimed visitors in the opposite direction were.