North Bound
I said a sad goodbye to the dog on the camp site and headed to the petrol station to take care of my power steering. The oil is way below minimum, so I tanked in 1 litre and headed to Rio Grande to visit the Citroen garage. They had a man lift and took their time.
I took the waiting time to fix my lights- both were so shaken that they broke. The enclosure for the Hydraulic hose was broken and therefore the hose was scoured. Thank god it wasn’t teared up completely, otherwise the drive to Citroen wouldn’t have been possible. 
I made the mechanic quite happy when I gave him some LED lights (I had some lying around), maybe this is why the cost for reparations came to a cheap 100€. After 5 hours, I carried on driving and only stopped at around 22:00, the sun goes down shortly after midnight.
I drove through Santo Cruz in one day and luckily got down with all boarder controls between Chile and Argentina. The wind is quite strong and is blowing westwards. After 2000km of strong side blowing winds, I’m joyful to be able to drive normally again.
I met a few bikers on the way, they weren’t too happy about the wind, I even photographed one whilst overtaking him.
I was driving quite hastily up North and overnight in Valdez. There is a lot of whale watching action here, but only in February….. thanks.
I sped through San Antonio Oeste, Villalonga and Bahia Blanca, I rested in Monte Hermoso and spoiled myself with some kiting time by Mar Chiquita. I had a nice Chilean teacher who was a bit hectic. HIs wife advised me to stop in Punta Rasa on my way to Buenos Aires, for some good kiting opportunities. She was right, the spot was great but sadly the school was fully booked. I unpacked my practice kite and after doing a bit of my own kiting, there was suddenly a spot open in the school.
Throughout this trip, I have seen ever single type of hitchhiker. The latest were two traffic light jugglers. They gave me a private show and were pretty good, they can expect to earn around 30€ here a day. With that, they also spoke super well and we could understand one another quite well. My last hitchhiker was a pretty policewoman, in full uniform.
I quite my cellphone provider and went back to Claro. Sadly my prepaid number can only be used with an Argentinian ID number, the international version with a passport can only be done in the Claro office. 
So I went to the tourist office, the sales assistant in the Handy shop was almost New York like unfriendly, and the girls from the tourist office really tried everything. Last resort, one of the girls registered the to herself and promised me that she will take care of the chip when I leave Argentina.
Kiting lessons can only be paid with cash but somehow none of the ATMs have money here. At the beginning of the trip I was way more panicked about this, but even now after three days you start thinking about all the possibilities. The ATM doesn’t say ‘no connection’, which is worrying. It always says the amount is too big, even if you only want 1 peso. I thought about going to a petrol station, talking to the attendees and paying the petrol by credit card and taking their cash. So off I went to the next town and suddenly the ATM has money! It’s a good idea to always have more cash than needed, you never know what can happen.
Rio Aio comes from Punta Rasa and you can kite in the ocean or in sweet water, depending on the wind. 
I have never experienced a better place to kite! I extended the visit by two days since my teacher Ivan was also extremely talented (he even spoke english!) He has a kite school in Buenos Aires, let’s see if theres still time at the end.
My list of losses sadly grows a bit bigger. My bluetooth speaker, and my good shower gel was left behind. Theres a sock monster that often attacks by eating one sock a day. Washing powder and suncream suddenly appeared again though.
I’m always collecting my meat scraps and feeding it to the street dogs here. I was astounded to see that my fried chicken was ignored by two dogs! It couldn’t have been that bad, even I ate it…
I even stumbled upon an Austrian restaurant in Villa Gesell, La Austriaca. There weren’t any Austrians, the Grandfather was from North Germany. It’s customised to South American taste buds and there’s just a bunch of tacky foods. Apfelstrudel was so sweet but the coffee was good. 
I made my way to Ivans Kite school but he suddenly had no time for me so after one hour of kiting, I made my way to wakeboard in Zarate. 
I was a bit taken aback when arriving back in Buenos aires. Everything costs double more than when I first arrived. I now had to pay truck tolls on the highway because Emmazwo is 2.10m. In February theres the Wakeboard world cup in Zarate and a friend of mine, Vossi, has taken part and won the cup for the over 40s. Maybe I should take part for the 60 year olds in 2020.
Rosario is quite a nice, welcoming city with good Spanisch learning opportunities. Since there’s not a lot of kids in the summer, I had lessons to myself and went wake boarding afterwards. Friendly people let me use their electricity and I was even allowed to sleep over on the perimeter.
On my last wakeboard day, I over did it and this resulted in grazes on my shoulder and bad neck pain.
It’s been so hot that sleeping before 2 a.m is definitely not possible. I drove through the city at night to air out the car and myself. The air-conditioning only works by the front seats, while the engine is running. 
Cintia, the principle from the school offered to keep teaching me even after I’ve left. The teacher methods here are so different, it convinced me to say yes to the kind offer.
I met a 40 year old couple in Victoria. Lucas, who has his own car workshop and Alina who is a teacher,. Because of them, I ended up a bet west from Buenos Aires, in Monte. On the first day we had Parilla, a type of Argentinian grill that includes way too much meat! I’m going to leave my unicycle here, that way Lucas can practice a bit and it’s put to some use.
My gas has finally run out. When I think back to the beginning of the trip, I was constantly worried as to when it would run out. Well it has now run out, even though I didn’t cook much except tea water. My adapter did work, even though I screwed it on incorrectly at first. That’s called ‘boludo’ hier (idiot)
The last of my trip adventures begins with riding Gauchos. They have a hacienda here with a folklore program but because I’m not a tourist, Lucas and Adeline organised a day for me to work there (it’s a dad and son business) It was super interesting.
To survive as a cattle farmer, you need lots of hectares and around 350 cattle. The Gauchos check on the animals everyday and around 300 are born a year, usually with out human help. If one is sick or dying, they are left to themselves. Mine was quite meek and no one informed me that on the way home, the animals can get quite speedy. I didn’t want to be unfriendly and so I just braked, apparently to suddenly for my sensitive animal (that’s probably only used to good riders) and so it just threw me off. We still love each other though, maybe I should invest in some riding lessons again.
We cooked crazy amounts of meat on an open fire again, the price for one kg of meat is around 1,10€. Then we fixed some of the fences around the property, the technic hasn’t changed much in the last 50m years.
In the evening I showed Lucas and his wife how to kite, they were astounded from my ‘toys’, so the kite is also staying here in Monte. I find that’s better than it just catching dust in the car for a year.
I then drove from Monte, around the outer rim, over Zarate to Punta del Este in Uruguay. I wanted to kite a bit but there wasn’t much wind. Whilst wakeboarding I met Fernando who owns 4 appartments and let me park my car outside for electricty, and let me use his bathroom as well. Punta del Este is the place to be in the summer, super expensive but between the seasons, it’s dead.
We were at a beach party where a glass of wine costed 8€, and kiting lessons 90€. In my opinion this is too expensive for a country where the average income a month is 500€.
It’s a very nice area here, a few hills with green scenery and empty beaches. There’s lots of nature and birds and very many tarantulas. They cross the streets like mice in Germany. I found one on the camping site and kept it at a distance with a stick. When it went into attack mode (back legs elevated) I left it alone since their bite is poisonous, painful and they can jump! I didn’t leave Emmazwo barefoot anymore, windows were also always closed. Uruguay was a bit too expensive for me, and because there wasn’t’;t too much wind, Ik drove back to Buenos aires.
I bought a new suitcase here, the cheap kind, and left my backpack behind. The handle for the suitcase was already broken by the time I got to the airport. That’s okay though, it only needs to survive one flight.
I still managed to watch a Tango show in Buenos Aires, not really my kind of thing. Argentina has really grown on me, the unreliability of people and things is more than made up for by the friendliness and helpfulness.
