No, I don't want to die in a car - this would really be too embarrasingly uncool for a motorcycle adventurer like me. But I felt very close to this early end when returning from the asado with Jorge, Maria José, Juanjo and Beli in Mercedes, some 100 km northwest of Buenos Aires.I had met them on the road on my way from Salta to San Pedro de Atacama, shortly after starting my trip through South America - and we kept in contact. I had to take the bus to Mercedes, since my bike was not yet finished with the chain and tyre replacement. I stayed at Jorge and Maria José's place some 3 km outside the centre of Mercedes. They have a small house and a big family with 5 children - just like my parents have 5 children. They are all great people and the asado was absolutely delicious. Mercedes is a nice, green, clean, calm and surprisingly rich town northwest of Buenos Aires. Many youngsters who grew up here now work in Buenos Aires and spend their weekends with their friends and family in Mercedes. So does Santiago who took me in his car back to BA. What was planned to be a 1 hour ride turned out to be a really nerve-wracking adventure, since I got a real feeling of argentine driving style. Sunday was the last day of a prolonged weekend (puente), so the road was packed and an accident with a truck involved led to the complete traffic collapse. So since patience it not an argentine driver's principal virtue, they converted the two-lane motorway into a 5-lane one, simply by using the emergency lane and - since the road is not delimited by crash barriers (Leitplanken) - they just add two dirt road lanes by driving though the dust and meadow (which we did for at least an hour). After we passed the crashed truck, the rest of the journey was a kind of roller coaster ride on a three-lane highway with a lot of lane-changing and overtaking from all technically possible sides at an approximately 50% higher speed than the rest of the cars. To my surprise this led only once to a dangerous situation, which I missed out, since I had the eyes closed most of the time.

Buenos Aires itself is a nice and surprisingly lively place with really friendly people and most remarkably (I think I said this before) with the highest density of the most beautiful women in Southen America up to now. The difference to Brazil (Sao Paulo / Florianopolis) it that here even without all the standard weaponry like push-ups, high-heels and make-up you get caught by these amazingly beautiful fine-lined faces and glaring dark eyes.

Apart from that Buenos Aires has an inviting restaurant or bar with huge windows virtually at every street corner - and between them, it has (supposedly) the widest avenue in the world (with 11 lanes - in each direction - delimited by some green strips), loads of nice 1920s architecture, fine squares and load of green spaces. However the poverty is more obvious here than in Sao Paulo, many walkways are full of dogshit and in some areas it is only too obvious that money is missing. I was surprised to find that air pollution in BA seems to be much worse than in Sao Paulo and that in general Sao Paulo seems at least as safe and a lot richer than BA. But BA has one striking advantage - I understand the people and they understand me (at least languagewise).

So hopefully this afternoon my bike will be equipped with new tyres, chain and sprockets, so the journey can continue tomorrow morning, heading south for Bahia Blanca (close to Viedma). I am not yet sure wether or not I want to stay there for five days until the motorcycle traveller meeting starts. I have only some 6 weeks left before going to Mexico and if the decision would be either Ushuaia or Viedma - I'd opt for Ushuaia.