SimonFitzpatrick
Vehicle Type
Motorcycle
Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika
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Updates
I (Don't) Wanna Live Forever
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First Things First
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I Think An Evening At The Crow...
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21/11/08. Pinamar, Argentina.
So it's bye bye C and hello AT. My 10-year-old, 35,000 mile Africa Twin which I bought on eBay and am somehow expecting to get me to Canada, has been nailed up inside a dusty crate for 6 weeks and sea-freighted diagonally across the Atlantic. It starts first time after being crow-barred free in BA, much to the delight of the cheery warehouse fellas and the relief and near-tearful gratitude of myself.
The Silver Seas.
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Mar Del Plata. Argentina. 23/11/08.
A single-handed Budweiser-guzzling competition - man against barrel - leads to a late night steak with a wine "salad". Sleep, in a bed that international laughing-stock Tom Cruise would find restrictive, is hard to come by, and at 10 am I'm kicked out of the hotel and forced, blinking and confused, out into the world to fend for myself. Luckily "fending" on this occasion involves a 200 yard ride to the cafe for tostadas of jamon y queso.
Ferry Bad Title Indeed.
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Colonia, Uruguay. 30/10/08.
Wait "up"! I almost forgot an entire country. Among the most debonair of my chums is Robert, who flies to BA on a whim (and back on a 747 ha ha ha etc). We spend a few days on the brink of nausea due to grotesquely immoderate beef consumption, and then catch a ferry to Colonia.
The Hills Have Eyes.
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Sierra De La Ventana, Argentina. 29/11/08
An evening of lager and cigarettes at a pavement table near, if not quite in, some mountains. How ineffably winsome! I hear you respond. And it is, despite these facts:
An Open Book With Well-Thumbed Pages
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13/10/08, BA
I am 42 and my willowy days are behind me. C. is 20, raven - haired, fulsome of form and saucy of eye. Battle lines are drawn up in The Gibraltar, and an evening skirmish at my place results in a closely-contested draw.*
That's 20 - twenty - years old. I may have peaked too early.
14/10/08, BA
Film Review.
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23/10/08. BA.
Panic Room, 2004-ish.
Really should be called "I am mesmerized by Jodie Foster's chest and as a consequence have no idea what is going on". Five stars.
26/10/08. BA.
One bowls fairly carelessly down the emerald avenues of life, believing that a pea-sized blob of shampoo and a kitchen sink full of hottish water are all it takes to remove stubborn blemishes from the smalls and return almost any of the intimate garments to showroom condition.
All You Need Is The Walrus Of Love.
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I Won't Pay Your Price.
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30/12/08. Porvenir, TDF, Chile.
The smell of freedom, on the glorious morning I finally get out of Rio Grande, is the smell of somebody else's B.O., thanks to the rarely-laundered towel I'm provided with at the hotel. It's not until I've showered and dried off with this hellish cloth that I notice a foreign pungency rising directly from my beard into my nose. I sniff the towel: regret is immediate and lasting.
Mechanical Sympathy.
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14/12/08 Rio Gallegos, Argentina
800 miles into the gale-blasted flatlands of Patagonia, there's a sign at the side of the highway depicting a tree bent over by the wind. So that's it! I wondered why I was leaning over at 45 degrees while riding in a straight line! So it's breezy then? Thanks very much, The Government!
Are You Published?
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19/12/08 Rio Grande, TDF, Argentina.
None of your rubbishy Japanese TV's in TDF
Do Mention The War.
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17/12/08 Rio Grande, TDF, Argentina.
It's 175 miles from the petrol station ("gas outlet" if you prefer) in Rio Gallegos to the next one, just over the Chile/Argentina border in San Sebastian, Tierra Del Fuego. My petrol tank goes to reserve at 165 miles - if I haven't been too silly and childish with my throttle fingers. All well and good if the station actually has fuel in it; reserve should give me about another 35 miles.
Out Of The Blue (And Onto The Black)
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27.1.09. Bajo Caracoles, Argentina
The bar at the petrol station (and why not?) in BC is a hive of inactivity. I've done 138 miles of Ruta 40 today without falling off, so I'm going to sit here, idle as a bee, until either I run out of pesos or I'm physically kicked into the gravel.
Men, yesterday
We Are The Dead
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9 Jan 09. Punta Arenas, Chile
"The second-best cemetery in South America", says the guidebook, so off I trot in search of mortality kicks. It's cool, but a definite second to the "best" one - Recoleta in Buenos Aires, a mini-city of 20 foot tall death-pyramids and granite stiff-houses. After a while I find an unprepossessing little slab commemorating the dead of the HMS Doterel, "blown up" off Punta Arenas in 1881.
I Thought It Was Over But It's Not.
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30.1.09. Perito Moreno, Argentina.
Pics from Chile, words from Argentina. Strange days indeed.
Flying High, In The Summer Sky.
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Oh! My Uvula!
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H2. Oh!
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