THE WEERMACHT HAS LANDED

I camped at the Horizons Unlimited Spring meet at Ripley, Derbyshire.
Or had the Weermacht landed? A meadow of gleaming BMWs!!!
Grant and Susan Johnson founded Horizons Unlimited on the Web as a biker community for travelers. The Spring meet ran for four days with a dozen or more bikers giving talks on their travels. The fun is in meeting people in the flesh whom you have communicated with over the years. I heard from bikers recently in Tierra del Fuego that the sainted Graciela (she who rescued me after my accident) has opened a Bar and reopened the Hotel Argentino. Travelers passing thru Rio Grande please stop by with messages from me of adoration. Graciela will show you my wheelchair...

LETTER OF LOVE

DUCHESS VIEW FARM: APRIL 8
There is a difference between a love letter and a letter of love. A love letter is written to a lover. This diary is a letter of love - and of gratitude to those who made my journey possible, those who picked me up and nursed and mended me when I was broken, sent me on my way with courage restored. It is dedicated firstly to Graciela Abat Agostinelli - and to her ex-future novio, to Pepe Gonzalez the one legged orthopedic surgeon, to all the residents at the Hotel Argentino, the oil workers of Rio Grande, my cousins in Buenos Aires - yes, the people of Argentina, a people who proudly portray themselves as tough and macho yet are such softies. They are immensely kind, immensely generous and immensely thoughtful. Oh that they were subject to less vile politicians.
My treasured friends, I have waited to write to you until the journey was done. It is your journey. Had I failed, I would have betrayed you.

WOW!

RIO GRANDE: TUESDAY, AUGUST 28
My appologies to my readers: I am slightly inebriated. Pepe came by. He made me walk on the bad ankle, stand one footed on it, declared the break mended. He will change the cast, have new xrays, enforce high intensity rehab and have me out of here on 8th September.
How do I feel?
Immensely grateful.
Immensely relieved.
I have been scared of coming out of this as an invalid and a drag on my beloved wife.
Right, that's enough truth.
Anyone for tango?

JAMES ROBERTSON-JUSTICE

RIO GRANDE: THURSDAY, AUGUST 9
Graciela has many friends. She has summoned an orthopaedic surgeon friend to offer a second opinion on the ankle. In his early sixties, Pepe is a one-legged mini version of James Robertson-Justice. He divides his life between a medical practice in Buenos Aires and a 17000 hectare estancia in Tierra del Fuego. In Buenos Aires he rides a 1970s Triumph 750. The leg was victim of a bike crash.
Pepe examines the x-rays. He is against pinning. The operation will delay recovery. Four weeks in plaster with no weight on the foot, a further month taking things carefully…

NIGHTYMARES AND FEMALE LOGIC

RIO GRANDE: THURSDAY, AUGUST 9
I was smashed awake three times in the night as the bike slid from under me and my shoulder hit the ice. To get to the bathroom, I use a chair as a walker. Graciela points out that I am in her room so that she can help me to the bathroom. I hate waking her. She says my pushing a chair across the floor is a more stressful awakening than being asked quietly for help. Many thousand years of human history have witnessed men resisting such female logic. Graciela says I snore.

DEFEAT

RIO GRANDE, SATURDAY, AUGUST 4
I have been defeated here in Rio Grande. Puchero was the victor. Puchero is a stew. It is served in two deep bowls. One bowl contains the meat: half a chicken less the limbs, a huge chunk of beef, a large section of oxtail, chorizo. The meat swims in a broth and is surrounded by three types of dried beans, small, medium and butter. The other bowl contains the vegetables, also in a broth: more beans, cabbage, onion, pumpkin, carrot, potato. This is a single serving. Immagine these two huge bowls of food set before you. Even the fiercest appetite quakes.
Let me recomend a small cafe in Rio Grande frequented by oil workers on their week off: San Martin 86. The owner is Chilean. His Puchero, though grotesque in quantity, is delicious. Add two beers and the bill came to US$7.

UNLOADING

RIO GRANDE: FRIDAY, AUGUST 3
The truck from Ushuaia arrives at midday with my bike. The driver and I unload while Graciela takes photographs. Imagine manhandling a Harley Davidson. We’d need a crane.

HOTEL ARGENTINO

RIO GRANDE: THURSDAY, AUGUST 3
Graciela, owner of the Hotel Argentino, underwent surgery three weeks ago at the Italian hospital in Buenos Aires. She is a small, dark, vivacious woman, eternally optimistic (think Ibiza in the 60s). She greets me with voluble affection. We sit in the kitchen, drink coffee and exchange views.
Views in Argentina don’t vary much: Politicians are a bunch of thieving liars.
Her hotel is a popular base with workers from the oil fields who work two weeks on and one week off. Late evening and there is a crowd in the kitchen. They all have tales. An electrician relates having to pay half his earnings back to the contractor. Wine circulates, bread, mozzarella. Her operation has put Graciela on a strict diet. I eat alone at the corner restaurant, a vast steak, salad and beer for £4. Idiot, I leave my jacket on the back of the chair. I return for it later. The lights are off. A bunch of kids are drinking beer and already midway drunk.
English? To whom to the Malvinas belong? Argentina, right?
I answer, To those who live there.
No, no. The Malvinas are Argentine.I say, Argentina has something more valuable than the islands. You have the best footballers in the World.
Confrontation evaporates.