Las Malvinas
Added on Thursday, April 8th, 2010 by Carole Nash Editor
Las Malvinas
Then suddenly, quite unexpectedly and surprisingly you begin to realise that the project is beginning to go well. Everyone sang happy birthday to Bazza in the Fawlty Hotel in Comodoro Rivadavia where English and Argentinian people were lovely to each other. Where Las Malvinas was a stone’s throw from here, with all the emotions that occur, all the Argentinian mothers who lost their beautiful sons in the sinking of HMS Belgrano – that story which the SUN newspaper said ‘Gotcha’ without being here, without wanting to hear the cries of mama’s on this side of the South Atlantic, without excepting the terrible and deep feelings of people who has also lost someone so precious it almost made life not worth living.
And there we were, in the city closest to Las Malvinas, a place not understanding why a place so close belongs to somewhere so far away. I didn’t know what to say. Other than Bazza had a lovely party. He said that he had never had such a bunch of strangers be so nice to him and he nearly cried, maybe he did. He would later, because he and a mate jumped into a cab to dance with women who would like him for sure. Their agile bodies would ease themselves into his and wish him happy birthday. He would truly get to know what it was like to be in Argentina, he would be looked after and cared for and sent home in a cab to his room where he would dream. And of what, of that? Oh no. he would dream of the ride across Southern Patagonia. Bazza is a plumber from East Anglia, a landscape that shared the same shape and nothing more. Bazza is an ordinary person on the verge of doing something extraordinary and his project is only day 4. Oh my God, what will happen by Day 56? Will his head explode? Maybe his testicles will have been worn down to the quick, maybe his bike will break down, maybe so many things but one thing is for sure, this birthday will not be forgotten.
The preceding moments including riding across a road occasionally so straight it could have been laid down with a ruler. Jonny Johansen said this. There is a man. He sits on his bike like a king, really, he is a real biker, he lives for it, totally, completely. “Tell me,” he says, ” are we still sticking to the plan?” But he knows the plan is going to change. I tell him the plan is a figment of our imagination and the beautiful thing is how well the plan can change, and he eyes me with caution and then relaxes and a twinkle in his eye tells me he agrees.
Across the flatness, faraway to the horizon and back, and further, this journey carves it’s way along the slimmest of tracks. Tim Hughston says this journey has changed the way he thinks about his life. He would be cross maybe for my saying, but he is the nicest of guys. After 400 years of marriage his wife left him, suddenly, and when he asked why, she said she could stand being with him any more. He is in recovery. And soon, he is not sure when, but a silver lining will flout across Patagonia, or maybe the Atacama, or the Altoplano, or maybe in Peru or could it be any one of many Central American countries or Mexico or the USA and Canada and Alaska when he realises he has become the person he wants to be and good luck to the ex but now he knows where he wants to be. It is that type of journey, it really is.
My room is full of mirrors. We all agreed that rooms are bought by the hour because there are mirrors everywhere. By the door, all the walls, in the shower and when you sit on the toilet straining away trying to push out a good one, you are forced to look at your face. You see all your lines, the marks of a life hard lived emboldened by the effort of relieving yourself.
Across the plains of stunted bushes and a horizon that stretches out as if it were a sea, there are flecks of life. Birds flick into and out of sight and guanacos rush along fences that separate them from where they are and us. The wind shrieks across us all, the whole gang forcing themselves further south. There was nothing else until we hit Comodoro Rivadavia, Avenida Kennedy 300 and Hotel Lucka. The hotelier looked like Uncle Fester in The Adams Family, not of this world and yet, he performed with a strange charm that enchanted us all. The food was beautiful, the party magical, rooms full of mirrors and Bazza had the birthday he never imagined he would have with people he didn’t really know, but we are bikers and this is what we do. It is time to sleep. Tomorrow we ride 800 kms to Rio Gallegos, one day closer to the start of this project modestly called the toughest motorcycle expedition in the world.
