A new year and on the road at last – just!!

Well last years NYE was a quiet meal somewhere miles away from the hotel and watching fireworks going up the street while we were driving back along it to the hotel, this year however couldn’t have been more different. We went along to one of the restaurant along the waterfront were we eat most evenings. Didn’t really expect to much to be honest, but when you have tables booked for 100 people, us and BMW you get the feeling it might get lively. Great meal, good banter, a load of top name driver’s, Peter Hansel and his 6×6 truck driving girlfriend to be some of them. At Midnight we all went outside and watched 3 different massive firework displays go off and a great vibe. I was sensible though and headed off just before one back to the hotel, except I weirdly bumped in to Lewis the owner of the customs container pound that we collected from. I was introduced to his whole family and then was maid to drink a bottle of Champagne with him while have a good drunken natter. Turns out he’s in charge of customs for Argentina and the rally. He’ll be in Cordoba doing all the checks on the trucks and content. I was told that his house is my house and that he will help me with next Dakar, which he recons is starting in Rio and ending in BA! Would be very cool. Good contact made, then bed. Got up at 7, quick sobering breakfast and went and filled the new 400 lt water tank so the shower was ready for the evening. Headed off to the presentation at 10 then back to the hotel, collected the truck and finally hit the road. We had a bit under 400 klms to do to day. Did a fuel load just out of BA. Just after we that we hit huge traffic, madly enough though some police bikes pulled up belong side us and did a bit of thumbs up type of stuff, they only then went and pulled in front of us and gave a police escort for a few miles. Brilliant. The fun soon stopped though. People started pointing and shout at us, in away instead of the usual, yea, you’re a Dakar rally truck, we pulled over just after a toll to find that one of the rear tyres was about to explode its side wall big style. We had only done about 50kms!! We very carefully toke it off, it was ready to pop and I’ve heard some very nasty stories about what exploding tyres can do to the human body. Good team work and we were back on the road about 40 mins later. My co-pilots by the way are Kevin, one of the SA mechanic for Alfie and Uwe, produced Uover, like Hover, who’s one of Daniel, our young German bike riders mechanics. After this we had a nice clean run with a few stops all the way to the Biv. As lat year there were huge crowds all the way, which we entertained with waving, flashing of spot lights and my new intermittently working horn (brittle broken wire I think). One at biv, found the team and set up. This place is some sort of water park reserve, with very up market facilities, not Dakar esk at all! Our dinning area was on this wooden and thatched barn, surrounded by swimming pools, waterfalls and fountains, over looking a massive lake. We found a balcony that over looked the whole lot. Steak and pasta with a side salad – dam. This evening, we set up and waited for the cars and bikes to come in; once they did I popped over and meet up with Aussi Glenn. The trucks heater is constantly blowing hot air and the fridge isn’t working, which is not nice in this heat. I meet all of his team, and did what I could to sort the problems out. I’ll find out tomorrow if it’s helped at all. Now after a big fight with my computer and some help from Scott and he’s dongle vie managed to write this at 2 in the morning. Off to bed.