Our last land border crossing.

Mar 7 Corrientes to Salto

Our last border crossing of the trip is cause for reflection and a sense of accomplishment. Although the travelling is not over just yet we take a bit of time to let it “soak in”. We make sure that our paperwork states 365 days of temporary import for the bikes, this will allow us to store them once again until next winter when we will continue our travels.

Might as well break the law one last time in Argentina and park illegally.

No line-up, yay.

Across the dam into Uruguay.

Fruit pickers enroute.

 While walking around the downtown area we noticed that the main street is closed off to traffic for some maintenance, it seems strange that they are painting the entire road surface white though. We theorize about what they are up to and later in the afternoon the reason becomes apparent. Today is Friday and tonight is the local celebration of Carnival. The street is painted white for the parade and dancing that will ensue after dark, much after dark, the parade starts at 10pm and the dancing carries on after that. We are excited to be able to attend  the festivities as this would be a more traditional Carnival parade with elaborate costumes and such. Some of the other Carnival celebrations were more like a drunken street dance than what you would imagine as a Rio de Jinero Carnival celebration. We waited patiently between dinner and the start of  the celebration only to find out that we were not allowed to enter the festivities. While we were waiting the organizers of the event closed off all the adjoining streets with temporary fencing and posted police at the entry points, this ensured that only residents of the municipality were allowed to attend. We tried a couple of different entrances before giving up and heading back to the hotel. We would have to settle for watching it on the local TV station, the really crazy part was listening to the music coming from the street and watching the dancers on TV, in perfect unison.

Mar 8 Salto to Trinidad

After a disappointing evening of no Carnival we pack up and make our way South to Trinidad, not the country but the town. It is only a 200km ride so we can take our time as always.

There are limited choices for hotels in town and after checking at the first one I return to my bike only to find that it is completely dead. No lights, no starter, nothing...so starts the process of elimination as to what could be wrong. Check the fuses, all ok. Check the battery, full 13.2V. Check the sidestand and neutral switches, good to go. Tear out the ignition and blow the dirt out, wiggle the wires, and spray in some WD-40, yay we have spark. Well that was a fun hour, at least the hotel owner came out to talk and even tried to boost my bike with his car. Nice hospitality.

He however had no parking available so we had to find alternate accommodations, the $200USD a night place was...well $200USD per night so we settled in a smaller older Hotel with parking for $40CAD, and that was overpriced.

Not much to do in town but walk the shopping street, eat supper in the park, people watch, and go to sleep.