We’re still in Brazil. Things are moving VERY slowly. We’ve spent the last few days fighting beaurocracy, mismanagement, ignorance and general chaos (the full story in the our blog…). At the moment, most of Brazil and half of South America is under water. It is raining constantly! And even when it’s not raining, the +80% humidity ensures you remain wet. Apparently, it hasn’t rained like this for 50 years!!

So has there been any good news over the last few days?
Well, Iza bought herself a bike… a 2004 Honda NXR150 ESD Bros. We tried to find another Chinese ‘wannabe’, but there aren’t that many here. And the ones for sale, cost upwards of US$2,000. So in South America, Iza wil be riding a Brazilian made Honda. They’re reliable, easy to fix and spare parts can be found everwhere. Plus, they tend to keep their value, so we plan to re-sell it once we’re back in Brazil with only a 10-15% loss. The process of buying a motorcycle in Brazil is fairly straight forward and should take between 7-10 days. Apart from your passport and license, you’ll need a local tax number, called CPF. It’s issued on the spot, once you provide your passport and a residential address in Brazil.
Helping us out and keeping us sane during this whole paper trail, has been Reynaldo. He’s a former Navy pilot and motorcycle enthusiast. He’s put us up in his house and in general been an incredible host…

Once we get the bike out of customs we’ll hit the road and head for Patagonia. It’s hard to say when we’ll get there. We’ve learned NOT to ride to a schedule…