No pay José

The final ride out of Argentina was short in distance but long in time. This was down purely to two incidents along the way. Incident one was the old 'lets have a few pesos out of the tourist' favourite by the local police. The fun began at one of the many police checkpoints where upon being questioned I had to turn off my mp3 player. Like a fruit machine about to drop '$$$' the young plod must have thought that his luck was in and I was swiftly directed off the road to their office minus my documents. Once in, it's game on..! I've faced many of these confronations with the world's police now and I'd like to think that I'm pretty formidable when we get down to business. This is how you play... 1) Smile, shake hands, be nice. 2) Use a prop. A map or gps often works. Point at a random town you know you've passed. 3) Plenty of shoulder shrugging and blank looks. Test their English, 4) Start to act like you unstanderstand then just translate a spoken foreign word into something bizarre and go off on a totally different tangent. 5) I can't but if you do, offer them a smoke. 6) Talk about football. 7) Don't feel threatened or pressured, they won't fill out the form they just want your cash. 8) More of 3, 4, 5 and 6. 9) Take this piss. By this point they're wasting their time and you both know it. Soon enough they'll be out of all ideas and you'll be on your way with a handshake and maybe even a photo..!
Number 9 in this case was when they'd failed to level four or five motoring offences at me by various means one by one. In desperation they drew a road with me overtaking crossing the double centre lines with a car coming the other way. Of course I understood, got my pen out and added a donkey to the car (now a donkey and cart) and the approaching car had a tail and horns added making it a cow. A table top re enactment of my cow incident in Burkina Faso then followed backed up by my damaged riding gear...é viola!! Documents in hand after ninety minutes of complete farce, a handshake and a smile. No picture this time though.
Great, but back on the road but 50km later...a huge tailback. A teacher's strike on the main road had meant its closure. During my three hour wait I met Santiago, a young guy on a XTZ125 which is basically a baby brother of my XTZ660. Also there was (I've forgotten, will amend if he facebooks me!). Two great guys, made the wait seem like much much less. Eventually the police allowed me, Santiago and two other bikers to ride up to the strike area and ride off road around them. Des ploughed his way through the deep mud and now looks the business, a bit like Arnie in Predator..! The late ride up to the border with Santiago was quick with the little XTZ zipping along surprisingly quick. After farewell to young Santiago I made the border town as darkness fell, ready for the visit to the Iguaza falls and the crossing into Brazil the next day...