We have done it, we made it out of Salta!  Its was amazing being back on the road, we had done some small trips to Chile, and Bolivia, and around Argentina, but now we were on the road with a purpose a goal and two bikes, yep thats right Liz´s bike was flying along down the road once again.  We had attempted 2 days prior to this attempt but only made it about 20km when Liz´s bike once again died on the side of the road.  We had to get a tow truck to bring it back to Salta for us (this is a free service in Argentina, even for Gringos) amazing eh.  Anyway, so the mechanic fixed the new problem (more corrostion complements of Junior the boat) and two days later we were back on our way.  We did great the first day, Liz re-learned how to master riding her bike and we took it easy the fist day so she could get back into the groove of it.  We spent the night in a small town and were up at 6:00am (before the sun) if you know me personaly you would be impressed.  Anyway, so the sun still wasnt up and we were off, we quickly covered nearly 500km, then it happened... Liz´s bike started to chug, and cough and she began losing speed.  We happened to be near an SOS phone so we stopped and we both tried to figiure out the problem, but it didn´t apear to be obvious and at this point her bike wouldn´t start.  We called the tow truck and he showed up 20 min later and took us to the next town (Santiago de somthing).  The tow truck could only take us to the outskirts of town so we had to push Liz´s bike about 10km into town for a mechanic.  10km is a long  way to push a bike even a small 250, so we decided to try to push it with my bike.  We had seen our mechanic do it in Salta and it didn´t look that hard.  I pulled up next to Liz´s bike put my right leg on her rear passenger peg and eased off on my clutch.  It took a lot of work to get the bike going, trying to keep your balance and pushing a bike with your leg is really a lot harder then you would think.  But we slowly got the hang of it, if I went to far to the left I would lose liz and if I went to far to the right my highway pegs would have gone into the spokes of her rear wheel so its a bit more tricky then it sounds.  But we fought with it for a while and now we are pro´s.  We can boot along at 60km/h like that, its pretty cool, we can even do round abouts.  So we managed to find the crazy red neck mechanic down a small dirt road.  We would have been better off not finding him... He proceeded to take Liz´s bike apart  when we came back the next morning, pieces of the bike were missing, wires were cut and ripped out the gas tank was know where to be found ect.  The mechanic had no idea what was wrong with it or where most of the parts were.  So I held Liz back so she didn´t kill him and we got him to put the bike back together the best he could and we pushed it to a shipping company and loaded it onto a transport truck.  It should be at a kawasaki dealer in Buenos Aires on Monday and hopefuly they will be able to sort it out. 

 My bike is doing well, we know we have a ways to go on my bike so we did a little work to it to make sure it would get us to Bs-As; without any problems.  We bought a new front tire $22 and the guys were so impressed that we road from Canada to there that they gave us free chain oil really great guys.  So off we went to the guy on the side of the road that changes tires $1 and five minutes we were out of there with the new tire on my bike.  Around the corner we found a garage that did oil changes.  They changed my oil, cleaned my bike, taped up my highway pegs and went and bought us coffee.  Amazing people, so frinedly fast and efficient and they only charged us for the price of the oil.  You just cant get better service than this.  I am afraid of the culter shock we will experiance returning home.  We did look into selling our bikes down here and flying home but Argentina requires you to pay %100 tax on the value of your motorcycle.  That means about $5000 USD jsut for my bike and another $4000 USD for Liz´s bike and that just allows us to be able to sell them.  Then we have to find a buyer and a KLR sells for up to $18,000 USD in Argentina so it is very hard to find a buyer.  Not to mention I love my bike (not sure if Liz would say the same thing about hers at this point) but I am very happy.  I get attached to cars, and this bike has been my transportation, and my home for the last six and a half months.  It was new when I left and now its covered in scratches, dents, oil, and dirt it finly looks like it should.  I don´t think I could ever part with him.  Anyway, so tommorrow morning we are off to Bs-As; to find a plane, liz´s bike, and hopefully get home one of these days.  We do miss Salta, in the time we spent there we made friends, good frineds.  I miss them and we plan on staying in contact with a lot of them.  Argentina is a great country, and Latin America has given me a new found hope for humanity.  Till next time...

-Caleb

Hi guy's,

Well, it seems your getting to the end of your journey. I hope there will be a post trip entry, (from both your perspectives), with personal insight into what this trip has been to you.
As you know I've followed this trip from day one, all the up's and down's, but when it's all over, and your back home in Canada, with a little time to reflect on everything, that'll be the most interesting entry. I can't wait.

Have a safe flight home, Gord.