End of the world to the city of good air: Fin del mundo a Buenos Aires

     After four nights, and with some regrets, Donna-Rae and Greg left the end of the world (Ushuaia) and the friends they had made there.  The small city was easy to get around in and they had discovered it was very friendly to weary motorcycle travelers.  They managed to leave with clean clothes and bulging stomachs from the inexpensive and well prepared Argentine meals.  Their next stop would be 3,000 kilometers north in the largest city in Argentina, Buenos Aires, which translated meant the city of Good Air.

     Donna-Rae had sleeping problems, another of several affects of her Parkinson’s Disease.  To sleep longer would require her to take additional drugs that she refused to do, choosing not to feel sedated throughout the day.  One of her benefits from awaking early in the morning was to catch the sun rising as she did with this photo taken at 4:00 AM.  A red sunrise like this truly demonstrated why this part of the world was called Tierre del Fuego that meant the Land of Fire.

     One of the things they took note of while motorcycling through South America was the numerous ornate memorials built along the roads.  These marked where one or more persons died in a crash.  They noticed a difference between the memorials in Argentina and other South American countries, that being the Argentine ones were often surrounded by plastic or glass water filled bottles. Sometimes there would be only a few bottles.  Other times there would be hundreds.  They were told the water was left for those who died so they would not be thirsty.  

     This was one of the larger memorials they saw.  Hundreds of plastic bottles of water were used to decorate it.  Greg took an interest in the colorful memorials and started filming them for his photographic archives.