Day 01-Touchdown at the United Nations

I arrived at the hotel just after midnight and the traditional speed of South American transactions had me in bed by 3 am.  The well-deserved sleep finally gave way to the excitement of getting the party started and by 10 am I was greeting strangers who were soon to become my newest friends.  The United Nations then came together for lunch represented by Richard & Christina from Hong Kong, Bill and Eri who split their time between Arizona and Japan, Jim & Janice and Dave & Marty from Colorado, Metilda from Hong Kong, Bob from Maryland and Tim & Joy from California.  Ben stopped in from Alaska to guide us and Alejandro came up from Punta Arenas, Chile, to wrench for us.  Coincidentally, another group from Sweden stayed at our hotel and they were about to embark on a moto-route similar to ours.  Our paths would cross frequently over the next 2 weeks and new Scandinavian friendships were also formed.  It wasn’t long before the group was functioning as one well-oiled machine (that is if oil = pisco).  A short meeting followed later in the day, contracts were signed, liabilities were transferred and we were able to lay hands on our motorcycles.  Most of the offerings were extremely low mileage 2014 BMWs, in excellent shape.  My bike had only 600 kilometers on the odometer and the one assigned to Tim & Joy, had even less.  It seemed too good to be true for a rental fleet, but true it was.  The evening meal was sponsored by Motoquest and our Hong Kong friends arrived just in time to join us.  By lights-out, we were ready to ride.  The only challenge then was to unwind enough to sleep.