After working as beekeepers for 2 years in Paraguay with Peace Corps we headed south for our scooter adventure. Our original idea was to rent or buy motorcycles in Paraguay and ride into Argentina. However, after a lot of research and visits to the local authorities in Paraguay, we came out with a Paraguayan moto license (which sort of looks like a fake ID made on Photoshop by some 15-year old), but no way to legally buy bikes and take them across the border. We could have bought them in Paraguay and stayed within Paraguay without any major issues, but to take them into Argentina you need license plates, and documents in your name for the vehicle, which can take weeks to get. We only had 3 weeks total for the whole trip in order to get back to the US for Christmas. So we found a small independent car rental agency online that listed 150cc motorcycles and 125cc Honda Elite scooters for rent. After we contacted them, they informed us that the 150cc motos are no longer available because nobody was renting them, but they would be happy to talk to us about renting the Honda Elites.
When we completed our service in the Peace Corps, we hopped an 18-hour bus to Buenos Aires, and went to rent some scooters. They laughed at our fake-looking licenses and questioned why on Earth we would ever want to rent them for 3 whole weeks. When asked where we were headed, we told them Bahia Blanca and they just laughed.
"Bahia Blanca is 600 km away! You are going to suffer going that far on little scooters." We sort of left out the detail that we actually planned on going another 1000 km after Bahia Blanca towards Bariloche.
Needless to say, they rented us the bikes, and I think both of us were pretty nervous. Neither of us had ever ridden a motorcycle or scooter before. We pushed them around the corner in rush hour traffic because we were too scared to let them see that we have no clue how to ride those things. Luckily, we figured out how to start them, Justin soon learned that they are automatics and you don't need to shift them into any gears, and you could just twist the throttle and go! So off we went, scooting through rush hour traffic in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
