Green Card....

Today we went to pay for our USA B2 visa.....$160usd each. The process is long and made even worse by the "IT" systems in place. There are two systems to log on to and complete various "hoops" to apply for the visa. The fee is not refundable and you have to convince them you are not going to stay in the USA at and interview. Years ago I might have wanted to live there but not any more. There are much better places to live. However the UK isn't one of them, but its home and our journey would not be complete without going full circle.

We are enjoying Bolivia but La Paz is now getting old. The food is cheap and the wine is OK so we can put up with it until we can leave. This is either when the visa's come (if) or when the parts come from Santa Cruz. That's if our friends the Kiwi's at http://www.kiwi-panamericana.com/ come through with their parts hunting on our behalf.

I've almost decided to change the front and rear shocks and this means some welding to lower the front turrets. The shocks are a reasonable price here and they have them in stock. This will get rid of the odd shocks on the back and get rid of the crap shocks on the front. The Terrafirma Big Bore that caused us so much trouble in Africa are still on the front. We're not sure they are working well which isn't a big shock (no pun intended) and my funny tyre wear is an indication. However the funny tyre wear might just be the knackered lower bush that I changed on the bottom of the front shock in Paraguay. If you're keeping track of our breakdowns that's still ZERO !!!! We of course are ignoring the clutch slave seal failure in Kenya which took 15mins to fix. Thats the only thing thats stopped me moving. All the rest is preventative maintenance, just like this. OH and we had a (very) slow puncture in Kenya as well due to nail but we fixed that before bedtime and only noticed once we'd camped up.

I also fulfilled a life ambition and the evidence is below. It was and easy one to tick off but it was always too expensive. Here, its not....