I learned this rather sad fact because I was to follow Ruta 3 over 3000 km from Av.9 de Julio all the way to Tierra del Fuego.

I turned off the highway every day for fuel, food and lodging. Very occasionally I would detour to a town or village just off the route. However, in the nicest possible way, there wasn�t much to see on the road and even less to see away from it. And there was no chance of taking a wrong turn because for the most part there were no other roads on which to turn.

Given that the bike and I also hitched a couple of rides along the way, saving on our own mileage, my personal distance travelled tallied very closely with that of the marker-posts staked out religiously every 1000 metres the length of the Ruta 3.

The road out of BA was as hectic and fast as anything I�d ever ridden. Remember, I had been off the bike for most of the last three or four days. My experience of riding in Argentina was limited to that first morning coming off the ferry. Now, with my insurance finally arranged, I was leaving the city as quickly as possible. In other words, just as the evening rush hour began, dovetailing chaotically with all the regular traffic of a working day and swollen still further by the commercial transport taking the country�s major route to all points south.

Ruta 3 was well signposted from the city centre towards an elevated section of motorway. I took the middle lane and slotted in behind a huge, swaying truck, happy not to have to set the pace and constantly wary of speeding car-drivers on either side of me. I imagined the whites of their eyes set to an intimidating, steely glare, and the value (=nothing) they would place on the life of any motorcyclist who dared to get in their way. Especially one with Brazilian number-plates.

A quick sequence of toll booths slowed the overall pace of escape, but also filtered out the dirt poor, who exit to side roads and traffic jams (making life easier for the Mercedes drivers... and me). I was concerned at the amount of money being asked of me, given the distance still to travel, but the number and cost of tolls decreased rapidly beyond the city.

The traffic gathered pace, and a couple of times I had to find a new truck to follow. I took great pleasure in overtaking a couple of creaking Renaults and an ancient VW Beetle driven by an equally elderly woman, but that was my limit.

On the first stretch of open road away from built-up areas I stopped to take a picture as the odometer passed 10,000km. Either side of me, porte�os had parked on the verge to eat picnics, this being their nearest available greenery (despite the belching traffic wheezing past at close quarters).

A sense of built-up urbanity gave way to Country Club green. Small to medium-sized industrial plants floated by on either side. The volume of traffic quickly fell away until most of my fellow-travellers were trucks and lorries.

I was briefly flummoxed by one roundabout so wide I forgot how many exits I had passed. For once the signposts let me down, pointing out only the next village or hamlet. No good to me. I pulled over to ask a hitchhiker on the other side of the road, a soldier, who told me I needed to turn back and take the next exit from the roundabout. He was heading in the same direction and looked miffed when I didn�t immediately jettison my luggage to make space for him on the back of the bike.

Argentina rarely makes the news in Britain: occasional references to the Falklands War, sporadic coverage of economic problems. But in the weeks before I flew to South America I had become increasingly aware of an environmental disaster.

Heavy rains throughout the autumn had caused flooding across much of the north of the country. People had lost their livelihoods, farm animals, houses, roads, lives. By this time the Pampas south of the capital had not seen rain for some time. Weather forecasts seemed to confirm this. Remember, when you�re on a motorbike, these things take on a new level of importance!

Ruta 2 to the resort town of Mar Del Plata was cut off in places. This was a major road and not more than 100 miles away from my route.

The Pampas of Argentina cover an area several times larger than a very large place. I was riding straight through the richest farm land on the Continent (if you discount the drug-growing areas of Colombia, Peru, Bolivia...) which had produced vast fortunes for the small number of landowners.

Even from a speeding bike, the road smelled of cow. Lorries transporting live cattle, lorries transporting dead cattle, the occasional great herd stretched to the far horizon but in the main the wide, deep fields were full of nothing but the greenest, most lush looking grass I had ever seen. It was as though the Pampas were so prolific, so rich in resources, that no-one needed to make the fullest possible use of every last square inch of land. Man was able to simply perch on the edge of this great natural wealth and milk the profits.

The floods had changed that. Nature was taking its revenge. I became increasingly aware of the floodwaters, sometimes right up to the edge of the road itself, still and silent as glass. The waters were pure and, allow me please to state the obvious, elemental.

I have seen no mention of this natural disaster in reporting of the subsequent political, economic and financial revolution in Argentina. And yet the Pampas have for two hundred years provided the economic strength and stability on which the nation has founded itself. However clumsy or crude or conniving the politicians and generals in Buenos Aires, cattle culture has continued to underpin the nation. Take that away, or make it vulnerable, and the stability of the whole structure becomes suspect.

My visor was covered in dead insects. Dusk, and the damp, brought them out in their millions. I had to stop every hour to clear them away - more often still, if a particularly large critter crashed in my line of vision.

Even this close to Buenos Aires, things were looking empty. Shadows were lengthening as the sun set ahead of me and to my right.

	Insect roadkill: You learn very quickly (though I learned too late) not to ride with the visor up, especially at dusk in cattle country. This being sub-tropical South America rather than sub-urban South Kensington, I had no idea which if any of these insects were deadly dangerous. Thankfully, and to my great surprise, I wasn't stung once on the entire trip.

I reached the town of Azul, halfway across the province of Buenos Aires. A landlocked centre for the surrounding cattle country, where live cows become dead cattle become cuts of meat.

Around this junction at the northern end of Azul was a small collection of petrol stations, sheds, warehouses and a hotel. I parked up, brushed the worst of the dead insects from my jacket and went inside to find out about getting a room and was stunned by the price for a single room: US$40. Way beyond my budget.

	Classic Argentina: The town sits a kilometre or two away from the highway, with roughly paved roads at the north and south ends of town leading in to the centre. Often an arch frames these roads with a welcoming message; otherwise there are large banners, sculptures or road signs. Even the smallest hamlet does the same.

This night, in Azul, I did wonder about them being so open - and so openly transvestite - in a small, Catholic, probably ultra-conservative, rural town such as this. Or maybe that answers my own questions.

I rode the dirt track into town past idly curious women sitting in front of darkened, single story, whitewashed houses and men smoking cigarettes in small groups as they leaned against dirty trucks. Children ran across the road. Dog after dog after dog barked on my approach, snarling and running at me, snapping as I passed and chasing me a short way up the street.

I was directed from another expensive hotel to a cheaper one several blocks away. The Hotel Azul was indeed cheap, and had a lock-up garage on the other side of the road where I felt happy leaving the bike. (It was only the next morning that I realised the gate had been unlocked at all times, but at least the bike had been stored out of sight).

The woman who showed me to my room and took my money was grumpy and uncommunicative. I had obviously interrupted a conversation with her aged mother which for all I knew had been going on for several years. She resented having to deal with a guest, which struck me as unfortunate given her profession.

My room was at the very far end of the building. The door was stiff and the key wiggled in an unconvincing lock, but I was tired and had no plans to move far.

Back at the front of the building a lean-to housed the restaurant. Most tables were taken. I found a space in the far corner, that is to say far from the TV, and ordered steak, chips and beer, because that was all that was on the menu. It was 10 o�clock, a normal meal time by Argentine standards, so it took a while for the food to arrive. My fellow diners were a mixture - an elderly couple bickering silently, a fat middle-aged man with a thin wife several years his junior.

There were several single men, farmers come up to the big city from some outrageously isolated homestead. One had the saddest look about him. Another sat quietly nursing his beer with enormous hands. He looked like a rugby player (or to be more accurate, suspiciously like John Inverdale, the BBC rugby presenter).

The next day I rode past Azul Rugby Club as I set out from town. This is the heartland of the game in Argentina. As in New Zealand, Australia and Wales, the game is popular in areas where big men of farming stock live. And there's nothing else to do.

That night I double-locked the door, used my jacket as an extra layer of warmth against the cold of a clear, crisp night, and slept like a king, doubtless dreaming of giant insects in rugby kit riding around in the dark on motorbikes.