John
I hadn't planned on the five nation Southern African ride as being part of the North/South American trip's time schedule.
What I'd like to do is somehow store my bike in Buenos Areas without it affecting the Carnet somehow and then come home for five or six months and "rustle up" some extra dough for the continuation of the trip in South Africa, leaving again in mid September, the bike having been shipped from BA timed to be there for my arrival in Cape Town. Shipped at any point, depending on where it would be cheaper to store and/or rules governing abscentee storage of a bike.
My lady will be staying home and working our/her business (God bless her, and God bless Skype) She is fine with me taking the trip as long as I'm home for the holidays (fair enough). Outside of that she's "How long do you want to go for, and how much money do you think it will take to do the trip?" (or rather "trips", I haven't mentioned the extended annual continuations yet. We'll see how the first one goes)
So I'm figuring on a two and one-half week break leaving December 14th and returning January 3rd probably from Panama or Columbia, dependent on the legalities. Hopefully, being able to exit the country without the bike for a few weeks visit home (with the bike possibly stored in a bonded warehouse?).
Then riding to Terra and back up to BA over the next three or four months.

The following September I'd do roughly the same ride schedule (seven months trip with a break in the middle at Christmas) for the South African trip, shipping the bike on to Australia during the Christmas break
I'd then fly back into Australia from home after the holidays to pick up the bike for the second three to four months period of riding about a bit, coming back home from there for five or six months of work.
After Australia/Tazmania, I'd again store the bike and then ship it to New Zealand (I did almost 8,000 kms in NZ back in 2006, but not on a bike).
I remember the whole time I was driving the roads in New Zealand I wishing I was on my motorcycle. Almost painfully so.
It will be fantastic biking all of NZ for three months and then ship onto Singapore, riding up the penninsula and maybe Cambodia and northern Thailand the second three months period starting on my return from Christmas break after NZ.
I'll eventually be shipping the bike from SE Asia to maybe Ireland via container ship.
That's four major trans-shipments and then the final leg to Ireland, all done over a three year period.
I'd like to finish out with a full six months in Europe and the Isles on a "best weather" schedule with my lady coming over for a couple of "two weekers" rather then me going back home. I'd park the majority of my onboard gear with friends and relatives in Europe (they're all over) while "two-up" and just stay in hotels during those periods she's along for the ride.
It's all just in the planning stages and subject to change obviously, but it is a good solid outline plan to work from until I hit the usual road blocks and will be tweaked from there.

India is one of the few major places in the world I've never traveled to over the years, but as much as I'd like to, I don't think I'd be up for it on a motorcycle at my age. My reaction and heal-up times aren't what they used to be, if still not too bad. Given the traffic reports on India's drivers I'll have to take a pass.
Check out my "Two Passports" post I'm about to put on here and tell me what you think.
Thanks for all of your input.