We woke up to the squawks of parrots squabbling in the eucalyptus overhead. Layne postponed her parrot hunt and went back to sleep. Rusty and I went for walk.
I try to be really careful and not be reckless or risk injury but boy howdy, scrambling up a little hill to get a better view I took a face plant. Blam! Straight down as I tripped in a root. Luckily I hit dirt, my camera was dusty but undamaged and the blood I lost came from scratches and splinters. Rusty thought I was an idiot and stayed close by as I collected myself.
This was a pretty nice spot to spend the night. The air was cool, the Southern Cross was overhead and we were alone.
Meanwhile herself got diverging useful done. She washed the fruit and put away her laundry.
Oh and the she went photographing parrots.
I found Gauchito Gil the truckers’ guardian hanging out near the rest stop. He deserted from the Triple Alliance War of 1864 (Argentina Brazil and Uruguay fought Paraguay) and while on the lam he became a cattle rustler eventually getting caught and sentenced to death. He promised his executioner he would cure his son who was ill and after the man cut off Gil’s head he went home and prayed to Gil to cure his son. So you’ll see these red shrines all over Argentina and I’m told Bolivia. Now you know.
And sure enough as we got ready to leave after lunch (yeah, did yeah a slow start, we’re retired) a truck showed up for a nap.
Argentina is a weird country. The President promised a new start for a country beset by inflation and a devalued currency and he promised a change. He got elected after waving a chain saw around to symbolize his cost cutting program.
Check out this roundabout. Work has ceased. There is no progress, no workers, no parked equipment, no activity.
The new traffic circle is three quarters finished but it’s going to remain like this until somebody in charge figures out how to restart a stalled country.
President Musk waved his own chain saw around in imitation of Milei and his cost cutting doesn’t fill me with much hope. I’ve never seen forensic accounting carried out the way his twenty year olds are trashing institutions and as I look at Argentina slipping into physical collapse I dread the future.
I talked to a lady at the campground and she told me about her 34 year old daughter living in a wheelchair. She told me about the immense hassles to get a chair, the bureaucracy to get help, the paperwork to get her daughter a chance at a life. Then the gravel roads, the mud sidewalks, the immobility. I found Key West totally wheelchair unfriendly but I knew not what to say. This gravel garbage is an inconvenience for us but for locals it’s just another sign of collapse. That and sky high prices.
There you are driving down the highway and then you are in Darwin. The man is everywhere in Patagonia but we’ve crossed the Rio Negro so we are in the pampas. Patagonia is behind us.
I can’t say I saw any difference. The mesquite bushes stretched to the horizon. The sun shone. The road ran straight. It was still 90 summer degrees. But it was no longer the mythical Patagonian desert.
They sell fruit from truck trailers here. We stopped at a gas station and the attendant said the bathrooms were wrecked and the water faucet was wrecked and they were out of regular. This town sucks he said to me speaking about Choele Choel.
It’s one of the larger towns in central Argentina but we skipped it. Up the road we found a potable water faucet in an unattended city park. I filled our tank using the water bandit (the blue rubber nozzle below) to attach our hose to the faucet.
One guy said hi and asked a few questions but most of the day users looked away when we waved. We freaked them out which made me miss cheerful friendly Chile. Economic depression takes its toll.
A gas station without a line, just for the record, they do exist.
The sign said “fried sandwiches” and what we got was a bag of fry bread. Not what we expected but delicious. We like to shop roadside to help spread the wealth.
In case you are hard of seeing this is where we spent the night in a free municipal campground.
With a nice view.
Rusty liked the grass. Steak and corn on the cob for dinner. With fry bread of course.
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