The solid red line is the approximate course of the Rio Negro infamous in history but helpful nowadays offering a slightly less boring drive across Argentina.
The dotted red line is our route north to the wine country around the large city of Mendoza. After that we head west to Santiago in Chile to take care of some paperwork - a visa for Brazil principally.
Meanwhile there was a country to cross so we left the campground around eleven, a slow start of course, and got on Highway 22. This is apple and pear country and the river valley is packed with orchards. Below you can see the back end of a truck hauling fruit in the boxes.
There were lots of beggars on the highway here, juggling or washing windshields. In the photo above I caught an illegal window washer waiting for the police car, the Gendarmeria Nacional, to drive on. He’s probably a Venezuelan refugee making ends meet.
Highway 22 is for a stretch at least a four lane freeway which luckily for all concerned got built before the great shutdown stopped all public works.
It’s obvious everywhere decay is creeping in.
Away from the towns the highway runs through countryside that reminds me of west Texas or Arizona with buttes and mesas and nothing much else. The air is dry and it feels like the desert here with hot sunny days to 90 degrees and nighttime cooling down to 50.
Layne found a winery she wanted to visit because it turns out Neuquén is a much less famous wine producing area of Argentina. It turns out this valley is full of agriculture with apples pears and grapes growing in abundance. It was the last hold out of indigenous tribes in what was then southern Argentina so in the 1870s the government decided to establish control here not only by turfing out the native tribes (Tepulche and Mapuche) but also by keeping an eye on territorial creep by Chile. These two neighbors have a long history of hating each other and arguing over who owns what. I’ve heard modern day Argentines sneer about the odious Chileans and I say nothing as I quite like Chile.
Both countries encouraged European migration in the second hand of the 19th century so you got the Welsh escaping English oppression, Italians escaping the social disruptions of unification and Germans trying to find a piece of land to call their own. It must have been intoxicating to come to these vast open spaces and agricultural possibilities swept clean of the unfortunate natives who had been ethnically cleansed out of existence. It’s what you did in those days and as we’ve seen it still goes on today.
Argentina calls it the Conquest of the Desert and General Roca lead the fight which is why his name pops up all over the country on street signs. We in the north have never heard of this but it parallels what was going on in the US with the drive to conquer the Great Plains.
Which also explains why the populations of both Chile and Argentina are almost entirely white. If you see anyone with dark skin they are almost certainly immigrants from the Caribbean, Haiti and Venezuela principally, as everyone here nowadays reveres the Mapuche Indians as artifacts of history in the sane way Americans like to claim Indian ancestry.
But the good news for heathens like us is the wine production is excellent. Caritel is the youngest son in the family that has been making here for 25 years.
It’s odd to me is how wine production is universally similar. It’s like gas stations: if you drive far from home the fuel stations look if not identical easily identifiable anywhere in the world. Wine making does too.
French oak barrels, stainless steel fermentation vats and grape crushing machinery made in Europe or the USA. And a winery name for a long lost indigenous tribe.
They make reds here and Caritel’s elder brother, a graduate of agricultural college is trying his hand at producing a pink wine.
I like innovation and the rose was dry and delicious so we got a bottle of that too. Pincén was a native warrior who fought with a long powerful spear as depicted on the label.
My first job in the US was bottling wine at the now defunct Felton Empire winery in Santa Cruz county when I landed in California in the 1980s. I was married and had permission to work and was paying taxes so I needed to work. And all I knew of a practical nature was agriculture so there I was. This place reminded me of those distant days.
They make 40,000 liters of red wine every year. They sell a little in the US but mostly it goes to Buenos Aires the capital. For us it was a privilege to drive around lost in the bs country to find a winery never heard of and you couldn’t find if not living our lifestyle. Lucky us.
We talked a lot about Argentina, the history and the hardships and the bureaucracy (getting wine permitted for sale) and how he learned English and rarely gets to use it. We cane away with three bottles and I had a good time which is not guaranteed when visiting wineries. This one was interesting.
Back to the road and the desert. It turns out western Argentina leading up to the Andes is desert.
Who knew?
I’ll bet if I plunked Celia Bruce down here from their home in Southern Arizona they’d look around for the way home. The landscape’s not so different.
Go west young man. Of old men too.
YPF is Argentina’s national oil company and we passed drills and a chemical plant a distribution center and gas stations with lines.
They do full service gas stations with restaurants, spotless bathrooms, water faucets, tire shops, oil change bays all very modern. We prefer to wild camp but you can park overnight if you feel like it.
Road trip!
