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| Argentina Highway 14 up the Brazilian border |
I didn’t really need reminding but Argentina’s infrastructure is crumbling. The president promised to fix spectacular rates of inflation and he did by laying off thousands of bureaucrats and canceling infrastructure projects. Consequently roads, the stuff we drive on, are in a woeful state of disrepair.
They patch the roads but it ends up an awful potato patch lumpy ride, and there is a ton of truck traffic that apparently melts the road in summer into ridges and valleys of asphalt.
It’s a hard drive especially as the traffic up the border was heavy with trucks and impatient cats dodging between them to get ahead. Layne for some reason was hell bent on getting to Paraguay but I was tiring of fixating on asphalt and avoiding getting run off the road.
We spent Thursday night at a truck stop which offered free RV services to anyone that stops by, electricity, potable water, a toilet dump station and was it surprising the spots were all taken?
The photo I took the next morning shows a spot where our Brazilian friends finishing their vacation had survive night and were hurrying home. We parked Argentina style in a non parking spot to the side while a late arrival had parked in front of another RV…a popular spot for the night.
We left late and got on the road after ten, still shared how Argentina offers free stops for RVs. Back on that infernal road we got.
There were a ton of dead dogs on the shoulders probably pets abandoned and killed lacking street sense. Poverty in Argentina is rampant. We also saw many rusting hulks of abandoned automobiles.
A nice stretch of road there too, all too short unfortunately. Then we ran into a smokescreen reminiscent of the wildfires causing havoc all over the world.
It came, it went and there was no explanation. By now temperatures were in the mid 60s and we even got some sunshine, it felt completely different from the cold damp days in Uruguay. It feels like Spring even though it isn’t.
The countryside changed too, less orderly farms and fields and more marshy wilderness.
I got fed up with the road after six hours not least because we had agreed to keep our days shorter for Rusty’s sake though he was keeping up just fine. We stopped to eat a sausage sandwich, a classic Argentine choripan photographed by Layne: 
While Rusty snoozed in the shade. By 4:30 we found a gas station with hot showers and overnight parking so we stopped two hours shy of Paraguay.
I walked Rusty and we came across a motorcycle and tent on the edge of the parking lot. It reminded me of my youth.
Aridtides the rider came by Timor’s tice his English and told me his story, a former truck driver who quit in a dispute with his boss. He wanted to stay on the road so he rides and looks for work as he goes. Argentina is a mess he said, we don’t plan for the future we only live for today because with a shrug.
President Milei is an attempt at change head after forty years of hopeless corruption. Hope springs eternal. I fed the gas station dogs much to Rusty’s irritation and I saw a guy collecting cans working at it. I gave him a five dollar bill as our supply of pesos is low. He looked at it like I’d offered him the holy grail and doffed his cap like a medieval serf. He couldn’t believe his eyes and backed away bowing and thanking me. It takes so little in a ruined economy. Oh Argentina.
