One of the great pre-$4.00 gas pleasures in life was getting out on the open road, especially in a convertible. America is such a big country, and the automobile has so transformed our lifestyles, that the two were made for one another. Your car is more than just a way to get from point A to B, in many cases it defines your personality for others. How many songs and stories have mythologized getting out on the open road? This is one of the last true freedoms we have.
Or, I had nothing better to do today so I thought I´d drive.
So I spent the day driving up to San Martin de los Andes, a smaller ski town north of Barioche, purportedly much nicer than Bariloche.
The morning was all about fits and starts. The hotel internet wouldn´t work so I couldn´t check e-mail, I forgot my camera, forgot my map, blah, blah, blah. So I didn´t actually get out of town until around 11:30, far too late to make it both to San Martin, and to Villa La Angostura as I originally planned.
Breakfast mystery couple update: he asked her if she wanted to meet him in Costa Rica because its so very beautiful there, and she unflinchingly said yes, as casually as if she were saying yes she does want cream with her coffee. (I´m sure that last phrase is part of a dirty joke, and if not, it should be). Costa Rica, I think, is a big honeymoon destination. Of course, my buddy Scott from law school went there on his honeymoon and they were divorced within five years. I´m just sayin´. Anyway, I figure all the non-chalance is for my benefit. These two look really sophisticated, so they probably want to keep up the act, even in as remote a place as Bariloche. Asking her to go to Costa Rica in front of me probably was a slip; she recovered nicely with such a calm answer, as if though they might just be ¨friends¨ after all. I think not. You people aren´t fooling anyone except yourselves.
OK, as previously mentioned I hit the road around 11:30, and its a great day to drive. In fact, its just a little bit chilly, probably around 60-64 degrees, without many clouds. You first have to go east around Lake Nahuel Huapi, then turn north, and I had planned to head directly northwest at Confluencia directly to San Martin, then south to Angostura before heading east again to Confluencia and home. Unfortunately, the roads after Confluencia were gravel roads, with lots of ruddy pits, making travel above 30 mph very difficult. I quickly saw that this was going to get me there sometime late next week, so I instead took the ¨long way,¨which is a lot further north on the paved road, then a direct turn west into the small town of Junin de los Andes, then turning south to San Martin.
Stupidly, I left town with only about 5/8 ths tank of gas. After I realized how long the trip would be I began to become absolutely paranoid about running out of gas. This wasn´t IH-35 with a gas station every two miles. There wasn´t a single building, much less gas station, for incredible distances on this two-lane highway. On the other hand, there wasn´t a single billboard. The VW hatchback I rented is much more miserly with gas than the M3 back home, so it turned out I used only 1/3 tank to get there, and still had plenty of gas when I made it to Junin de los Andes. The problems were that I thought the gravel road would be more passable, and that the distance wasn´t as long as it turned out to be. It must have taken about 3 1/2 hours to get to San Martin, even at open highway speeds. I did slow down or stop to take lots of photos, but the problem primarily was the distance. Now, it was through incredible scenery. The route takes you past the Miami Dolphins-color aqua blue Rio Limay, out of the snow covered mountains and into high "estancia¨ brush covered hill country, and finally back into snowy, forested mountains.
Among the highlights you can see in the photos is a natural "amphitheatre" at an extreme river bend, a short way into the drive. This created a sort of canyon, resembling a natural amphitheatre. Other highlights included the incredible blue water of Rio Limay, some of the great scenes along the river near sunset, and the town of San Martin.
Junin de los Andes is a fairly non-descript town that looks like a bunch of Pasadena welders spent their life savings to build their dream town. Its the kind of place that if they had more money, they´d have more appliances to put in their front yards and Trans-Ams to put up on blocks (´cause its gonna be worth a lot some day). Hell, there´s not even a Dairy Queen (thereby ruling out the town´s Pasadena ancestry). Interestingly, there´s an army base just on the outskirts of town. Those guys must love that post, probably as much as the guys stationed in Iguazu. What are they protecting against, hordes of Bolivians swarming across the boarder disguised as Alabama fly fishermen looking to bring down the big trout? Its truly scandalous that the IMF and World Bank ever made such huge loans to third world countries with big standing armies whose economic growth suffers for such misplaced central government budgetary priorities without getting strict commitments to rein in military spending.
Nearby San Martin, however, is a real jewel. It reflects a noticeable German and Swiss architectural style. Buildings are made of stone or maple-colored wood. Very little masonry. Some look like they could be gingerbread houses. Its as though the St. Pauli Beer girl and Eva Braun should be greeting me with flowers, beer, and fruit while Der Valkyrie plays in the backgroud. I read that the town has enacted strict Nantucket-like ordinances regulating building appearances and locations, and has thereby managed to avoid the overgrowth and crowding prevalent in Bariloche. Where Bariloche is frantic and congested, San Martin is quiet and sedate. The place isn´t overrun with obnoxious eurotrash types or kids. "Crowds" are slim, although there´s plenty of people on the streets given that I arrived at 2:30 during the siesta. Have I explained that outside Buenos Aires, the shops almost all observe the 2-5 siesta. They typically reopen until around 9, then obviously have their late dinner. Personally, I´d rather work through the day and have my night free, but I gather the siesta originated as a response to high afternoon heat in Spanish lands where it originated. So perhaps San Martin seemed slow due to the siesta, but I doubt it.
Despite the incredible number of lakes, and their tremendous size, I thought it was odd that I haven´t seen one sailboat since arriving here. Where´s the Flying WASP on such a beautiful afternoon?
A few observations about highway driving here. Signs and laws are obviously optional. "No passing zone"? No problem! They´ll pass you anyway. Also, that includes speed limits. The fact that so much space exists between towns on the highways contributes to there being few "highway patrol," and therefore little incentive to drive posted speeds (other than safety, although driving the posted speed limit can actually be hazardous with so many cars, buses, and trucks trying to pass you on narrow two-lane roads. I felt very reluctant to drive over the speed limit. As many of you know, I seldom drive too much faster than the limit anyway, but I figured if I get pulled over, its the leg irons and cattle prod for me because there´s no way I´m going to be able to explain what I was doing or, more importantly, that I´m really not a big "bandido Yanqui" drug dealer. I also noticed that before and leaving every town, there´s a police checkpoint. They don´t routinely stop people, but the cop does take a good look at every driver, and in what surely infuriates "probable cause" groupies everywhere, I´m sure they pull over people that don´t look right and give them a good rodgering before deciding what to do with them. Finally, you know those little shrines that people put on the side of the road that normally show where a loved one died (in a car crash)? They´ve got those here, in much greater numbers than in the States, and they´re also much more elaborate. Not necessarily nicer, just more elaborate. Note to my future executor-if I die in a car crash, please do not build a shrine at said site. Please focus energies instead on putting a huge picture of me on the Humble, Texas water tower. That´ll show ´em who´s the man.
That night, walking back from Bariloche and dinner, I saw a little stationery store with a handmade sign in the front window with hand-drawn flowers on it, that said "11 de Septiembre. Feliz dia seña." I´m not sure of the translation, but I´m pretty sure of the feelings behind it. I reflected that not everyone in the world hates the United States, as the sign lifted my spirits just a little bit in this strange land.
Tomorrow-on to El Calafate (with clean underwear)
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