Argentine Road Trips
Driving to Mendoza
we chose the longer road
because Route 40 tended to flood.
on
yellow gravel & dust —
a
surface so bad we didn’t
notice
the flat tire
until
the rim bent.
The
rental car company said
fix
the tire or buy a new one.
We
spent a whole day
learning
city streets & the language of tires —
gomería,
where
a man showed us
the
tire shredded inside.
A
new one from Goodyear wasn’t cheap
plus
I left my diary there —
still,
a week later
they
were holding it for me.
Cafayate
to Asunción
took
three days in our new Citroën.
Three
hours one evening we waited in
a
mile-long line for gas.
30
kilometers we drove
on
a freshly paved one-lane highway
where
semis coming at us
forced
us onto gravel shoulders.
At
the Paraguayan border
customs
stopped us —
No,
you can’t drive across the border
even
though you own the car.
For
50 pesos
Carlos
in soiled Bermudas
let
us park it in his yard —
we
never thought to see the car again
but
30 hours later, there it was
dusty
& unharmed.
Every
drive, however short
involved
the police —
Show
me your papers
where
do you live
where
are you going
are
you carrying fruit?
Sometimes
two or three
uniforms
conferred
in
this generally idle occupation
part
of keeping everyone employed
but
never a problem
because
we were gringo.
Driving
back from hiking in Jujuy
dreaming
of showers
after
three days of dust & llama spit
we
reached the final stretch
of
the road home —
washed
away.
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