CHAPTER 37
I woke up to the searing rays of the sun trying to force their way through my eyelids. Our night sleeping on top of the truck had been pleasant and cool, but with the coming of dawn the air temperature started to rise quickly, and my sleeping bag began to feel like a furnace. I jumped down from the roof and lit the stove for our morning cup of tea. Kacey was still snoring away on top of the truck, apparently oblivious to the solar oven she was zipped up in- even on the warmest nights in the jungle or desert she would dutifully crawl into the folds of her sleeping bag, while I lay uncovered, spread eagle in the languid air- her internal thermostat seems to be just a few degrees off from mine. Realizing that it was going to be a scorcher, and that we would be on the road all day, caged up in the hot-box that is the truck for the foreseeable future, I decided to take a crack at fixing the air conditioning.
The circumstances leading up to this remote Argentine desert repair job had been a long time coming. Over three months ago, the salt flats of Bolivia had been covered by a thin layer of water, which sprayed up into the bowels of our engine as we flew over them at 60mph. When we emerged from the desert, there was a nice white coating of pure salt, a quarter inch thick in some places, encrusting every exposed surface. We took the truck to a car wash where they used a high pressure hose on the undercarriage, but by that time the damage had already been done. It took us a week sitting around in Antofagasta, Chile to be told that they couldn’t figure out what was making that awful grinding sound under the hood, but that it probably wouldn’t matter. This answer didn’t sit well with me, but what could we do? We hit the road south to Santiago in hopes that the situation wouldn’t get any worse before we got there, and if it did, we would have a much greater chance of finding the right parts to fix it. Thirty miles down the road the sound got louder and louder, until a bang and horrible screeching sound replaced the grinding one. I pulled over and after a little poking around found that a small tensioner pulley for the AC belt had seized up. I removed it and could see that the ball bearings were completely rusted due to the intrusion of the saline desert water, and one had even exploded. Thankfully, the engine had individual belts for the AC compressor, the power steering, and alternator, rather than a serpentine belt, so I was able to remove the AC belt and get us back on the road, albeit, without the luxury of air conditioning.
No one in Santiago ended up having the right parts, so when we flew home in February, I picked up a new pulley at the local CarQuest. On our return to Argentina, my first attempt to fix the AC ended in failure when the head of the tensioner bolt twisted right off leaving the rest of the bolt welded in place by a thick coating of rust. A few days, and many mechanics later, I finally found one that was able to drill out the rusted bolt successfully, but, due to the back water little village we were in, couldn’t find a replacement bolt. The one good thing about the eccentric little tea house we had visited the day before in Gaimen, was that there happened to be a hardware store down the road from it, and they happened to have a nice new shinny 12mm dia. 60mm long metric bolt.
In the hot desert air, I laid down in the sand, trying to avoid a few cactus and ant hills, and crawled under the truck with my bag of tools… Kacey woke to my triumphant yell, and the sweet sweet sound of the purring air conditioner!
The day would turn out to be a little less lucky than the morning gave us hope for- first a flat tire and later, the sinister red glow of the “check engine” light came on, maliciously staring out at me from the dash. We took both problems in stride, but they set us back a few hours, and we finally rolled into our camp site after night fall. In the morning we awoke to a magnificent sight- the crisp clear waters of Lago Futalafuquen stretched off down the valley, high jagged peaks encircled us on every side, and our camp was an oasis of tall shady pine trees, surrounded by wildflowers and chirping song birds. We spent the day lounging on the shore reading books or swimming in the glassy waters of the lake. The mosquitoes came out at dusk and we put up our bug net, but with dinner we built a fire, something exceedingly rare on our trip due to the lack of downed wood in most places we camped, and its heat and smoke were sufficient to deter the swarms of little gnats that had been small enough to work their way through the bug net fabric and drown themselves in my cold gin and tonic.
We were now headed north, along the eastern edge of the Andes, into the area of Argentina know as the Lake District. The capital of the region, San Carlos de Bariloche, sits nestled between the mountains and the shore of the enormous Lago Nahuel Huapi, and reminds you of a Swiss mountain village- the cobbled streets lined with stone lodges, peaked roofs, and wooden window shutters. Indeed, like its unnamed doppelganger in Europe, the town is famous for its decadent chocolate factories, it’s incredible skiing, and there are even a number of huge Saint Bernards that stroll the main plaza with little barrels of reviving spirits strapped to their collars, their owners charging tourists a few pesos for a photo. Kacey had already been here during her year of teaching in Chile, and loved dragging me around, showing me her favorite spots in this picturesque little village.
One day, we spent the better part of an afternoon walking from one end of town to the other on our very own “chocolate-a-thon”. We visited a dozen stores and factories, where you would push open the polished double doors of the entrance, and stepping across the threshold, would arrive at someplace very close to heaven. From wall to wall there would be cases full of chocolates and sweets of every imaginable variety and description. The young girls behind the counter were more than willing to offer you a sample of anything you stared at for more than a few seconds, and given my tendency to stare, I must have eaten 2lbs. of free chocolate that afternoon. I felt like the fat kid in lederhosen at Willy Wonka’s, greedily drooling at the velvety, cascading, 5 foot tall, chocolate fondue fountain in one storefront display. Kacey had to slap me to get my attention long enough for me to hand over my wallet so she could pay for her pile of treats sitting on the scale- they don’t mess around in Bariloche, and simply charge everything at the same rate, by the kilo.
Having eaten our allotment of sugar for the year, we thought it might be prudent to throw a little calorie burning into the mix. After so many months sitting all day in the truck, it took awhile to convince our atrophied legs, and delicate derrières, that going on a 25 mile bike ride around EL Circuito Chico, the small circuit, would be a fun thing to do. We rented bikes and started off on the all day adventure that took us on a circuitous loop between half a dozen crystal clear lakes, along the edges of precipitous cliffs, and up and down countless steep hills (the “ups” seem to stick out in my mind), where at the top we were routinely rewarded with amazing panoramic views of the region.
Right here I will say that I feel a little foolish of the whiny tone to my voice- it really wasn’t that far of a ride, and if we had genuinely tried to stay in shape during our trip, it would have been a piece of cake- but what really humbles me, is that on our journey we met a number of people who were doing the same trip as us, north to south through the Americas, except that they were doing it on their bicycles! When we told people at home of our plans to drive through Central and South America, 95% of the time we got a look of “man, you guys are crazy” in return. I’ll tell you what’s crazy, doing it on a bike. I can’t even begin to imagine how many hundreds of times more difficult and stressful this trip would be without the luxury and security of our truck. It just goes to show that no matter what you do, there is always someone out there who can tell you to “lift up your skirt, Sally, and hit the ball like a man.”
Even though our short ride through the Andes wasn’t as epic as some choose to make it, we felt pretty good about ourselves. We had just shown that our bodies could tackle a rather strenuous ride even though we started pretty cold in the saddle, it happened to be Saint Patrick’s Day, and it was also my half-birthday- add it all up, and it sounded to me like it was definitely time for a celebration. We drove further north, around Lake Nahuel Huapi, to the quaint town of Villa la Angostura, where we discovered the best little Irish pub in all of Argentina. The bar couldn’t have been any bigger than our living room, but they had a live band, free pizza and snacks for the crowd, and of course, the obligatory green beer.
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