Part 23 The Argentine Prairie, mid Nov 17

Part 23 The Argentine Prairie

Isabelle had been looking forward to sampling world famous Argentinian beef. Equally famous is the friendliness of this country’s people. She would get her wish, experiencing both things twice in one day with new Argentinian friends. It all started with a rainstorm and a mechanical problem.

Goodbye mountains, hello Argentina 

Salt flats in northern Argentina

Two days of riding and a brief border crossing at Bermejo brought us into the municipal campground in Salta, Argentina. Camping is extremely common in Argentina and most towns and cities have a municipal campground that costs little or nothing. Regular use of these places will help us adapt our spending to stay within budget for the “southern cone” countries. The Canadian government, along with those of the United Kingdom and of the US, considers Argentina to be safe, giving it the same security rating as Canada. We have hauled around our camping gear for 8 months, it’s time to use it.

Repairing flood damage, northern Argentina 

Argentina has a very European feel – and prices to go with it. Good quality fuel means goodbye to the terrible engine knocking and the belching of black smoke but it costs $2.30/L! Grocery store prices are equally high but they beat eating in restaurants. Sleeping in a hotel is out of the question.

                               A roadside shrine with offerings of water, asking for safe travels

Everything about Argentina’s plains is different. The mountains we lived in for 6 months are behind us and so are the Indigenous influences. People are European looking south of Salta. They drive new European cars like Renault, Peugeot and Fiat on endlessly straight paved roads. They sleep in air-conditioned houses. A stop to gas up at a Shell station looks and feels like one from Canada. We cover 3,500 kilometers in one week!

Good quality nafta (gasoline), spotless washrooms 

The language spoken is still Spanish but it is strange and new to us. Aurally, it is much faster and the letter “s” has all but disappeared. Syllables get rearranged, new words pop up for old concepts and old words take on new spellings. Word and phrase contractions are more common as speed and brevity become important. Northern pronunciation idioms, such as “B” for a written “V” disappear and new ones emerge. We find it difficult to understand people, even when answering familiar questions in a simple conversation with a gas station attendant!

Salta's main cathedral reflected by a modern building 

Contemporary museum, Salta

The geography is novel and impressive too, possessing a yet unseen beauty. The interior plains are almost completely flat. Clusters of huge trees provide the occasional windbreak. Trees also line driveways, shooting a straight line through endless golden wheat. Sometimes, we can’t see the farm house because the driveway may be a few kilometers long. Big sky, big herds, new plants and new smells greet us everywhere.

Healthy, bountiful crops

Argentina produces massive quantities of food. Its interior plains accommodate huge, single crop mechanized farms that contrast sharply with the hand worked subsistence farms of the Andes. The concept of reciprocity still rules much of the Andes where goods and services are bartered and traded for one another, not a penny being involved. The concept of money drives the efficiency of Argentinian agriculture. Food exports provide countless jobs and help drive the economy. They also help to feed the world.

Various land uses on the prairie 

A storm in Rio Cuarto kept us in a roadside café for two hours. Hail, high winds and cold temperatures ensured the lengthy delay. We rode on after things calmed but Isabelle had forgotten to check her gas cap after filling up. A construction zone with deep puddles splashed water into her gas tank and her moto sputtered and died. I coaxed it for a while, managing to get a few hundred meters out of it to a nearby hotel.

Brown coloured water from Wilda's gas tank, blue is premium nafta

The next day I tried adding alcohol to the tank and things improved slightly. A kind passerby, Nikolas saw me struggling with the bike. This was the beginning of a fast, new friendship. Nikolas, a fellow biker jumped in his car and led me, on sputtering Wilda, to a nearby moto mechanic named Hernan. Hernan gave her a complete “cambio de nafta” (change of gasoline) and quickly got Wilda rolling again under her own power. Hernan showed me the scar from his implant repaired left collar bone, a perfect mirror image to mine. His crash story was also identical to mine. Together we might make one complete monster from Mary Shelly’s, “Frankenstein”.

Hernan saving the day

We ended up spending the weekend with Nikolas and his friends. First came a Saturday ride with his moto club to a pretty German influenced vacation town. Isa and I met Nikolas and Franco at the Axion station near our hotel and rode north toward Villa General Belgrano. We met Denis on the road and stopped at the summer house of his friend, Adriano. There we met Diego and Franco cooked up a traditional Argentine “asado” for everyone. Only seasoned with salt, the meat is slow cooked to well done and is served with a few token vegetables. It was wonderful.

Nikolas (middle) and his motorcycle club with two guests

After lunch we went to Nikolas’ family summer house. The private road in from the gravel road was a downhill mud slide and Isa gracefully stepped off her bike when the rear wheel slid out. I rode it down the rest of the way for her. There we met Nikolas’s girlfriend Maria Jesus, his best childhood friend Mauricio and Mauricio’s wife Jimena. These four generous people welcomed us warmly into their lives. They gave us a deeper introduction to Argentinian culture, sharing food, laughter, songs and stories with us.

The first asado: at Adriano's summer house

 Adriano's family summer house near Villa General Belgrano, Argentina

Diego, Nikolas, Franco (our "asador"), Denis, Adriano, Isa. The "asado" (traditional BBQ'd meats including blood sausage and beef offal) is cooking in the parilla behind.

Mauricio was our “asador” this time. He cooked a great asado on the outside parilla. He and Nikolas took turns playing guitar and leading traditional folk songs. Maria Jesus and Jimena joined in too. All four of them seemed thrilled to be sharing their culture with a couple of Canadian travelers. They spoke as slowly and clearly as their Argentinian accents allowed and were patient with our childish Spanish. Conversation was easy and spirited all evening as we learned about their way of life. It had been a great day.

The second asado: at Nikolas's family summer house

Nikolas

Maria Jesus and Nikolas

Uninterrupted rain fell throughout the night. I rode both motos up the slippery, rutted slope while Isa and Nikolas pushed on the back of the paniers. Teamwork paid off and no one got too muddy. We drove into the pretty German town called Villa General Belgrano and had a lovely breakfast together. Before we rode south Nikolas and company gave us parting gifts of dulce de leche and a traditional matte cup with a filtered straw. We were astounded by their generosity.

Thank you Nikolas, Maria Jesus, Mauricio and Jimena for such a warm introduction to the Argentine people!

Nikolas, Maria Jesus, Mauricio, Jimena, Terry, Isa at breakfast the next day

A few more days of riding south brought us to El Condor, on the Atlantic coast. Along the way through Argentina’s agricultural heartland we encountered waving hands and smiling faces from pedestrians we passed and quick conversations with other bikers at red lights. There was instant friendly conversation at each rest-stop. We discovered the meaning of rapidly flashing high beams from oncoming vehicles.  Not a warning, it means, “Cool bikes!” or maybe, “Buen suerte/viaje!” (Good luck/travels!) when followed by a thumbs-up from the oncoming car or truck driver. Thumbs-up gestures, beeps, waves, shouts and photos taken from sedately passing vehicles in our direction were even easier to interpret. They were gestures made by people thrilled to see obvious travelers visiting their country.

Daren and Isa riding along the Atlantic coastal road.

The seaside town of El Condor was to be the site for an informal “Horizons Unlimited” meeting of moto travelers who happen to be in South America at that time. We met up with fellow rider, Daren at the campground in El Condor. We had met him through Frank in Sucre.

Coastal cliffs

"Bird on a Wire", actually thousands of parrots

We rode down the coast with him on Friday morning to visit a sea lion sanctuary. Along the way we saw thousands of parrots weighing down power wires beside the road. The birds live in small caves  dug into the nearby cliffs. Like the sea lions, the parrots are also protected in this region. We visited the sea lion sanctuary and were delighted with the sight of thousands of animals relaxing on a beach, safe from killer whale and shark attack. Our host, Oskar and his girlfriend Nelda treated we three early arrivers to a “marisco” (seafood) feast that day before the official festivities.

Viewing the sea lions, too close and we would cause a deadly stampede 

Thousands of the huge mammals enjoy the safety of a protected beach

A traditional Argentine Asado was the focus of the next day. Local bikers joined the fun that lasted into the early evening. Conversation seemed easier as we became a little more familiar with Argentinian Spanish. Discussing familiar topics like bikes and travel stories helped, too.

 Oskar cooking up "mariscos" (sea food)

 Daren, Isa, Nelda, Oscar, Terry about to enjoy excellent mariscos

Lots of fun and asado with local bikers the next day

We went for a walk on the beach with Daren that evening to catch the nesting parrots and the sunset. Such breathtaking beauty and we were the only witnesses!

The rough Atlantic 

Sunset near the parrot filled cliffs 

Nesting Parrots

We said goodbye to Daren the next morning, he turned left and we turned right. Further travel on the arid plains in the next few days took us past huge water management projects involving, dams, dykes, aqueducts and reservoirs large enough to rival some Canadian lakes. Crops changed slowly, in accordance with local conditions. Sometimes the only land use type was grazing, and then sometimes there was no use at all.

We were introduced to the Patagonian wind. These strong winds have different effects depending on their relative direction to us riders. In a head wind an oncoming truck produces an explosive shock wave. We go completely to the right side of the road for those encounters. Side winds, especially inconsistent ones are the most difficult to manage. They sometimes cause us to induce dramatic lean angles to continue in a straight line and to avoid being swept off the road. Motorcycles, even heavy ones like ours, can easily be blown over from the kickstand if wind direction is not considered when choosing a place to park. Tail winds are magical and pleasant. You can almost hear the birds singing, or is that the tires humming?

Our first campsite after enjoying a 70 kilometer per hour tailwind was at the municipal campground in Bahia Blanca. We pulled in and were immediately mobbed by families enjoying the park and the ubiquitous parillas (BBQ grills). “Chori-pan” (sausage in bread) was thrust into our hands by a man eager to share his family’s asado. There was much discussion about the bikes and our journey peppered with recommendations about places to visit. Their eagerness to share their culture and their country’s natural beauty helped to melt our, “stranger in a strange land” feelings.

We passed through many prairie towns often camping in the municipal campground for free or for a small charge of 100-200 Pesos, or 8 to 16 Canadian dollars. The town of Carhue was different. We had planned to stay there but moved on to the next town after discovering the fee. The three private campgrounds, along with the municipal one had fixed their price at 525 Pesos for two people and a tent. No bargaining strategy worked and we were told that it was the same price everywhere in town. The next town, Guamini had free camping with electricity at every site, hot showers and free wifi. We stayed there.

Lots of free camping available in municipal campgrounds

Eventually we arrived in Mar del Plata, the “French Riviera of South America”. Upscale casinos and hotels line the calm beaches downtown. European sophistication and charm are everywhere. We decided to stay a few days to enjoy the sea and the vibrant city of 700,000 people. A system of dozens of breakers protects about 15 kilometers of sandy beaches that are packed with people. Beach clubs and hotels have numerous installations of tents and swimming pools along the coastline but access to the wavy salt water beach by the public is possible everywhere.

Mar del Plata, city centre beach 

Mar del Plata, one of the southern beaches

There is a great variety of easy to find cafes and restaurants along the beach strip. We took the public bus three days in a row to explore the city, visiting many barrios and seeing a wide variety of architecture. Oddly enough, Tudor houses are popular. We visited churches and museums and we took the tour of the municipal water tower. The submarine museum was closed. We guessed the reason was the recent, tragic loss of a submarine and 44 lives. Touching tributes to those who lost their lives lined the fence outside the naval base.

Surf's up!

We heard no other languages than Argentine Spanish during 4 days in Mar del Plata 

On our last day we visited the port and saw the semi-wild sea lions. We had seen them in San Francisco too. One lion climbed the stairs from the water and crossed the street to enjoy the shade beside a building for a snooze. Later we found a restaurant that appeared to be filled with local people. There, we enjoyed the best calamari either of us has ever tasted. Isabelle had the familiar battered and deep-fried variety and I had a tomato base stew over rice. The texture and flavours were wonderful.

Mid-week, preseason crowds 

Argentinians love coming to this beach resort town

That afternoon we were strolling along a street filled with upscale shops and cafes when the sky became black. A dirt devil skipped along the street blasting sand into our eyes so we took refuge in a café. We hoped to wait out the unpleasantness but nothing more happened and we moved on. Ten minutes later the real action began.

There is evidence of economic hardship

Powerful thunderstorms passed overhead, hitting the city in waves. They lasted throughout the evening and night. We bought garbage bags to put over us and made it to the campground only half wet. There we discovered our tent sitting in the edge of a puddle of water but still dry inside. There had been so much rain, so quickly that pools of water filled the campground and streams flowed freely.

Isa and Astor Piazola, a famous composer of tango. Piazola was a native of Mar del Plata.

We unpegged, and carried our tent to a dry concrete slab at the covered kitchen area. We were the only campers in the place, as usual, and the security guard said it was OK to be there for the night. He knew we were leaving the next day. His only request was that we should be packed up and away from the entrance to the multi-purpose hall before people arrived for the church service the next morning. That seemed fair.

Port Scenes:

He looked tame but we still kept a distance. Good thing we can run faster.

We hung things in the rafters to dry and tried to block from our ears the roaring of the torrent on the metal roof above us. A fast-flowing stream across the lower side of the concrete slab carried debris past our tent only two meters away. The deluge continued all night. We hoped the stream didn’t widen.

Tired old boat, "I'm not dead yet!"

"It's only a flesh wound!"

The next morning the wind was still strong but the rain had stopped and we had remained dry. As we worked at packing, the strong winds flung the tormented clouds across the sky and seemed to slowly break them up. By the time we were packed the sun was breaking through so we put out our wet things to dry while making breakfast. We had been lucky to make it through the night relatively comfortably and the strong sun made short work of drying our coats and drenched boots. Everything was dry by noon and we moved out.

We did a Sunday afternoon cruise along the coastal strip through the city. We weren’t alone. There were lots of other big bikes and cars filled with people putt-putting along. Thumbs up and friendly waves were punctuated by quick conversations at traffic lights. After about twenty minutes we arrived at the highway out of the city and turned right to put the ocean behind us.

Next stop: Buenos Aires.