Crossing through the middle of nothing (Argentina)

Surprisingly we left Maipu for Cordoba later than we had plan (sarcasm). Pedro suggested we take Ruta 20 because it was much nicer than the alternative. After attempting to navigate with our lonely planet map meant for backpackers taking busses and our only other map, the AAA map of the entire continent, we discovered that we didn´t really know which alternative he was referring to, because there were loads. 

We struggled to even get out of town, but once we found the highway it was easy and boring and hot and ugly and dry and flat and dusty and without plants after we left the vineyards. Gross. I don´t know how long we spent in the car  that day, but I was not diggin it. We took the main highway to a town that was at a whole bunch of crossroads, somehow missed the road we wanted, but decided to take another that was going roughly north east because the terrible maps we had didn´t show any difference. More boring driving. I think we listented to all of the music we have on both sd cards. More driving. Straight roads. no hills. BORING. The highlight of the trip was that I saw a small wild cat, which was a legitimate highlight, not just relative to the brown dirt alternative. 

Driving to Cordoba. Lots of dry desert. This was the best view of the trip though! Altitude and rocks!

It got dark. I wanted to stop (like I did all day, though). We finally asked for camping when we stopped for gas and got directions from an attendant who I remember being especially nice, but can´t really determine why. He was just really genuine, maybe? We followed his directions and ended up at the municipal campground, which was empty and unattended, but with an open gate. Dinner, movie in the tent about a group of African American boys who were wrongly convicted of a rape when they were teenagers. It was infuriating. The Central Park Five, if you are interested. I drank more of that terrible wine that we bought in Santiago and Pedro wouldn´t let us drink. 

**An aside, we are now in Brazil, land of the terrible beer, and I realized tonight as we were drinking terrible beer that both might be improved if we mixed them. Yikes.

The  next morning I woke to chainsaws. There was a crew of 5 pruning all of the branches from all of the trees in the campground. I enjoyed watching the haphazard work (Not worksafe certified, that´s for sure) while I ate my eggs. I would have liked to ask them why they were cutting off all of the branches, because it would have been much easier to just cut the entire tree down, since they will almost definitely die now. But, like I said, they were pretty unapproachable with the falling branches and dangling chainsaws.

Artesans on the way to Cordoba

Instead we left and drove the next 150ish km to Cordoba. Turns out it was good that we left it for daylight, because it finally got interesting as we climbed a mountain range. Once in Cordoba we stopped to try to find a place with internet so we could find the hostel where Tyler, a Montanian (Montanner... ummm) had been working for the past month. 2 coffees, a couple of chocolate treats, and a ham and cheese something for John we were on our way again. Man, I hate city driving. Too hectic and everyone wants to be a racecar driver and everything is one way and all the people want to be hit. The other thing I hate about cities-paying for parking, which we had to do once we got at the hostel. 

Playing Foosball with Tyler in Cordoba

When we arrived at 2pm Tyler was asleep. After learning that he went to sleep at midnight we decided to wake him up after we checked in (in his defense he worked for a couple hours in the morning). Obviously after all of that terrible timing we decided Tyler should join us for his breakfast- a beer or 3. Then we toured the city on foot, much more managable than in the car and saw a surprise for Sierra and immediately after one for Daniel. We went for another beer first though, because we needed a smaller bill to pay for them. 

On the way back to the hostel I think we got empanadas, but I am not positive because that is pretty much all we ate while we were there, so all the trips run together. Turns out this hostel had a patio with a foosball table, which I obviously couldn´t resist. I think Justin and I played something like 200 games last year, almost all in just the 4 months I lived in Vancouver. I LOVE that game. Although, without good beer and Hudson hangin around it is a little less fun. The table was missing a ball so we wandered for a while trying to find a store that sold one, but finally settled on a bouncy ball. We had burned some serious calories doing all that walking for the bouncy ball so we grabbed some empanadas on the way back. After some serious shit talking (hah, I wish, I am probably the world´s worst shit talker). I lost to Tyler (still better than John. I´m not willing to accept the loss though, because the table was unbalanced and in a generally poor state and the bouncy ball definitely changed the game.

We took a break from the tournament and I made popcorn. 

WARNING. This is turning into a story about a night of drinking and probably won´t be very interesting, except for Priscilla, since my mom has already heard the details. Also, I am likely exagerating because I have no idea how many bottles were consumed.

Drinking Game Called ¨Shots¨

 A few days before while talking to Daniel Robbins the topic of our (mine and his, it was that bad) worst hangover came up. It involved tuna casserole and bacardi gold. So when the bottle of bacardi gold was pulled out I maybe should have been more cautious. Yeah right. We were introduced to a drinking game that was too addicting. Acacia had mentioned something about wanting ice cream, which meant that I wasn´t going to bed that night without some. We finished that bottle--ice cream anybody?--perhaps another, again I asked for ice cream, and were out of liquor and again I suggested ice cream, so an unnamed employee picked the lock on the liquor cabinet. More consumption. Then we were really out so we started playing with shots of fernet...

First attempt at super famous wall pic

The fernet showed up after a bit of an intermission from the hostel activities. Finally I seized a long enough break without a flow of booze to convince the entire shots drinking game crew to go out for ice cream. Except for Benja, he must have been acquiring more booze during this time. Anyway, we either couldn´t follow directions or got bad ones, but it took us about 45 minutes to find Freddo which was about 6 blocks from the hostel. We ordered some dulce de leche ice cream dipped in chocolate in a waffle cone. Yum! And, we sat down in a bench awkwardly close to a couple clearly out for a romantic date because Tyler had run into it trying to get to the ice cream and that meant we just had to sit there! Obviously. This couple handled us pretty well. The lady was from Cordoba, but had done some studying and/or worked in Chicago and the dude was from Salta, a big city in northern Argentina. They are getting married in Salta in July and we actually got formally invited to the wedding. After saying our goodbyes to our new friends we stopped for some Acacia-on-my-shoulder pictures in front of a super famous wall. This happened before icecream. We also found a man to buy gum from, because I have been missing it. fed some dogs our cones I certainly didn't do that, and I am pretty sure no one else did, skip raced through downtown back to the hostel, and, naturally, stopped for empanadas on the way back. Alright, back to fernet shots

...Not what I would suggest. Once that was gone another bottle of fernet turned up, but John, Tyler and I decided we should move to foos again. Benja, a major proponent of this game specifically, and seemingly drinking in general, brought the game to us so we ended up continuing to play between goals, every goal. Lucky for me Benja and I formed an equipo, which may or may not have limited my drinking, but I really have no idea. At one point we tried to get empanadas again, but it was closed this time. Bummer.

Second attempt at super famous wall pic

Around 3 John called it and Tyler and I kept playing. Bedtime around 5 AM, but sleeping wasn´t really happening. I dreamed of flying because of the fan, which was nice.We were planning on leaving that day. NOPE. At some point the next morning (could have been afternoon, I really don´t know) I was finally up. Feelin mediocre. John made me coffee and bought a treat, I brought it to the sunny roof, which was crowded with Argentinians drinking their afternoon beer and wine. I couldn´t finish either, sat for awhile, and then went for a shower. I was pretty sure I had recovered. NOPE. We left for a restaurant that had pad thai (everytime we are in a city we search it out and are always bummed. Vancouver spoiled me). Half way there I was feeling pretty haggard and exhausted again. We ate some pretty questionable pad thai, and then went back for a nap. Big day. For the rest of the day we took it pretty easy. I walked through Cordoba a bit while Acacia was resting at the hostel, and found a Casa de Habana. Bought some cigars, sat in Plaza San Martin (every South American town has one of these I´m pretty sure) and watched a protest of sorts and the cutest dog and little boy running around and playing in the fountain. Back to the hostel. More empanadas. I didn´t drink that night, but somehow John and Tyler both managed at least another shot each. We called it pretty early. 

A blurry picture of Tyler testing the camera

We planned on leaving Cordoba at 8 in the morning. By the time we had coffeed up and eaten some breakfast bread we rolled out of Cordoba around 9:30. Our next destination was Iguazu Falls, and the local receptionist at the hostel directed us along the route that goes predominantly east and then north as opposed to the one that goes mostly north and then east because he said that the drive was not as dry and dessert-y (if it was desserty I would have chosen to go that way). Leaving Cordoba was about 300km to Rosario, which is the other city that competes with Cordoba for being the only thing of any size between Mendoza and Buenos Aires. This stretch of the drive was about as boring as the I-5 and equally as dry and brown. Not particularly exciting but at least the speed limit was 130km/hr so it was a fast 300km. Rosario is on the Parana river, so we crossed a pretty cool suspension bridge on the other side of Rosario and this is where the drive got a bit more interesting. A lot more green, with marshes and swamps along the road and a few more animals. After about an hour or so of this, it also wasn´t terribly exciting. When we´re driving through the police check points at random intervals along the main highways, we stand out pretty hard for the police and are often stopped because of the foreign plates and general gringo-ness. Normally they ask where we´re going and why we have a Chilean car as Americanos, and then we ask them for directions. Generally an ok experience. But today was by far the most uncomfortable cop stop. We were pulled over and after giving the cop all the paperwork he asked for, he then asked for Acacia´s passport because John stupidly handed his over without being asked for it. He kept asking if Acacia and I were married while telling John and his coworkers I was very nice looking and young and that John and I were brother and sister, making me available in their opinion. Fuck that. I was incredibly uncomfortable. And angry. and then told us we needed to have a fire extinguisher in our car so we were being fined for not having one. When we didn´t have enough money to pay the fine on the spot (as he was requesting, shady? He even asked if we had dollars) he held on to our passports and the car documents for a long time and was being pretty reluctant about letting us leave. Eventually he gave us back our stuff and told us he was letting us go because we didn´t know the rules and could get an extinguisher at the next service technician. Bullshit. Although googling it now it looks like we actually did need it. At one point we ended up on a dirt highway and that changed it up a bit, and meant no cops. Eventually we reached the town of Federal which is a pretty small town in the middle of super rural (I wouldn´t classify it as super rural, it was just a farming community, it seemed to be fairly inhabited, just with large tracts of farmland breaking up to communities)Argentina. It was kind of like being in a small version of Modesto. Anyway, we grabbed some sandwich ingredients, got gas, and discovered that the only hotel in town was way too much money so drove a few kilometers out of town and slept in our car.

The following morning we hit the road for Iguazu pretty early after only a bit of delay in figuring out which highway we were supposed to be on.  We stopped once for some coffee at a gas station and got a couple drumstick like ice cream cones, but otherwise it was a fairly uneventful drive. About half way along the drive things started feeling really tropical. Palm trees, brick architecture, sandals, and jungle. It definitely felt more like my vision of Brazil than Argentina. As it got dark we were still 200 km from Iguazu.

Another gas station in hopes of directions to camping led us to where the woman thought there was a campground, but as far as we could tell it was a closed private reserve. Luckily there was a tourist map with a campground on it, just off of the detailed part of the map. We wandered in the direction the map made it seem like we should go, and luckily found signs for the agrocamping location (John kept on making jokes about having to pick ears of corn as payment because of the name, which I would have been into, but this wasn´t the case).

We pulled into the campground and didn´t see anyone. There were lights on at what appeared to be a little camp store, or maybe even a reception area. We could tell everything was closed up, but there was the noise of the tv quite loudly inside, so we knocked, on pretty much every door, window, and wall. No answer.

In the past for situations like this we have set up camp, assuming someone would come collect our money later, so that´s what we did. After about 30 minutes a man with a flashlight approached, we greeted him and asked if we could camp there. He didn´t respond. We repeated. He looked suspicious and made it very clear he had a gun on his hip (read: in his hand as he approached our tent, then he put it in his ) he was ready to use. Somehow we managed to sort out the situation, and then he was completely friendly. Turned on some lights, sold us a beer, and jam and pickled beets his wife made. 

As expected, we immediately sampled some of the jarred goodies, and then called the beer dinner. I made some pancake batter to let rise for the following morning, watched the end of Stand Up Guys and then called it a night while Acacia read-

The next morning the old man who owned the premises was up bright and early, and I was out of my tent shortly after hearing him, and proceeded to begin pancake production. He came over (as he did say we would talk more in the morning when neither of us was tired) and proceeded to explain that his grandparents had moved Argentina from Germany and that he was fluent in German, Spanish, Guarani, and Portuguese, but not English. He also had a lovely little log book for us to write in, and an article he wrote for the news paper in which he criticized the mono crops of Pine that were being planted in the area. He was also very curious about us, the car-which he deemed very low to the ground for the trip we were doing-and was also curious about the pancakes and the stove I was using, so I offered him one, but sadly he rejected.

Anyway, we parted from the campground and headed the two hours to Puerto Iguazu. The drive was fairly uneventful, with only one toll booth, and I´m pretty sure no cop stops. Beauty.