We are back in the USA for a visit while our truck sits patiently waiting in Argentina. Its always hard to leave it and it is an arduous journey, but it’s also good to see family & friends and we feel fortunate to be able to do it.
The last weeks before we have to leave are always kind of distracting since we’re not used to having a deadline and it takes some planning and staging to get ready, but we always fit in some fun just the same. We’ll never forget the time we were in Arizona in 2020 and a cop pulled us over just to look at our truck and pose the question: “Did you build this for Armageddon?” Jon was like, “No….. we built it to have fun!” We’re not interested in war or religion. As I look back, fun has always been our priority. Even living on our boat in Boston had a vacation like feel despite the fact we were working because boats are toys and so are overland RV’s. As soon as we got our degrees we set about working toward retiring early to get out and explore.
Because we’d entered Argentina at a small border, we had to climb up to the pass toward Santiago once again to get the longer TIP permit there so that we could leave our truck. It’s funny how well we’ve gotten to know the Andes mountains. We’ve crisscrossed them a multitude of times now and they are impressive and varied everywhere we’ve gone. Of course it took all day to accomplish the TIP extension but it also gave us the opportunity to head up the old pass road to the Christ the Redeemer statue before it closes for the season. There’s a lot of history on the entire road up to the pass and the old road is beautiful and steep. We took a cliff walk along a bright blue lake as well.
We went back to a town we really like named Uspallata which sits at the bottom of the foothills and you can park by a little river and camp in a lovely setting. It feels quintessential Argentina with gauchos, a military base, mountain views, asados on every corner, trucks going by headed for the pass, horses and always a few overlanders. Good hiking & biking too among colored rocks. It seems to always feel like Fall there even though we were over a month earlier than last time.
We went back up into the Cordon del Plata park and spent a couple of days hiking in those mountains since we were pretty well acclimated to the altitudes again. Beautiful scenery and we were trying to soak it up while we could. Then we headed down to the reservoir which looks really pretty out your window but isn’t the kind of water you want to get into or even kayak in.
In Mendoza, we pulled into a campground to do some truck maintenance and met up with Jason & Kara from the Everlanders (they have a Youtube channel) so we hung out for a couple of days which made doing projects more fun. They even cooked us an asado one night and we did a joint dinner the next. They were a little bit ahead of us on their truck build back in 2018 when we were also building ours, so watching their channel gave us inspiration and ideas.
It was finally time to meet up with Mark & Liesbet again (yay!) so we drove south of Mendoza by 100 or so miles so we could travel back up together. That started a great couple of weeks hanging out and a good “banking” of memories till the next time we meet. One thing is we are all good cooks so there’s no shortage of great meals and in South America, great wine too. I love being able to pick up most any bottle and have it be good. We went back to one of our favorite wineries and stocked up, did our usual hikes & walks and then topped it off with lunch at a Michelin star restaurant. Mendoza has a million wineries with restaurants but I think only one is Michelin rated so we thought we’d give it a try. It only had one star but we thought it would offer something special. We were all so excited to go. It was 7 courses with paired wines and the atmosphere was nice. But in reality, we all agreed the food wasn’t that special and we do a better job ourselves. That evening, we broke out all of our best liquor and had one really long happy hour over fun conversation which was a perfect topper to the day and we finally got full too!
While we were together, we started reminiscing about our sailing days and our trips through the Panama Canal since Mark & Liesbet were sailors too. Since each sailboat that goes through the canal needs several helpers to handle the lines for the locks, it is customary to help each other through and also get experience so you know the ropes when you transit on your own boat. And it is also customary to tie 3 sailboats together side by side and head into the locks together so that they form a little ship of themselves. So we started talking about which year we went through and it was the same. Then a mutual couple we know and it turned out we both had gone through the canal with this couple. Then we realized that we were all tied together in the same group of 3 boats and went through together and Liesbet even had pictures of Jon & I as she was photographing the experience, even though we didn’t know each other. That is one crazy coincidence!! And while I was looking through our pics to see if we had any of them (which I didn’t), I saw this one of Jon & I in the locks on that same day. What a happy day that was back in 2012. The Pacific opening up for the first time. And unknowingly, meeting new friends who we wouldn’t come to know till 2021.
We spent a couple of days up in historic Manzano together where we’d visited last year but since it was earlier, it wasn’t cold. There are so many old roads with park land heading up into the Andes and because they are ancient passes, there are usually border staff and/or military manning a station despite the remoteness. They are always so nice to us and I’m intrigued by their quiet border life way up at high altitudes. The Canon de Arenales is right above the town and you can hike to your heart’s content or continue on up & over the pass if you have horses to carry your supplies. We met some gauchos headed that way. We stuck to the trails and explored a waterfall and a canyon with beautiful towering mountains. We even saw a rattlesnake!
Some overlanders find just the right place to swallow the hook so to speak and we have some friends who did just that in Mendoza. So we all went over and stayed a couple of nights on Ritchie & Abigail’s orchard farm so we could catch up with each other. You wouldn’t be a very good host in Argentina if you didn’t have a big asado outside so we of course did the right thing and had one both nights! We provided the meat and Ritchie did the BBQing! As you can see by the amount of firewood, it’s pretty common to have a BBQ.
Then it was time to say goodbye to friends, give our truck some TLC and fly across the equator again. Except this time feels different. The government and people who support it doesn’t feel stable, friendly, or competent and it just plain creeps us out. It makes us wonder if it makes sense to broaden our ties here. We have our own projects for 2025 and they fit right in with our mode of thinking: To extract as much fun out of our lives as we can and experience as much as we can of this planet. Apparently, some other people don’t have that same thought pattern. We’ve resumed working on the new camper project that we started last summer and are visiting family & friends. It’s nice that summer is on the way.
