Rolling With the Punches (Part 11)

You can make out the round corral and paddocks in the grassy area where we camped
among the mice and a raging bull near the Rio Argentino.

Rolling With the Punches (Part 11)

 If you read my last (and first) post of this trip, you’ll know that Canela sustained a nasty wound, caused, for all we know by a randy Billy goat. Beto had sewed up the gapping hole in her leg, but my Pony Club alter ego turned out to be right. It became infected though we caught it before it made its way too deeply into her knee. The vet said that once infection gets into an articulated joint there are problems. Cleaning up the damage wasn’t pretty – lots more blood and needles and leather contraptions and tranquilizers to keep poor Canela still – but it worked. The heat and swelling were down in a day though the vet had to see her twice. When Canela seemed to be on the mend, I asked the vet what would have happened had we not had him treat her. He said the swelling would have kept increasing and she would not have been able to use her leg, which would have meant circulation would basically stop. The short story is that for 800 pesos (about $100), we saved Canela’s life.

Given we were now down two horses (Canela had to rest for a few days) and had no guide, since Beto had to stay with Canela to care for her, we altered our plans. With three riding horses and one packhorse, we set off with Danny on foot, leaving Beto, Canela and his other horse behind at Julio’s. We rode over the low mountain pass behind Julio’s lodge and set up camp in the Pedrigoso River valley below. The previous year, the horses had found a grassy spot near the smaller Argentina River that runs parallel to the Pedrigoso. It had lots of pasture and a number of fenced paddocks and we set up in this place. It was a sublime place to camp. The horses had water and grass and we found a spot tucked in among the niri and mosqueta and retamo trees for our tents and campfire. It was a winter camp for Julio's neighbour and Julio had told us it would be okay to use the corrals.

The valley is wide and flat, perhaps 2 kilometres across and is reminiscent of Montana in my mind – but with better weather. The summers are longer and the winters are more mild. Puma wander in these hills, wild boar are evident by patches of disturbed soil where they have been digging and we watched enormous Caranchos (large hawks) ride the thermals above high cliffs, veering off from time to time like an escape car leaves the scene of a bank robbery. But as we would learn, it was none of these critters that plagued us.

When I went to clean up, the crystal clear water in the Argentina River gave me a headache when I poured it over my dusty head of hair. But as I stood there in the middle of that sandy-bottomed stream with the morning sunshine warming my back, I was confident that no one might happen along to disturb me. Those parts of my body that seldom feel the heat of a hot sun or are touched by a fresh breeze tingled. I stood in the cold knee-deep water and gazed at the mountaintops – a few sporting a white cap of snow. Some people talk about the freedom they feel sailing on an open ocean, others have a similar sensation when they climb a vertical rock face or soar off a mountain top in a paraglider. But the intimate privacy of standing buck naked and freshly clean in air so fresh you want to drink it trumps all other ways to shed yourself of the shackles of our 21^st century hectic lives in my opinion.

Alex and Danny fished; we followed an old road to the glacier-fed, see-to-the-bottom Pedrigoso River where it cascaded from a deep mountain canyon and on to the dry desert. Twenty kilometres on it would empty into Lago Cholilo.

One day as the sun neared the mountain peaks and evening, with its soft buttery light was catching hold, I saddled up Judy. We climbed up a ridge behind our campsite and followed our noses and a complicated network of cattle tracks picking our way around low-lying, thorny bushes toward a distant ridge made visible by the dense green evergreens that populated it. We had no destination in mind; there was no obvious single path. We just wandered in the general direction of the ridge as the sun sunk lower in the clear blue sky. As we did, we moved past the shoulder of a rounded hill. Behind it I could now see yet another series of jagged snow-capped peaks. Behind that was likely another and then another – all part of the Andes that form the border between Argentina and Chile. In all likelihood, I was actually looking at Chile.

At the end of our wander, I turned Judy around, gave her her head and let her find our way back to camp. She picked her way confidently, sometimes following her own hoof prints clearly visible in the sandy dusty soil, but other times she just using her senses honed over centuries to find our way home.

After three nights out camping, we returned reluctantly to Julio’s. We had to get Danny back so he could catch a bus and then a flight home to England. We also had to escape the plague of mice that were becoming an increasing problem to anything plastic including Alex’s camelbak water bladder, his sunscreen and a foam pillow. We hung our food in trees in tightly sealed bags to avoid problems. Having to leave due to mice might sound as if we are awfully urban, but it turned out that we had arrived during an actual plague of mice or ratones as they are called locally. They actually have a name for these outbreaks, which is a ratada. The dramatic rise in population of these small rodents was due to the flowering two years previously in 2012 of the colihue plant. Colihue is a local bamboo that only blooms about every 70 years. (Some studies suggest it is only one type of bamboo that blooms so seldom. The others bloom in cycles ranging from 12- to 30-years. Either way, it doesn’t bloom very often.) In the years that follow, there is so much seed around that the population of mice explodes in areas where bamboo is common. While mice are generally not much more than an inconvenience, these mice often carry Hanta Virus and while we were there there were several cases of the resulting ailment that can be lethal. In fact, we had to change our plans again because we were advised to not go up the Tigre valley at all due to the mice, and the campground near Lago Chililo had been shut down for the season because of the mice.

During the 3-day festival they consume 10,000 kilos of beef and 300 sheep,
making it the world's largest barbecue. 

We returned to Julio’s for a night and then headed down into Cholila for an afternoon to attend the enormous asado (Argentinian barbeque) festival and rodeo there. Although it’s quite a spectacle – imagine dual lines of 50 or more cattle and lamb carcasses roasting crucifix style over open wood-burning fires, but we didn’t have a huge stomach for the busy crowds and blaring music. It was a bit too much for us after the peace and quiet in the Pedrigoso valley (broken only by a vocal, dirt-scratching bull that became Laura’s nemisis) especially given the lake trip Julio treated us to that morning. He took us out on his boat to tour the mirror-like Lago Lezana on whose shore his Lodge resides. This spring-fed lake that is 11k long and about 2k wide sits in the shoulder of a low-lying mountain. A steep forested ridge frames the lake on the side of Julio’s lodge. On the other side, a lower rolling hill hems the water in. There are only four houses on the entire lake. The original farmstead is cozied in at the western end of the lake on a gentle sloping piece of land that was cleared decades ago. There are a few simple wooden buildings, cows graze. Our horses, who we allowed to run free (except escape-artist Moro who we tethered), discovered the pasture at this site. They looked up in surprise as we pulled in close to them in Julio’s boat. But curiosity was no competition for the rich green grass on the lake’s edge. We watched them munch away contentedly, their legs hidden from view behind the slender reeds on the lakeshore. They seemed unaware of the backdrop of mountain peaks behind them.

Rolling With the Punches

Don Fuentes allowed the five of us plus our six horses to camp in his back field.

 Rolling With the Punches 

"Canela has been badly bitten," Beto tells me. I'm sitting enjoying my first maté on the first day of our second year on the horses. We are back in Argentina, back in the same area as we rode in last year since we have Alex's daughter and son-in-law along with us and we thought they would enjoy meeting some of the characters we spent time with last year. The Spanish word for "to bite," however, sounds a lot like "to die," and at first I thought Beto was telling me that Canela, his lovely strawberry roan mare, was dead. She had been tethered overnight in the field behind Don Fuentes' house where we had also set up our tents. When Beto went to find her, he discovered the problem. 

It wasn't an auspicious start to our month-long trip given that Beto had already lost one of our horses. You might remember Beto, our very lovely paralyzed-down-one-side, blind-in-the-other-eye guide who drove me batty last year. I'm not sure how I was talked into hiring him again, but here we were. To Beto's credit, he had done a great job of looking after the horses over the winter. When we drove out to see them about ten days ago, they were fat and sassy – well, the two of our horses that were there were fat and sassy. According to Beto, our ever-faithful, though mulish packhorse el Moro and Mosquito, the big flea-bitten grey gelding who Alex had ridden the previous year, had jumped the fence a few days earlier. Beto assured us that the duo had made the two-to-three-hour trip back to Manuel Mol's from where Moro came. Though you would never guess it given Moro was more Volvo sedan than Jaguar convertible in appearance, he was a notorious escape artist. Beto told us, “No problem, don’t worry.”

I should have known better.

A few days later when we showed up at Manuel's – the man I described last year as a cross between Ben Cartwright and Florence Nightingale given how smoothly he moved between caring for his bedridden wife, baking excellent fry bread, tending his sheep, playing his guitar while singing milongas – soulful made-up songs that often, as in Manuel’s case, describe the day's events – and mending Alex's damaged knee, we learned that while Moro had indeed gone "home," Mosquito had not accompanied him. In other words, he was lost – a condition that a friend gracelessly advised us could mean that he had been killed and eaten. We hoped not. While Beto and Manuel assured us Mosquito would eventually turn up, we were in need of a horse to rent for the week that Daniel, Alex's son-in-law, would be riding with us. When we didn't have any luck with that plan, we made arrangements to have our gear transported by truck to our next spot, hopeful that we could continue on in this way for Daniel's leg of the trip. We would ride two of our horses and three of Beto's and have only one packhorse.

Despite this complication, I was enjoying the sun and the fresh air and my maté in an open field behind Don Fuentes' small farm. So when Beto told me about Canela, I hoped the injury wasn't serious -- how bad could a bite be anyway? But it did occur to me that we were already short a horse. "Can we ride her?" I asked. He assured me we could and then scurried off.

Curious, I walked up to Don Fuentes's barn where Beto had tied up Canela. On the front of her left front leg above the knee, her skin had been peeled back from a patch of flesh the size of a deck of cards, maybe larger. Thankfully, there was no gash, no torn muscle, but a flap of skin hung from the bright red wound. Blood dripped from where it was collecting in the pocket behind where the skin dangled lifelessly. It had obviously been bleeding for some time because now-crusted black rivulets extended the length of her leg to her hoof. Her lower lip was red from where she'd been worrying the damage. Though superficial, it was big and nasty.

Soon Beto reappeared carrying a large, bass-clef-shaped needle and some thick black thread. "You are going to sew it up yourself?" I asked doubtfully. He assured me he knew what he was doing, as he threaded the needle, something not easily done when you have partial use of one arm and only one eye. "Are you sure?" I asked again as he untied Canela and handed me the lead rope. Meanwhile, he grabbed the piece of hanging skin and pulled it up to cover the wound. "How about we clean it first?" I suggested, my Pony Club training (and basic first aid) kicking in. "No, we will spray it afterwards," he insisted. It seemed like a really bad idea to me, but it was his horse and he's a very stubborn man. "Well, okay," I said, "but at least clean your hands and the needle." I had some antibacterial lotion in my pocket and he used that to clean up as best he could.

With me holding Canela, Beto did his best to jam the needle through the upper edge of the flap of skin. Not surprisingly, Canela pulled back before he could insert the needle properly. The needle ripped a bit of her hide. He tried a couple more times with the same result. Despite his best efforts and Canela's stoic nature, there was no way she was going stand still. Why would she? Beto then grabbed the long rope that was attached to her halter, looped it around her back legs and then around her neck using a system common to Argentinian gauchos. If she tried to step back with her hind legs she would only pull against the rope that was looped around her neck. In this way, she would be easier to keep still.

As it turned out, I had to haul on the rope around her back legs while holding onto her lead rope and encouraging her to be brave. Meanwhile, Beto methodically stitched up the flapping skin, something that would have been tricky for anyone, and quite astounding given his disabilities. Unfortunately, I let my amazement at his handiwork override my logic. I knew it was a really bad idea to close a wound that had not been thoroughly and meticulously disinfected. Sure, after being stitched up it looked much better, in fact you wouldn't have noticed it was there unless someone pointed it out to you, and Canela did return to grazing the short grass around us as soon as Beto was done, and it was only superficial, but it was huge and now bacteria was trapped inside a nice warm environment perfect for it to grow and turn into a nasty infection.

Again, I let my faith in Beto get the better of me. He led Canela around. She was perfectly sound; the wound was virtually invisible and she seemed quite unperturbed by the whole event. "We can ride her?" I asked hesitantly. "No problem," said Beto as if I were some nitwit. We drenched the wound in disinfectant spray, then I asked Beto what he thought had caused the wound. He wasn't certain, but he told me he'd seen an enormous billy goat nearby the evening before. Then he pointed to the wound and showed me what looked like a pair of tooth-sized shallow marks that were about the width of a goat's mouth apart. He said that maybe the ram had bitten Canela who had been tied up for the night. It didn't seem very plausible, but upon reflection, there didn't seem to be a better or more obvious explanation. Poor old Canela, bitten by a goat!

A bit shaken, we managed to arrange for our gear to be driven up to our friend Julio's Lago Lezana Lodge, where we planned to stay overnight. We conferred about whether Canela was okay and then, with Beto's encouragement, decided that keeping her moving was likely the best way to prevent swelling and, hopefully, keep any infection at bay. We tacked up the horses and rode on. For the first two hours, Canela seemed fine, but for the last hour on the downhill leg of the trip, she began to favour her injured leg. By the time we arrived at Julio's, she really was sore. But there was no heat in the wound that would have indicated infection had set in, and there was no swelling. We reapplied the disinfectant spray and decided that it was best to call the vet just in case. He agreed to come the next day, and we hoped that she would be okay until then.

The view of Lago Lezana from the lovely Lago Lezana Lodge.

 It was a lovely evening with our good friend Julio. The stories about his time spent as an Argentinian politician before the corruption became too much for him entertained us, Alex's daughter Laura and her husband Daniel and even Julio's 80-plus-year-old, long-suffering mother who was visiting from Buenos Aires. Julio, with our encouragement, told Laura and Daniel about how, after he left government, he took a job with the United Nations in Rwanda and ended up in jail in Kigali, not once, but twice before deciding to leave the revolution-torn nation. Wine flowed, the pasta tasted as it only can after a long day spent in the fresh air, and we went to sleep in Julio's comfortable beds hopeful that all would be well in the morning.

Unfortunately, when I ran down to check on Canela the next day, her leg was swollen from the top to below her knee. It was warm and sore, and she dragged it along when I encouraged her to walk. It wasn't terribly infected, but it was on its way to becoming a real mess. I hoped the vet would come soon. Meanwhile, we changed our plans and Julio graciously invited us to stay another night. Making the best of the delay, we made ourselves useful by building a brick walkway through Julio's vegetable garden and weeding where it was needed. We looked longlingly out over Lago Lezana, the 11-kilometre-long, crystal clear blue and normally warm lake upon which Julio’s lodge, Lago Lezana Lodge (lagolezanalodge.com.ar) sits. But it had been unusually cool and swimming was not in the cards.

Bittersweet (Agridulce) con’t

You can see a long way in the desert.

My last post painted a picture that was more bitter than sweet – more agri than dulce. While I found the wind a challenge for the six days it took us to get from Esquel to Beto’s home, and it made me sad that we were heading north, we also travelled through some tremendous landscapes. The desert is harsh and unrelenting, largely foreign to me. At times, the trail before us stretched out seemingly forever without relief, and stark evidence of just how tough life is here stared up at us from the empty eye sockets of the many horse, sheep and cattle skeletons we rode by. Our route also passed through remarkable canyons with hoodoos and great scarps of coloured rocks, and when we arrived at rivers, shaded as they are in Patagonia by graceful weeping willows known locally as sauces, the green softness welcomed us with the allure of a favourite blanket.

The latter half of our final day in the saddle was particularly sweet. And not only because I was savouring the experience knowing it would soon be over. In the mid-afternoon on what was another cool, overcast, blustery day, we began climbing out of the desert into the Andes’s foothills. Rocky sand and uniformly grey or brown dry thorny vegetation gave way to a rich purplish brown soil that looked volcanic. The plants, many of them still thorny, had more colour; they were green rather than grey; a few had small flowers. One particularly beautiful bush was an intense purple. There was no continuous grass as might be found on the range or on the pampa, but the problem was moisture not nutrients. Given the chance, this soil would produce unimaginable bounty. Making our way through this vegetation became a game of a sort. The horses had to step around, bending to make their way between the plants. They were adept at knowing which ones had thorns and had to be avoided, and those they could brush through. It was akin to following stepping stones across a river, though in reverse since the horses had to avoid stepping on the plants. Anticipating whether Judy would go to the right or left of a particular bush and not be slowed down by her deft moves engaged me for an hour or more.

Caught in the canyon.

At one point, we followed a small, mostly dry creek in a shallow canyon that serpentined its way up a valley. The 10-metre-high canyon walls were carved out of dense black sand. I missed Beto and Alex exiting the canyon, and Alex had to come back to find me. He wandered along the top of the vertical canyon walls calling out until I finally heard him and found a spot where Judy was able to climb up a break in the steep cliff wall.

All day, we moved slowly closer to a high ridge of rounded foothills. Alex pointed to a particular hill far in the distance and assured me that Beto’s place lay just beyond. It seemed impossible that we would travel that far and I wondered how he could possibly know that that was Beto’s hill when layer upon layer of rising crests lay before us.

On we travelled ever upwards and always, as Alex promised, toward Beto’s hill. Our last ascent, completed in failing light, took us across a broad slope interrupted with now dry, parallel crevasses formed by years of spring runoff. We would come to the lip of one of these splits in the land and the horses would sit on their haunches and slide down in the loose soil into the crevasses that were twice again as deep as a horse and rider were tall. Sometimes we would have to follow the crevasse for a time before we could find a way out the other side. The horses would then scramble up onto the flat land. Beto had charged ahead as usual and we had trouble keeping track of him since when we were up on the plain, he would often have dropped out of sight into a crevasse. But somehow Alex managed to follow him in what felt like a game of hide and seek. It became easier when Beto finally reached the top of the ridge, the one behind which Alex promised we would find his home. Beto sat up there, a silhouette against a darkening sky with the wind whipping at his poncho and tucking his horse’s tail between its hind legs.

Too soon, we also arrived at the top of the ridge. We stopped beside Beto and an enormous green valley spread out before us. It had the moisture that was lacking in the land we’d just crossed. In the distance, high-peaked mountains backstopped rows of hills. A single distant light marked Beto’s neighbour, the same neighbour where we’d stopped weeks ago and I’d purchased my poncho. With the same poncho currently protecting me from the raw wind, it was hard to imagine how hot it had been that day and how foolish it had seemed to be purchasing such a heavy duty covering. But thankfully I had.

I looked down the steep slope and tucked in at the foot of the hill were a few tall slender Alamo trees, a dry arroyo, a simple wooden barn and a modest house – nothing more than a shack by Canadian standards. “That’s not Beto’s place is it?” I asked Alex. He nodded that indeed it was, deservedly pleased with his navigating skills. Incredulous and having not yet absorbed that this was indeed it – the end of our journey – I watched as Beto charged down the steep slope, clearly anxious to get home. Alex and I stalled at the ridge top partially to buy ourselves more time, but to also take in the wonder of the landscape. Although we had stayed at Beto’s early on in our trip, the view from above gave us new appreciation for his land. Rather than dull our wonder at the Patagonian landscape, our long days travelling at horse-pace had heightened our awe at the immensity and variety of the vistas we’d been lucky enough to enjoy. In the days to come, I wouldn’t just miss being in the saddle; I would long for the open wilderness, the quiet broken only by screeching chomangos (small hawks), lowing cattle, rushing water or winds that rustled the occasional tree.

The last leg.

 With Alex clicking photos from behind, I encouraged Judy to make her way down the hill. Once again, she sat back into the slope and partially slid downhill as we completed the last 250 metres of our seven-week journey. Beto’s other horse had caught wind of us. Whinnying his greeting, he galloped over to say hello as Beto opened the gate that lead to his house, the last tranquero we would pass through.

We removed the tack and pilcheros from our horses, letting them go in the green pasture. In turn, they all lay down and rolled over to scratch their tired backs before disappearing in the dim light. We celebrated by roasting the lamb we’d purchased that morning in Cushamen – eight long hours ago – frying some potatoes and opening a bottle of red wine. It was a tasty and celebratory meal cooked in Beto’s wood-burning oven in his sparse kitchen. A single light bulb powered by a small generator that burned his last litre of fuel brightened the simple room. We recounted the best of the trip ignoring what we knew to be true: this was it – the end. Trip done.

At midnight, Alex and I climbed into our sleeping bags for the last time. Overnight, a fierce wind pulled at our tent waking us, but hardly disturbing our sleep. We had both slept like babies throughout the journey and this night was no exception. Our dreams, like our memories, were sweet.

Bittersweet (Agridulce)

It seemed impossible when we set out on January 23, that we would make it no further south than Esquel, a town only 163 kilometers away if you travelled by Ruta 40. But with the days becoming shorter as Patagonia slipped into autumn, we decided to turn north and finish our adventure at Beto’s home, which is close to where our circuitous journey began. On March 5, on a brilliantly sunny day that promised to have us shedding our sweaters for the first time in a week or so, we exited Esquel. After an hour spent threading our way between parked cars, and putting up with barking dogs intent on our not invading their homes, we passed through this chaotic town making quite a sight with our five horses, two of them carrying packs. We made our way to Ruta 40. Unfortunately, we would have to follow the highway for a time before we would exit onto a smaller road en route to our first night’s stop at La Cancha.

We travelled north with the bittersweet emotions of sadness that we were starting the last leg of a trip we’d anticipated for year or more, and excitement that we were heading “home” to El Bolson. We would be returning to friends we’d developed over the past three years, hot showers and a warm bed. Despite the morning’s promising sunshine, however, we soon donned our jackets as clouds pushed the blue skies further and further away from us and a cold south wind caught us between our shoulder blades. By the time we turned off Ruta 40 on to a secondary highway, it was almost 5pm. We were chilled, and spattering rain made us feel more bitter than sweet. Adding to our growing blues, Beto announced that we were another three hours away from our planned stop for the night. Once again he’d miscalculated the distance. By 8pm it would be almost dark, so we would have to look for someplace else to spend the night. 

Unfortunately, our route had taken us into rolling desert. We’d crossed a few almost dry streams or arroyos along Ruta 40, but for as far as we could see in the distance there was no evidence of water or of any sort of habitation. This was tough land where a single cow would need dozens of hectares of the sparsely vegetated sandy soil to survive. Hard as we tried to see sentinel Alamo trees or weeping willows, both of which mark oases, none were evident. We soldiered on trying to keep our spirits up. This was not how we imagined our return trip. We’d actually elected to follow this desert route rather than travel through the spectacular Los Alerces National Park with its series of large mountain lakes, in what was feeling like an increasingly elusive search for warmer, drier weather.

Nicola and Judy in the desert.

We plodded along the roadside with our backs buffeted by wind and rain as the overcast skies closed in on us, ever hopeful that we’d find a haven for the night. After travelling for another hour, we came over a rise, anticipating that on the far side we would see a house or some trees or something that would give us a feeling of comfort. But the narrow road stretched into the far distance eventually disappearing over another rolling hill. The desert sand supported nothing but thorny, vicious plants. It wasn’t until we climbed the far rise that we finally saw what promised to be a valley where, we hoped, there might be a river or at least a few trees to protect us for the night and provide a bit of wood for a warming fire.

Just before 8pm, we began dropping into the valley and we arrived at La Cancha, Beto’s planned stop for the night. We’d covered close to 40 kilometres and had been on the road for over eight hours. La Cancha was a water stop for La Trochita, the narrow-gauge steam train that carries tourists between Esquel and El Maiten. Although it was located on land owned by the dreaded, gate-locking Benettons, we were able to gain access through an opening beside the train tracks. Our water supply was the tank that sat on stilts so that the train passed below it and could be filled from above. There were a few poplar trees that would block the wind and plenty of firewood, and we discovered good pasture for the horses. The rain let up as we quickly set up camp, got the fire going and prepared and then gobbled down a spaghetti dinner. We’d eaten nothing since breakfast, and the hardy meal hit the spot.

Golden grass in La Cancha.

The next morning, we awoke to broken clouds. As the sun climbed over the low-slung hills, its oblique rays hit the golden tufted grass that dominated the expanse around us. These beautiful plants glowed in the hard autumn light seemingly illuminated from within. So taken were we by this grass that it was some time before we looked at the distant mountains we’d left behind. They were blanketed in fresh white snow. Any second thoughts we had about choosing this route over the one that passed through the national park disintegrated. Had we travelled that way, it would have been a nasty freezing cold night and a snowy morning. We set off in higher spirits with Beto promising us that we would be at our next stop by mid-afternoon. Though we doubted it would be, we were hopeful that as he moved closer to his territory, his guiding skills would improve.

Sudelia in her adobe home.

As we travelled homeward, the grip of autumn held. The wind changed and rather than a cold gale at our backs, we had a less cold one slamming into our faces. Sunshine came and went. Each day, the wind blew harder until we also had to battle the dust and sand it picked up in the desert. It filled our ears and eyes and got inside our shirts. We spat grit. Fortunately, we had some relief when we spent the night with yet another of Beto’s cousins. This time, we found ourselves cooking up a dinner of butternut squash, onion, garlic and chorizo over Sudelia’s wood-burning cook stove. Seventy-four years old, she lives on her own in a small adobe house set in what appeared to be an arena of pure grey crusted sand. Strong and healthy, she’d given up her enormous vegetable garden when cataracts, since removed, had made it hard to cope. When we asked her if she was averse to our having a small whiskey with dinner, she assured us that when she couldn’t drink wine, whiskey would do. We were sad to leave Sudelia the next morning after sharing mate and leftovers for breakfast in her warm kitchen.

We passed through the government town of Gauljaina, where we took a break from our tent and stayed in a small hosteleria, ate dinner in a restaurant and were delighted by a breakfast of hot milky coffee and a mountain of home-baked goods, some of which we carried in our packs to eat later in the day.

Beto continued to push us northward. He was keen to get home, and given the weather was not conducive to taking a day off, we didn’t resist. We put in back-to-back, eight-hour days. We knew we were pushing the horses hard, but they would soon have the entire winter to recuperate so we journeyed on. Mosquito had actually twisted his hock when he’d jumped the fence at Sudelia. It was swollen and obviously sore, but Alex figured that he’d successfully worked off his hurt knee by keeping moving so Mosquito could too. (Amazingly, after several, eight-hour days, Mosquito’s hock had mostly healed.)

After five hard days, we arrived in the small desert town of Cushamen, best known for producing great tasting goats and fine angora wool. We made the mistake in Cushamen of electing to stay in the town’s only accommodations rather than spend another bath-less night in our tent. Antonio, the brother of our friends in El Bolson, lived in Cushamen. He gave us a corral for the horses for the night and a few bales of leafy green alfalfa hay that our increasingly tired four-footed friends tucked into as if it were it were food from the gods. Antonio invited us to have dinner with he and his wife Mabel before dropping us off in front of a clothing store that had a few rooms for rent. We were shown into a mostly clean but dowdy cell with three single beds, two of them bunk beds. Paint peeled from the walls and we never considered removing our dusty boots as the owner ushered us inside. She made up two beds with – fortunately – crisp clean sheets and then gave the bathroom a bit of wipe before giving us fresh towels and accepting the $24 it cost us to stay the night.

Amazingly, we had hot showers, albeit under a shower head set in the middle of the bathroom ceiling so that the water fell on the toilet and sink too. After an enjoyable meal with Antonio and Mabel, we slept soundly in the little beds and woke the next morning seemingly unharmed. It wasn’t until Alex, who was suffering from a mildly upset stomach, used the bathroom that the true horror of the place hit us. That morning – our last on horseback – he made the unfortunate error of shifting his weight slightly while sitting on the toilet. This action dislodged the pipe that joined the toilet bowl to the water tank that was attached to the ceiling. (The toilet was one of those with a chain to flush.) The metal pipe came crashing down onto the hard tiled floor making me wonder what Alex was up to. Thankful that the contents of the tank hadn’t been released, Alex repaired the damage as best he could before finishing his business and pulling the chain to flush. The unfortunate result of his handy work was that the contents of the rather full toilet gushed out from beneath the bowl spreading over the bathroom floor. Alex had to do a bit of a dance to avoid the mess. Fortunately, the bathroom, which you’ll recall doubled as a shower, had a floor drain into which everything flowed, and Alex managed to escape the disaster unscathed. On re-entering our bedroom, he announced to me that I might not want to use the bathroom. As he explained to me what had just happened, we both doubled over in laughter at the absurdity of this horrible place. How had we come to this? What were we doing here? What possessed the owner of this dump (no pun intended) to have allowed it to become so depressingly awful?

We pulled the bathroom door firmly shut, quickly packed up our things and exited Cushamen’s hellhole, glad to be out in the fresh air and warm sunshine.

On Argentinean Time

That's me on Judy doing my Butch Cassidy impression.

Sharing lamb (capon) with a campesino en route to Esquel.
He has spent four months on his own in that cabin
for the last 32 summers looking after his sheep,
cows, horses and dogs. Not uncommon in Argentina,
I think this type of life is all but gone from North America.