“You want to hitchhike? It’s easy…there’s a provincial border on Ruta 3 just past the turn off for Las Grutas. All you have to do is walk 10km through the desert and you’re there.”
It seemed easy enough. We had spent a fortune on bus tickets from Buenos Aires and were ready to turn the remaining 2,000km to Tierra del Fuego into an adventure. As we virtually collapsed from exhaustion at the check stop after walking through the scorching desert for three and a half hours, we were ready to reconsider the idea. I was just about to declare “Enough!” when we were offered a ride by a trucker.
“I don’t have anything valuable in the truck,” Javier confessed, giving us a suspicious look before we entered.
The thrill of speed instantly abolished our stagnant tempers after plodding along under the burning sun and we were eager to dive into conversation. Fortunately Javier relaxed a little when Luján offered to pour rounds of mate and we spent the next few hours learning exactly why he became suspicious.
“I used to drive a truck selling gas in the poor villas in Buenos Aires,” he explained. “I got robbed more times than I can remember. The first robber was chivalrous – he left me all my personal belongings, even offering to pay for a few of my cigarettes after stripping the truck of everything company owned. The next guy showed a complete lack of principles – he stole everything, my wallet, the truck, even my mate!”
After a long flat ride through the desert, we were dropped off near enough to Puerto Madryn to split a taxi into town with a gas station attendant finishing his shift. Javier had offered to take us all the way to Comodoro Rivadavia but we wanted to see the wildlife reserves around Puerto Madryn.
“That’s expensive!” Luján exclaimed as we exited the travel agency offering tours around the Valdés Peninsula. We walked down a pier to reconsider our decision and spotted a group of sea lions herding a huge school of fish into a tightly packed swirl in the water alongside. We watched the feeding frenzy long enough to satisfy our wildlife fix.
“An unforgettable natural experience,” I declared as we walked back into town to catch a bus for Trelew – being that it was only an hour away, we decided we could afford it. “Who needs the Valdés Peninsula?”
In Trelew we did our research. We found out about a gas station at the edge of town and caught a city bus – neither of us was in the mood to attempt another four hour walk through the desert with our packs.
Once correctly placed, it didn’t take much work to get a ride. Or at least it didn’t cost me any work – the Argentine woman conducted most of the public relations while I lurked in the background. After avoiding a few unsavoury looking characters, she got a ride from the first trucker she approached and I jumped out of the shadows to join her.
Twenty minutes down the road, Cabezon pulled the truck into another gas station to buy some beer.
“They call me Cabezon because I have a huge head!” the guy told us. “Is it true?” he asked me, turning his massive cranium to glare at me.
“No!” I lied and he burst into a thunderous fit of laughter before taking a big gulp of beer. He passed me a tin full of coca leaves and some sodium bicarbonate and 15 minutes later my mouth was numb. We watched the drab Patagonian steppe rip along underneath us – from the high truck cab it almost seemed as if we were flying. Cabezon pointed out animals between gulps of beer:
“Guanacos, rheas, armadillos and hares,” he named intermittently. It was just like being at the zoo except for the fact that most were road kill.
It took about five exciting hours till we were in Comodoro Rivadavia. My mouth had just begun to regain some feeling, despite the fact that I had made the grave error of chewing the leaves and swallowing them instead of just letting them just sit in my mouth.
“I was wondering how you managed to eat that sandwich with a mouth full of coca leaves,” Cabezon confessed just before we left his truck.
We only walked a block southwards before another driver rolled down his window and asked us for directions to Caleta Olivia.
“I don’t know, but will you take us?” Luján responded and soon we were waving goodbye to Rivadavia in a truck cabin seemingly entirely equipped to host a dance party. The driver had a disco ball, flashing lights, and a whole selection of cumbia CDs. This time we were rolling in style.
Our exhilaration was short lived however. Twenty minutes down the highway we were stopped by a policeman who explained a truck had blown off the road a kilometre ahead. We sat still for almost two hours watching the sun set over the hills that represented the first sign of topography we’d seen on the journey. When the road was eventually cleared, we cruised into Caleta Olivia a couple hours after dark.
Faced with the option of paying for a hotel or paying for an overnight bus trip to Río Gallegos, we decided to temporarily abandon our hitchhiking endeavour. We lay back on the reclining bus seat and snoozed till Río Gallegos. The ride seemed so luxurious after all the hitching that it was easy to convince ourselves to take another to Tierra del Fuego. In any case, the question of crossing multiple borders and the Straight of Magellan seemed too many complications for hitching, especially since there was only one daily ferry crossing.
Instead of buying tickets all the way to Ushuaia, we got off the bus at Río Grande and warmed up our thumbs beside a massive trout statue – homage to Río Grande’s renowned status as the International Trout Capital.
We rubbed the fish’s belly for luck and Luján had the idea of getting some mate going. Possibly tempted by the hot drink, a man driving a large van pulled over and coasted us gracefully over the southern end of the Andes. After 2000km of flat, dry Patagonian steppe, the setting sun seemed to illuminate the snowy peaks of the mountains with a halo-like quality. Soon after we were on the road, the man pulled the van over to fill several water jugs from a tap protruding from a cliff side.
This is the best water I’ve ever tasted,” the man praised as I stuck my head under the flowing tap. I took a long sip and it tasted, well, rather like water.
“Damn fine,” I answered, doing my best to render a satisfied smile. After Luján had been subjected to 2000 km worth of dirty trucker jokes, I figured it was my turn to step up and take some responsibility in the department of keeping the driver entertained. We got back into the van and passed the 3000th kilometre marker – there were only 40 more till Ushuaia.
“It’s not like the capital down here. People hitchhike all the time.”
Indeed, we made such good time that we rolled into Ushuaia just after the bus forsook at Río Grande.
“Right on time,” Luján laughed as we stepped out of the van.
