After seven days I’m returning to my poor abandoned diary.
We spent three days getting the bike ready. We traveled through Bahía Blanca and Puerto White, trying without much luck to change the few pesos we had into Chilean or Peruvian currency. We got about 200 Chilean pesos and 100 dollars for 1,100 Argentine pesos. We’ve got about 2,000 pesos left, which we’ll have to change in Bariloche, where tourists go. We received a warm welcome from the Saravias. The most picturesque event was a chance acquaintance with some office clerk who offered to show us the city’s nightlife. It was a boring evening. Listening to his paeans of self-praise, his descriptions of amorous conquests, the great deals he was about to clinch, and seeing how he lived his whole life wrapped up in himself, we realized that none of our irony and sometimes open mockery was getting through to him. Afterward Fúser and I remarked that this was pretty much what our futures would have been—me a small-town pharmacist, he a doctor treating the allergies of wealthy ladies—if it weren’t for that certain something that made us rebel.
On the 21st, before we left Bahía Blanca, locals warned us that crossing the dunes would present difficulties. You had to set out at dawn when the sand was coated with dew. Naturally, we set out at midday, when the bike was ready. We were not about to wait around another day. The sand felt as if it was on fire. We had twelve spills, each more spectacular than the last. After Médanos, Fúser drove. We took another dramatic tumble when we hit a dune at high speed, but the knock did no great damage.
It rained quite heavily at dusk and we had to ask for shelter in a shack. We stayed till dawn. On the 22nd we were on the road to Choele Choel. The route was much like the one linking Simbolar and Rayo Cortado in the Córdoba mountains, which I remember from my journeys from the leprosarium to Córdoba and back. At midday, aching all over from the miles and miles we had covered on a rough, bumpy highway, we stopped at the picturesque little town of Pichi Mahuida, on the bank of the Colorado River.
We barbecued some meat in the shade of a pine copse that grew almost down to the river bank of reddish sand. This was the prettiest spot we’ve camped in so far. After eating, we set off for Choele Choel, but the bike started having carburetor trouble and we ran out of fuel. We had to wait for a vehicle to come past and ask for some petrol. That’s how we got to the railway station at Zorrilla. We were given permission to sleep in a shed for storing wheat. Now we’re drinking maté with the watchman and getting ready to leave for Fort General Roca.
Today we had the worst setback of the journey so far. Fúser’s asthma had been giving him trouble since he woke up. Shortly after I’d finished writing the above, he began to shiver as if feverish. He felt nauseated, lay down and vomited bile. He ate nothing all day. Right now we’re preparing to leave for Choele Choel, where there’s a first-aid center.
As I write, thinking back to the day before yesterday, everything seems a distant bad dream. We set out from Zorrilla at about seven o’clock, just as the sun was setting, and drove slowly so that the bike wouldn’t jolt so much, as Pelao had a splitting headache. We got to the first-aid center, really a regional hospital, and were seen by a male nurse. He was very rude to us and sent us to speak to the director, who lives several blocks away. We introduced ourselves—Ernesto as a medical student and myself as a biochemist—in view of which he sent us back with a note. When the nurse learned that we held the rank of doctor and “almost doctor,” there was a radical change in his behavior. Instead of a corner in the garage, which is where he had first thought of putting us up, he gave us a room with two beds and an adjoining bathroom. In other words, we’d turned into two gentlemen instead of a pair of tramps—as if having a degree made us more sensitive to cold or comforts than two humble workers would have been.
Yesterday afternoon Ernesto’s fever had almost broken, so I went out for a stroll through Choele. I crossed the bridge over the Río Negro and, leaning against the parapet, let my imagination wander. First I thought about home. Then I considered the possibility that the five of us might one day travel to Europe—across Spain, through central Europe, see the Danube and the USSR and hear the bells of the Kremlin, just as I had told my friend Corcho González I would, when we were in jail in 1943.
Then I went on as far as the allotments on the outskirts of town. I felt happy, for nothing makes a person happier than to see his dreams come true. I thought of all those to whom I had confided my plans when they were still fantasies—especially the girls, for whom the trip was their most dreaded rival: Tomasita and Pirincha, in Villa Concepción; Negra, Delfina and Turca, in Chañar; and dozens of others, who were still leading dull lives, but happy to do so. My life had been no different, but I always considered I was marking time. My new life had now begun, but I have no regrets about the old one.
I strolled cheerfully on and came upon reedy marshes. Among the thickets I saw scampering creatures that looked like tiny marsupials, inhabitants of some mysterious, still undiscovered world, but they were only coots embellished by my imagination.
The allotments had been flattened by hail a few days earlier. Unripe apples and pears covered the grass. I bought a few peaches from one of the gardeners to share with Fúser. I got a lift back from the driver of a small truck and within minutes I was at the hospital again. I had supper, left the peaches for Ernesto, who was asleep, and went off to write.
We set off yesterday with restored health and damaged pockets. At midday, after passing through a number of towns with Indian names—Chelforé, Quequén, etc.—we reached Chichinales. Place names are all that are left of that indomitable race since armies of gauchos were sent out by Buenos Aires, Paris and London to “civilize the desert” and, while they were about it, kill the Indians and steal their land.
After various delays owing to punctures we reached Cipolletti, one of the principal towns in the province of Neuquén. Technology and man’s industry begin to show a few miles before you reach the place. The rivers have been channeled, and the once-barren land is fertile and rich. Instead of scrub there are fruit trees and acre upon acre of vineyards.
After various vain attempts, we managed to get permission to sleep in an empty cell in the police station. In the cell next to ours were two prisoners sitting down to a sumptuous dinner. They were a couple of speculators being held temporarily and, in exchange for a few bottles of wine—a pittance to them—they had reduced the poor police constables to a state of abject servitude.
This is only logical, since the fine that these crooks calling themselves traders have been forced to pay only goes from the small coffers it was in before to the big ones of four or five upstarts who hold office, and from there to the coffers of the national oligarchy or the foreign banks. These last are the ones who profiteer, as always, from the money made by the efforts of ordinary people. This money ought to go to increase the national budget so that the country can educate the people, who know only the beauties of alcohol, soccer and horse racing. They have been led in this direction for centuries by classroom, pulpit and press, which are all in the hands of the rich and powerful. The people have been deprived of every opportunity to discover their own power, for this would incite them to rebellion and increase their desire to live a better life.
As I was discussing this with Ernesto, he surprised me once more with one of his pithy expressions. “Petiso,” he said to me, talking to himself, “this is how it is. Heads and tails, always the two sides of the coin. The beauty of the landscape and the natural wealth of the land set against the poverty of those who work it. The nobility and generosity of the poor set against the mean and sordid spirits of the landowners and of those who rule the country.”
His words stuck firmly in my mind, and as I slept amidst the din of the crooked speculators, who were already half drunk, I seemed to hear Fúser’s voice echoing and re-echoing: heads and tails, heads and tails, heads and tails.
We set out from Cipolletti at nine in the morning. We bought supplies in the city of Neuquén, then went on as far as the Cabo Alarcón estancia, where we had lunch. As we got under way again a furious south wind began to blow, lashing us mercilessly. The road is rough and the landscape too. Bare hills alternate with plains of stunted scrub and an immense solitude. Miles and miles without even glimpsing a house, an animal—or anything. As I was driving I thought: We know that after this stretch of desert road, the beauty of the Andean lakes awaits us, but what must it have been like for those early pioneers, who traveled without knowing when or where they would arrive? My mind on these and other thoughts, we came to Picún Leufú, where we filled up with petrol. Then on we went to Bajada Colorada. The terrain became even more arid still and the wind grew fiercer. It wasn’t sand that buffeted our faces now, but tiny stones blown up by the dust devils that pelted our bodies and our goggles. A mile or two before Bajada Colorada the true Andean foothills began, with their steep climbs and abrupt descents.
We arrived in Bajada Colorada and went to a branch of the Argentine Automobile Club. The service was abominable, just as in all the others we’ve been to. We met a group of Chilean rally drivers. They all complained about the poor service they’d received from this organization supported by subscriptions and with a mandate to assist its members. It’s a bureaucracy that uses the money collected from members to send its directors on trips abroad and organize races that bring in fat profits, but provides little to those whose monthly payments keep the organization going.
We drove on to Piedra del Aguila. Because of the encroaching hills, darkness came much earlier than on previous days. We found an avenue of trees and turned off, thinking it was the entrance to some sheep ranch. Within half a mile the path petered out in the scrub. We left the bike and continued on foot toward what, in the semi-darkness, we thought was a house. It turned out to be the remains of an old fortlet, called Nogueras, an outpost of the Buenos Aires army in Indian territory. We returned to the bike in deep twilight and got on the road again, lashed by the wind, which seemed even fiercer now after the brief respite of the tree-lined avenue.
A few miles on, driving almost blind, we fell into three consecutive potholes and, as we came out of the last one, I felt myself being pitched forward. The frame of the bike was broken. We struggled feverishly to put up the tent, but the gale prevented us. In the end we leaned the bike against a telegraph pole, tied one end of the tent to it and stretched the canvas out to form a kind of wall to curb the force of the great south wind. We couldn’t build a camp fire so close to the bike and the pole, so we piled on all our clothes and got into our respective sleeping bags. Before delivering myself into the arms of Morpheus, I said ironically to Fúser, “This time the coin came down on its edge.”
Today, after tying the handlebars with wire to keep them on the bike, we limped into town and had the frame welded. Unable to find lodgings, we asked if they’d let us stay in the garage where we got the bike mended. Squeezed into the grease pit, we’re spending our second uncomfortable night of the journey.
We reached the Collón Curá River and crossed it on a ferry that runs along a cable, which keeps the swift current from sweeping it downstream.
After traveling on a few miles we found a path leading to an estancia. We went in to try and buy some meat for lunch. Sheer coincidence had brought us to this place, where we found evidence that German junkers—Nazis, of course—have penetrated into Patagonia. There had been talk about this during the early years of the Second World War, but then it was kept quiet. The owner is a fairly young German who looks like a Prussian officer. His surname says it all—Von Puttkammer.2
The main house is an imitation Black Forest structure. They’ve even introduced deer, which over the years have adapted and bred. We looked over as much of the estate as we could manage, as it is absolutely vast. The Chimehuin River, which flows through it, is a typical mountain river—rushing, deep and crystal-clear, with dozens of rainbow trout.
We forgot about the German and all our conjectures, and threw ourselves into the magic of fishing. One of the hands lent us some gear and we caught a number of trout. Along the way we came upon a ripe cherry orchard. Pelao ate a handful, but I made such a pig of myself that I couldn’t eat either the fish or ribs that Fúser grilled and that smelled so wonderful. I had to resign myself to spending all that night and part of the next day with the runs.
It’s about eight o’clock in the evening. A week ago at this time we were making our entry into San Martín de los Andes and now here we are by the lake some sixty miles from Bariloche. Until a few moments ago, the Nahuel Huapí was a beautiful shade of blue. Now that the sun is setting the lake has become a rippling silvery surface. Beyond the lake, the Andes rise majestically, veiled in a bluish mist that heightens their beauty. As I watch the sun disappear between two snowy peaks, I’m making an effort to write down every detail of what’s happened to us in the past week. For me, even the smallest things have been crucial.
On Thursday the 31st we slept in a National Park shed in San Martín de los Andes. We met the park ranger, a friendly guy who’s very concerned about the conservation of flora and fauna. We also met Don Olate, the night watchman, who was the stuff of folk songs. A typical gaucho, he weighs over 300 pounds and has a job getting about. Fond of conversation and red wine, he was very eager for us to stay on. We slept there. At dawn, we set out with a knapsack of provisions to see Lake Lacar. It’s completely surrounded by mountains, their slopes covered with huge trees. I was struck by the primitive beauty and serenity of the place.
As we sat drinking maté by the lake, Pelao and I dreamed up a medical research lab with a helicopter to fetch supplies every morning. Snapping out of our reverie, we went back to the shed and accepted the night watchman’s job offer to help him prepare a roast lamb for a lunch given by the Automobile Club to a group of racing drivers. We spent the whole morning hauling firewood, building a fire, raising and lowering the spit under Don Olate’s expert eye. Just as we expected, he dumped all the work on us, but we greatly enjoyed it.
We kept trying the roast, again and again, washing each tidbit down with plenty of wine. This gave us the bright idea of pinching three of the many bottles available. Fúser played drunk, and we wandered off with the wine under our shirts, hiding the bottles in a hollow by the road. Feeling quite smug, we chatted with a new character, Don Pendón, who was a perfect hermaphrodite. He was a man, but everything about him—his voice, hair, breasts and the way he walked—was that of a woman. He must have more Xs in his chromosomes than a mathematics textbook.
During our conversation we mentioned that we came from Córdoba, and he told us he worked for a construction company that employed several men from Córdoba, among them a certain Luis Loyola. “He’s from Villa Concepción del Tío3 and he’s a friend of mine,” I said. “If you see him, tell him Granado’s here.”
By now it was night. We collected the remains of the lamb for our supper, taking our time until everyone had left. Then, very pleased with ourselves, we went to fetch the bottles. But they were gone.
On the 3rd we went to see the motor races, since our good work at the spit had earned us two tickets. It was a boring spectacle. As we were on our way back we were stopped by a jeep. It was Don Pendón, bringing Luis Loyola.
After the obligatory embraces and questions we went to a bar where Tomasito León, Horacio Cornejo and Alfredo Moriconi—all old friends from Villa Concepción del Tío—were waiting for us. They were overjoyed to see me, and I felt very moved and happy. At once we began drinking to each other’s health, and decided to go to Junín de los Andes, where they live. We left the tent and camp beds there in San Martín and set out, they in the jeep, we on the bike. At their place we ate like horses and slept like logs. The next day they took us to the site where they worked. With an arc welder, they welded the bike’s frame all over again.
That night we barbecued a lamb, amply washed down with a fine local wine. It was all very good, but what really made it special for me was the affection of my old friends and their eagerness to wine and dine us in such style. We remembered the dances and picnics I used to organize, which, according to them, never took place again. All my amorous conquests were aired—Tomasita, Pirincha, Liebre and Gorda, Tristán and Horacio’s sister. In short, it seemed I’d had more adventures than Casanova.
As a brother of one of my supposed conquests was present, I changed the subject, and we went on eating and drinking. In honor of the old days, we went and performed an a capella serenade for Horacio’s wife, the mother of two little Cornejos. We woke her and continued the party at their house until the sun came up. We got up late, with hangovers, and couldn’t set out that day, so another farewell dinner was organized, at the end of which they brought out champagne. Pelao was amazed at how fondly I was remembered in that town. So was I.
On the 6th, after mutual promises that we would meet in Villa Concepción del Tío on some future 8 December, the day of the town’s patron saint, we started back to San Martín de los Andes.
The sandy road was bad, which forced us to drive slowly, yet we still fell several times, though without hurting ourselves. Soon both the road and the landscape began to improve. A corniche road as picturesque as it was dangerous took us along beside Lake Carhué Chico and then to Lake Carhué Grande a few miles further on. The latter is a very beautiful spot, surrounded by high mountain peaks, many of which are permanently snow-capped. There and then we decided to climb one of them. We came to a forest ranger’s cabin and asked him to look after the bike. We bought a couple of loaves of bread from him and began our ascent.
We followed a stream that flows into the lake. Its course was completely choked with fallen trees—giant copihues, lengas, oaks and ashes. The water snaked between and over the top of tree-trunks felled by lightning and wind.
The slope grew steeper and steeper, and the stream began to turn into ever larger waterfalls. At one we had to leave the course of the stream and plunge into a thick reed-bed shaded by huge trees.
After four hours of hard climbing, we reached the wooded part of the peak and turned off toward a crag that rose before us, seemingly impregnable. We struggled up on all fours, clinging to boulders and taking advantage of anything we could get a grip on.
A few yards from the snowfield that crowned the summit, Ernesto, who was leading the way, took hold of an outcrop, only to have it break away. He tried desperately to prop it up, since, if it fell, it would drag him down with it. I rushed to his side and took part of the weight with one hand, but without a firm foothold we both ran the risk of being dragged down. With great effort we moved apart, he to the left and I to the right, and we let the boulder slide between us. It was only when I saw it go crashing and leaping down and smash to pieces a hundred yards below that I realized what danger we’d been in.
After a brief rest we set out again and soon were gazing in delight at the immense landscape spread out at our feet. We chucked a few snowballs at each other and, after we’d taken three or four photos, we began the descent.
We were pleased with our success, but had no idea of the danger that lay ahead before this little adventure was to come to a close. We started down along the stream formed by the melt-water, clutching the branches of arrayanes, which at this altitude grow like shrubs. The branches were so thick we almost had to crawl under them between the slope and the abyss that opened at our feet.
Our descent became slower and slower. The sun was already going down when we suddenly found ourselves at the edge of a sheer cliff. We faced the choice of either turning back—which would have been suicidal—or trying to pull ourselves up the mountainside by the branches of the coligües, until we found another path. Fúser led the way.
A few yards higher up he came upon a narrow track that went deep into the woods farther down the slope. Climbing after him, I felt the rock supporting the tip of my boot come away. I desperately seized some shrubs growing in the cracks in the rock-face, watching in anguish as their feeble roots came away under my weight. Fortunately my feet found a chink, and I got my fingers into another, so I could hold myself there and catch my breath. Just then, Fúser, who had gone on ahead when he saw me coming, turned round, sensing something odd about my delay. He gave me a hand from above. Panting, I turned back and saw my goggles, which had fallen off during my struggle. The sun’s last rays played on them at the bottom of the abyss. They winked at me as if to say, “You just made it by the skin of your teeth.”
We continued our descent through the woods and the reed-beds, now shrouded in darkness. Stumbling into fallen trunks, we fell, got up, only to fall once more. We were tired, but one thing was sure—our spirits were high, cracking jokes each time we fell or when our clothes snagged on the scrub. At last, when we found the stream again, it was close to eleven o’clock. We followed its course and shortly afterward we were faced with the marvelous spectacle of the moonlit lake. Although we longed to get back, we had to sit at the edge of the wood and admire the beauty of the lake and the surrounding hills. At that moment, silvered by the moonlight, the woods looked like a petrified forest. At last we reached the forest ranger’s cabin. We slept in the kitchen.
The next morning we drove along the shore of Lake Lolog and reached San Martín de los Andes. We loaded our gear and left. We drove past Lake Macheuco and then skirted Lake Villarino, Lake Hermoso and Lake Tormentoso. In the end, we decided to stop and camp at the next lake we came to. A few miles on we found ourselves face to face with Lake Espejo Grande. Impossible to describe its beauty and serenity, the name says it all: Great Mirror. We had a funny experience here, which once more demonstrated Ernesto’s capacity to take decisive action on the spur of the moment.
We camped under a flowering arrayán that almost touched the water. We ate some tinned meat and decided to fill the rest of our empty stomachs with maté and stale bread.
Suddenly a man appeared on foot. He came over and greeted us. We invited him to sit down and drink maté with us. He accepted and launched into a long conversation that was sometimes dialogue, sometimes monologue. He began by extolling the virtues of the bike, asking us how much it cost and what its cylinder capacity was. Then he focused his attention on our saddlebags and later on the quality of our leather jackets.
He did most of the talking, and I answered drily so as not to encourage his verbal diarrhea. Fúser said nothing and brewed the maté. Our visitor began to talk about a Chilean thief who was prowling the area. He warned us against the dangers of sleeping outdoors with such a man about, who could easily strip us of bike, clothes and money. I made a seemingly appropriate remark. Fúser, mute as the Sphinx, went on brewing maté and watched a pair of courting ducks that were swimming close to the shore.
The guy went on and on about the Chilean and tried to get a few words out of Pelao. Suddenly, in a moment of silence, Ernesto drew the Smith & Wesson he carried in the leg of his boot and—almost without aiming—shot at one of the ducks, which uttered a squawk and lay floating on its side. Startled, our inopportune visitor leaped to his feet, dropped his maté and bade us a hasty farewell. As he left, Fúser roared with laughter.
Not wanting to put the tent up for just one night, we slept beside the bike with the canvas drawn over us. At dawn we set out for Bariloche. After an eleven-hour drive we ended up looking at the famous Nahuel Huapí, where we are now.
To try and describe it would just be to repeat all the clichés. How to put into words the changing colors of the water and sky, the immensity of the snowy peaks, and the serenity of the whole landscape? All I can say is that once again, without a word to each other, we turned off the road and drove almost to the water’s edge. There we sat in the dying rays of the sun and gazed in admiration at the grandeur before us. In the end, the flames of our campfire were all that lit the shore. In its faint light we could just make out the flowery crown of the arrayán beneath which we were camped.