October 15
We had a 230 km ride to Chilecito. The roads and wind were much, much better than expected, so it only took us about three and a half hours. It was nice to have a day that was easier than expected rather than harder than expected. Bueno.
I took a picture of the road today that was an awful lot like the picture I took yesterday, ha! Admittedly, from Baja to Peru to Argentina, I am satiated with desert riding. It is beautiful and unique, but like the best dessert (not desert) ever, if you are already full from dinner it is hard to enjoy.
While trying to ID the raptor we saw today (which turned out to be a buzzard eagle - nice! I knew that blue color was unique), we also discovered we have been seeing white throated caracaras in addition to the Southern caracara. We heart caracaras.
To add to the seemingly crazy hours of Argentina, everything is closed on Sunday. I understand certain businesses taking it as their day off, but grocery stores and mini marts? Ugh. This fact was particularly frustrating to us as we decided it was time to book a place with a kitchen, so this town was to be our first kitchen since Costa Rica. We spent an extra $40 for a place with a kitchen and no supermarket… Sigh. Even without our kitchen scenario, if Argentina wants to have tourists, its communities need to accommodate weekend travelers, period.
We found out from the kids downstairs that at least a few restaurants were open for some hours today, so if we hurried, we could catch lunch/linner at the one place we saw open in town. We open the door and the place is huge. There must have been 100 people in the restaurant, and they took up about a dozen tables. Big groups of big families. Children running around. Huge family style plates of meat and fish and french fries coming out the kitchen. We were a bit stunned and kind of wondered if the restaurant wasn’t catering to a community event. We stood around like dumb gringos for a minute, and then a handsome man in a suit told us the table up front was free, just dirty, and to sit at it wait. We did. And we waited… and waited… we tried to flag a waiter down but the place was bustling and we were in the corner. If we weren’t so hungry we would have just left, but if we left there was no other option so we were staying. 30 minutes came and went and the handsome suit man flagged a waiter and basically said “dude - that table with the gringos” (he was so kind, we thanked him many times). The waiter came and cleaned off the table and looked at us like it was our fault it was dirty. Then we eventually got a menu. Then a second menu with a clean tablecloth. Then some napkins and utensils thrown down on the table. After he took our order we didn’t give our menus back to him fast enough, so he did this odd slap thing on the table that was basically “heck with you your menus and you can wait!!!” It was very bizarre and the interaction got Ernie’s goat. Eventually we got a drink order and we ordered a beer they were out of, so the waiter brought us the other beer they did have, which was a negra. We tried negra’s here and they were gross, so we asked for wine instead. He brought us the wine list then disappeared and sat down with another table and seemed totally done with us, which Really got Ernie’s goat. He did it in such a way that even the handsome suit guy at the table behind us had a “wtf” face and we had a moment of solidarity. It was becoming obvious that 99% of the people in that restaurant knew each other, and our narrative was that the handsome suit guy was a local businessman who knew that tourists were good for the economy which was why he was being nice to us. Our waiter never did come back to take our order, but another waiter took pity on us (as it was now an over an hour and a half later) and he took our order and we gave him many smiles and thanks.
We actually don’t mind that there was bad service, as bad restaurant service is everywhere in the world and ultimately not a big deal. We were the only tourists and the only two people who didn’t know the other 98 people there (seriously, they all knew each other). After we got back to the hotel we came across the info that it was Argentine Mother’s Day. Ahh, ok. Check. Yes - pay more attention to tables with mamas and families that are your neighbors and friends. At best he is a man full of so much integrity all of his effort went to Mom’s today. At worst-reality, he is a pathetic lame dude who hasn’t traveled out of his community so he doesn’t respect anyone out of his community. Either way, for two hours we played by his rules. We sat and waited. We got dissed while he made choices. We were his little people, and he treated us as such. That doesn’t mean we have to celebrate it and obey it from beginning to end. After four months of Latin American culture, Ernesto knew exactly what to do; strip him of his power via process.
At the end of a Latin meal, the customers are to ask for the cuenta (check), wait for the cuenta at the table, then walk up to the caja (cash register) and pay (in line). It is a series of steps than can take five minutes or fifty minutes, depending on the attentiveness of the waiter and the person working the caja. We were both confident that El Senor Mierda was not going to make it efficient for us, and we both remembered the exact prices of our food. So instead of participating in the process that they so dearly love, we did the math in our head to figure out how much we owed and defied the social construct. Ernesto did not ask for la cuenta but just went up to the caja, skipped the line of men, and tossed all the money we owed on the counter. The woman behind the caja babbled, the line of men squawked, Ernesto walked away, the waiter approached and babbled and got upset…. He panicked and asked us to wait and we just left the restaurant. They bumbled about and didn’t know what to do. Ha! What I love most about how Ernesto handled the situation is that when we were treated poorly, he did not do something universally unfair or unjust. He reacted in a cultural opposition that made the situation as uncomfortable and infuriating to the waiter as the waiter’s behavior was to us. Bueno.
October 16
The plan for today was a ~130 km ride from Chilecito to Villa Union. Both our Nat Geo map and our online research about Ruta 40 indicated that there was a 20-60 km stretch of gnarly gravel through a mountain pass, so we planned to give ourselves lots of time to go as slow as needed. The mountain pass didn’t end up being gravel at all, but in fact a brand new engineering marvel of beautiful pavimento. It proved to be a lovely and enjoyable ride, and seriously an engineering marvel! The structures they had built up underneath the road… damn. We are very glad we did not experience it a few months or years ago. After we finished, both Ernesto and I said “it was really fun to go up and over something today”.
We saw no wildlife today. No livestock. But we did see tourism. Not even very much, but seemingly every car or moto on Ruta 40 was for leisure and not out of necessity. This detail is huge, and hit me hard today. For three months 99.9% of the transportation we have seen has been because those people had to be there. In a very real way (duh), the infrastructure of Central America and Northern South America exists because the sugarcane farmer needs to pile it 30 feet high in his 1976 Peugeot and drive 400 km away to sell it to get money to feed his family. USAmericans take this infrastructure for granted. We saw no crops or goods being moved today. We saw sedans and motos and pullouts for selfies and photos. I had a large guffaw at myself for thinking today would be ‘dangerous’. The relationship between infrastructure-out-of-necessity and infrastructure-for-pleasure is something I knew but never really internalized.
It has only been five days, but Argentina is proving to be the most sexist culture yet. Ernesto is the focus of every single interaction, and if I am looked at at all, it is as meat or a butch on a moto. And everyone (but Ernesto and I) are complicit with it and it seems to work for them. As an example, we met up with a group of adventure riders this morning; I tried to engage them in conversation while E was getting gas but got nothing. The ball was totally in Ernesto’s court and it was clear he had to be the one to do the talking. We both have more to say about this, but right now it's too raw and we haven’t reflected.
On a lighter note, Argentine hours totally suck! We got to town at 1 pm and everything in this town is closed from 12- 6 pm (and this is normal workday hours). Come on people… that is just dumb. Who does nothing for hours and hours during daylight? Is Argentina full of European vampires?
We had a 230 km ride to Chilecito. The roads and wind were much, much better than expected, so it only took us about three and a half hours. It was nice to have a day that was easier than expected rather than harder than expected. Bueno.
I took a picture of the road today that was an awful lot like the picture I took yesterday, ha! Admittedly, from Baja to Peru to Argentina, I am satiated with desert riding. It is beautiful and unique, but like the best dessert (not desert) ever, if you are already full from dinner it is hard to enjoy.
While trying to ID the raptor we saw today (which turned out to be a buzzard eagle - nice! I knew that blue color was unique), we also discovered we have been seeing white throated caracaras in addition to the Southern caracara. We heart caracaras.
To add to the seemingly crazy hours of Argentina, everything is closed on Sunday. I understand certain businesses taking it as their day off, but grocery stores and mini marts? Ugh. This fact was particularly frustrating to us as we decided it was time to book a place with a kitchen, so this town was to be our first kitchen since Costa Rica. We spent an extra $40 for a place with a kitchen and no supermarket… Sigh. Even without our kitchen scenario, if Argentina wants to have tourists, its communities need to accommodate weekend travelers, period.
We found out from the kids downstairs that at least a few restaurants were open for some hours today, so if we hurried, we could catch lunch/linner at the one place we saw open in town. We open the door and the place is huge. There must have been 100 people in the restaurant, and they took up about a dozen tables. Big groups of big families. Children running around. Huge family style plates of meat and fish and french fries coming out the kitchen. We were a bit stunned and kind of wondered if the restaurant wasn’t catering to a community event. We stood around like dumb gringos for a minute, and then a handsome man in a suit told us the table up front was free, just dirty, and to sit at it wait. We did. And we waited… and waited… we tried to flag a waiter down but the place was bustling and we were in the corner. If we weren’t so hungry we would have just left, but if we left there was no other option so we were staying. 30 minutes came and went and the handsome suit man flagged a waiter and basically said “dude - that table with the gringos” (he was so kind, we thanked him many times). The waiter came and cleaned off the table and looked at us like it was our fault it was dirty. Then we eventually got a menu. Then a second menu with a clean tablecloth. Then some napkins and utensils thrown down on the table. After he took our order we didn’t give our menus back to him fast enough, so he did this odd slap thing on the table that was basically “heck with you your menus and you can wait!!!” It was very bizarre and the interaction got Ernie’s goat. Eventually we got a drink order and we ordered a beer they were out of, so the waiter brought us the other beer they did have, which was a negra. We tried negra’s here and they were gross, so we asked for wine instead. He brought us the wine list then disappeared and sat down with another table and seemed totally done with us, which Really got Ernie’s goat. He did it in such a way that even the handsome suit guy at the table behind us had a “wtf” face and we had a moment of solidarity. It was becoming obvious that 99% of the people in that restaurant knew each other, and our narrative was that the handsome suit guy was a local businessman who knew that tourists were good for the economy which was why he was being nice to us. Our waiter never did come back to take our order, but another waiter took pity on us (as it was now an over an hour and a half later) and he took our order and we gave him many smiles and thanks.
We actually don’t mind that there was bad service, as bad restaurant service is everywhere in the world and ultimately not a big deal. We were the only tourists and the only two people who didn’t know the other 98 people there (seriously, they all knew each other). After we got back to the hotel we came across the info that it was Argentine Mother’s Day. Ahh, ok. Check. Yes - pay more attention to tables with mamas and families that are your neighbors and friends. At best he is a man full of so much integrity all of his effort went to Mom’s today. At worst-reality, he is a pathetic lame dude who hasn’t traveled out of his community so he doesn’t respect anyone out of his community. Either way, for two hours we played by his rules. We sat and waited. We got dissed while he made choices. We were his little people, and he treated us as such. That doesn’t mean we have to celebrate it and obey it from beginning to end. After four months of Latin American culture, Ernesto knew exactly what to do; strip him of his power via process.
At the end of a Latin meal, the customers are to ask for the cuenta (check), wait for the cuenta at the table, then walk up to the caja (cash register) and pay (in line). It is a series of steps than can take five minutes or fifty minutes, depending on the attentiveness of the waiter and the person working the caja. We were both confident that El Senor Mierda was not going to make it efficient for us, and we both remembered the exact prices of our food. So instead of participating in the process that they so dearly love, we did the math in our head to figure out how much we owed and defied the social construct. Ernesto did not ask for la cuenta but just went up to the caja, skipped the line of men, and tossed all the money we owed on the counter. The woman behind the caja babbled, the line of men squawked, Ernesto walked away, the waiter approached and babbled and got upset…. He panicked and asked us to wait and we just left the restaurant. They bumbled about and didn’t know what to do. Ha! What I love most about how Ernesto handled the situation is that when we were treated poorly, he did not do something universally unfair or unjust. He reacted in a cultural opposition that made the situation as uncomfortable and infuriating to the waiter as the waiter’s behavior was to us. Bueno.
October 16
The plan for today was a ~130 km ride from Chilecito to Villa Union. Both our Nat Geo map and our online research about Ruta 40 indicated that there was a 20-60 km stretch of gnarly gravel through a mountain pass, so we planned to give ourselves lots of time to go as slow as needed. The mountain pass didn’t end up being gravel at all, but in fact a brand new engineering marvel of beautiful pavimento. It proved to be a lovely and enjoyable ride, and seriously an engineering marvel! The structures they had built up underneath the road… damn. We are very glad we did not experience it a few months or years ago. After we finished, both Ernesto and I said “it was really fun to go up and over something today”.
We saw no wildlife today. No livestock. But we did see tourism. Not even very much, but seemingly every car or moto on Ruta 40 was for leisure and not out of necessity. This detail is huge, and hit me hard today. For three months 99.9% of the transportation we have seen has been because those people had to be there. In a very real way (duh), the infrastructure of Central America and Northern South America exists because the sugarcane farmer needs to pile it 30 feet high in his 1976 Peugeot and drive 400 km away to sell it to get money to feed his family. USAmericans take this infrastructure for granted. We saw no crops or goods being moved today. We saw sedans and motos and pullouts for selfies and photos. I had a large guffaw at myself for thinking today would be ‘dangerous’. The relationship between infrastructure-out-of-necessity and infrastructure-for-pleasure is something I knew but never really internalized.
It has only been five days, but Argentina is proving to be the most sexist culture yet. Ernesto is the focus of every single interaction, and if I am looked at at all, it is as meat or a butch on a moto. And everyone (but Ernesto and I) are complicit with it and it seems to work for them. As an example, we met up with a group of adventure riders this morning; I tried to engage them in conversation while E was getting gas but got nothing. The ball was totally in Ernesto’s court and it was clear he had to be the one to do the talking. We both have more to say about this, but right now it's too raw and we haven’t reflected.
On a lighter note, Argentine hours totally suck! We got to town at 1 pm and everything in this town is closed from 12- 6 pm (and this is normal workday hours). Come on people… that is just dumb. Who does nothing for hours and hours during daylight? Is Argentina full of European vampires?