ODO: 3338,918
The day starts with a long overdue oil change, and a little planning. We have another trip home on the books for mid June, and we don’t know where we’re going to fly there from yet. In the meantime, there is a mountain lake, and maybe hot springs, with our name on it. The last few miles of the lake road are closed, nuts…As we backtrack, we learn the mountain is mostly owned by a private company, and there is no driving the cool looking roads. We end up at our back up, back up, back up spot on the side of the road. At least the drive was pretty.
We sleep late. No one slept well…we’re both getting sick. It took several tries, but we finally find an open mountain pass. In actuality, our planned camp spot is half a mile from where this pass is closed, we just don’t know it yet. There is a wide spot next to the river, and we settle in to get a few days of rest. Several cattle dogs, one at a time, come by to say hello. One of them needs to see a vet, it’s missing an eye. We make an experimental dinner in the insta pot, and it’s a big miss. Meat ruined. Veggies eatable… broth yummy. This is how we learn.
It’s a nice quiet day by the river. Time to unpack from our trip, and re-organize a little. And plan how we want to spend the next couple of weeks. We need to fly from Buenos Aeries, and don’t have time to explore northwestern Argentina properly. We decide on the Atlantic coast, south of Buenos Aeries. KoKo wakes up sick this morning, so the quiet day is well timed. A couple of the cattle dogs come back and enjoy our ruined dinner. We also start the process of applying for our Brazilian Visas. This is a new rule as of April for Americans, Canadians, and Australians. Everyone else can visit for free. KoKo needs to find a new passport photo, hers is rejected because her ears aren’t visible enough. The approved photos has much less ears, so we don’t understand.
We wake up to a disappointing discovery. One of the cattle dogs has peed on top of our toilet. Gross. I guess no one liked experimental dinner. We clean it up, and finish packing. Back across the mountains towards the coast, we are meeting Danny tomorrow to watch him and his wife race motorcycles! There is a camping area near the race course along a dry river, which is normally awesome…This one, however, is full of an absolutely crazy amount of trash, and broken glass. It takes us twenty minutes of exploring to find a spot that’s only full of broken tiles. KoKo moves some rocks to level the truck and finds a large group of tiny camouflaged frogs. In the middle of the night we acquire a very good, very sweet dog. It’s very cold, and we’re very tempted to bring him indoors.
Damnit! We oversleep! Packing is a mad dash, luckily we’re only about ten minutes away. Our new good dog is sad to see us go, and we’re sad too. Some of these dogs just steal our hearts immediately. Now to hustle to the race! They are setting up when we arrive, we made it on time. It’s 3 laps of 20km, perfect for us to practice some action photography. The day is spent adjusting settings, finding new positions and trying all the angles. We’ll see how we did later. Danny gets third place in his class. This is a large local race, somewhere in the rang of 400 riders hit the course today.
Race over, we head back into Santiago for some shopping before heading to Danny’s house for the night. Danny and Lore meet us around 8pm and take us to a friend’s birthday party for the rest of the night. They live in a neighborhood in the city, and we are camped on their front yard. Our set up is not great for stealth camping, but this is what we’re doing tonight.
Thank goodness for our pee bottles! This is the first time we have used them in months and months. We have a slow morning, doing some work while we wait for Danny to bring us the parts we ordered to his mailbox. We’re not feeling very motivated, so we end up staying one more night. Danny has a BBQ, and the friends from the previous night’s party over again for dinner. It’s delicious, these two can cook! On the way out, KoKo compliments one of the lady’s poncho. She immediately takes it off and gives it to KoKo! During dinner, at the assurance of our host, we drink some tap water. We don’t drink tap water. Anywhere. Especially not in Latin America. We’re terrified for tomorrow.
The tap water does not cause internal turmoil! We’re shocked. But our colds have ramped up, our sinuses feel like they’re going to explode. We pack up, say our good-byes, and head back towards Mendoza, in Argentina. Possibly for the last time. Stopping for meetings slows our progress, and it’s dark when we are finished with the border. It’s also winter here and the sun sets at 6:00pm. It’s a very easy border, but each of the three steps is separated by 15km. It’s 10:30pm when we finally roll into camp. Much warmer here than in Santiago. Dinner didn’t happen tonight, and we’re tired, so its straight to bed.
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