Hard to Believe

Today was hard to believe. The weather finally broke and I was able to try a trip into the hills:

 I rented a motorcycle from a guy who helps organize the local stage of the Dakar Rally. The bike wasn't very powerful... a 250 with tall gears... but I had fun learning the rules of Argentine driving while swimming upstream at dawn against the morning traffic. Once out, I headed towards the hills.

 What you see in these pictures are the foothills of the Andes.

 As I got progressively lost in the mountains on curvy roads absent of other vehicles, I finally came to a random gate in the road with a police officer saying I couldn't go any further, so I turned around and started heading towards my actual goal for the day: Valle de Uco sur, which is the most up-and-coming wine district on the continent.

 This winery and vineyard, Salentein, is located in the Valle de Uco sur micro-climate, and it lies at 5000ft at the very feet of the Andes. If the clouds weren't present there would be a large view of the 22,000ft Tupungato volcano.

 On my way to the winery I was stopped by the Argentine police (Patagonian roads are amazing)... After a nice chat with the officer about how weird U.S. driving licenses look, I was sent on my way without a fine, but a warning to look out for goats crossing the road... I think the goat warning was much more effective than a fine ever could have been.

After three hours slid by without my noticing, I arrived at the vineyard and bumped my way up the road to the winery. I didn't have time to do a full tour, unfortunately, so I just did some tasting. I had the entire tasting room to myself, the Andes surrounding the view. This assortment of Malbecs in this picture cost about $7. The wine on the far left is the "Primus" and normally costs about $70 just to taste, but after talking for a while with the host he remembered he had an opened bottle and he let me taste it for free. I've never had wine that expensive before, and it was quite the treat. I doubt I'll ever be able to afford wine like that in the States, so I savored every last drop. It was so Meanwhile, the chef who seemed to be bored, kept bringing me fantastic hors d'oeuvres. All said and done, this was the most value I think is possible to squeeze out of $7.

 I realized my 220km gas tank was empty when I entered the last town for quite some time before Mendoza, so after searching for a while, I found the only gas station. I was puzzled by the line that had formed out on the street leading from the station, but there were no cars at the pumps so I figured they must be waiting for an oil change or something, and pulled up to the pump. I waited for quite some time for an attendant to come out, because the machines were obviously too complicated to be self-serve, but an attendant never came. Finally the man in the car first in the lineup on the street walked over to me and introduced himself, very politely, and then asked if I was a foreigner. It turns out I had cut a line that was over 2km long, and that they were waiting for the town's first delivery of gas. I asked how long it would be until I could fill up, and he said it could be a couple days! Yikes. After talking more though, he offered to let me go in front of him so that I could maybe get back to Mendoza before the next day. I was thrilled, and found out that the gas tanker was due to arrive in only three hours. I sat for about two of those hours, eating junk food and reading, and then I got bored so I went and started talking with one of the attendants. We got talking about how foreign the idea of not having gas is to Americans. All of the sudden he leaned over a whispered to me that he had a secret store of gas that he could sell to me so I could avoid the mob scene once the tanker arrived. I leaped at the opportunity. It was all very clandestine; I rolled the bike into a little back alley where he pulled out a milk jug covered in a black plastic bag, and he poured the jug into my bike. $5 later and a ton of thankyous, I was off back on my way to Mendoza. It occurred to me while I was in the middle of the huge stretch of road that is so typical of the Patagonian steppe--perfectly strait until its vanishing point--that the gas could have been sub-par or even diesel and that I would be stuck in the middle of the steppe with a dead bike and no food. Right then a dust storm from hell blew me clear off the road into the sage brush at 130kmh. Luckily the sage brush don't really mind being run over, and I just corrected back onto the road, trying to see despite the insane winds. ---(In terms of wind in the world, there are three types: No wind, Wind, and Patagonia.)--- What can you do but motor on, though? So I did, and right as the sun was setting Mendoza came into view. By some miracle I found my way back through the city to the parking garage where I had rented the bike, and the journey ended.

It all seems kind of surreal. I've never had anything in a foreign country really work properly, but today it seemed like there was some unseen hand guiding my journey. Despite situations where I would normally have felt exposed, been terrified, or been ripped off, I found myself being ambivalent to adversity, stupidly lucky, and like I had some sort of "people charm" that made them want to do nice things for me.

*As a disclaimer to my driving responsibility: I did not drink all of the wine given to me and consumed well under one glass in total. I take the dangers of motorcycling pretty seriously, and even drinking one glass of wine is more than I would have drank before riding a motorcycle in normal circumstances.