Chapter 16: The Argentine Line-up / Northern Argentina

It is election time in Argentina, and in Buenos Aires that seems to form a plausible excuse to protest. Most of the protests seem peaceful, but our taxi driver is annoyed, having to navigate his way around them. We have arrived at the capital city after a long 3 days of driving through from Iguazu Falls. Argentinians take much pride in their falls, and were out enjoying them in droves. The falls themselves are well curated and worth the hype. From the falls we wound our way back in a southerly direction through the Missiones province, visiting old Jesuit mission sites and enjoying the semi-tropical weather. It felt good to see the compass pointed south again.

Buenos Aires is a city for romantics, built by romantics. It has both feet planted in South American soil, but its heart belongs to Europe. It is a city that longs for heroes, the Perons, Maradona, as eagerly as it tears them down. Modern Argentinians have described themselves as a contrarian people, who are always willing to argue. Peronist or not, Massa vs. Milei, dollar vs. peso. But the one thing they will always agree on is...Messi.

Democracy is a slippery thing here, hard to get a hold of and even harder to hang on to. In an effort to be doing some semblance of teaching, Daniella and I have dug up a series of podcasts that talk about the struggle for democracy in Latin American countries. The series runs through a line-up of the who’s who of South American dictators; Stroessner in Paraguay, Videla in Argentina, Pinochet in Chile. The stories are chillingly recent – most within our own lifetime. Free, uncorrupted, democratic elections are not something that can be taken for granted here, despite the more developed nature of both Argentina and Chile. It all hangs delicately in the balance, ping ponging back and forth between the extremes of socialism and autocratic, military capitalist states. The extremes of one government force an equal reaction in the opposite direction, and the middle ground (and middle class) quickly disappears, trodden beneath the fears of a country that is constantly running away from something. The horrors of the military dictators and the juntas that supported them are dwarfed only by the fact that most of them were installed by the US CIA under the guise of fighting communists during the Cold War. Everywhere there are stories and the graffiti on crumbling brick walls tell of those who resisted and dissappeared. As we learn about these things, the freedom we have enjoyed back home becomes a little more precious.

On top of the ongoing struggle for democratic stability, Argentina is being hammered by inflation. The peso is devaluing at a rate of over 10% per month. This is great for travellers bringing in foreign currency, and terrible for the Argentinian people. There are line-ups everywhere for gas, grocery stores and most of all for banks, most of whom run out of cash daily by noon. Prices must be updated on a weekly basis, so restaurants and shops no longer list them. At the beginning of our time in Argentina, one Canadian dollar could be exchanged for 500 pesos, three months later it was 750. Our travel plans now include a new variable – where and when we can get cash. Western Union is our best option as it will change our Canadian dollars at the “unofficial blue dollar rate”, meaning we can get almost twice as much money on each exchange versus the official exchange rate. The blue dollar is technically black market but is so commonplace. Down here, the desire for the US dollar outstrips any controls the government can be place on the exchange rate. So, while Argentines all over the country secretly hoard US dollars, corrupt politicians continue to siphon off public money, rushing the economy into freefall. And we spend hours in line-ups with the rest of the country.

One evening, on a rare date night, Daniella and I fall into conversation with our server at a coffee shop. He’s a young man in his early twenties who has studied at the university and obtained a degree. He tells us that all the young people are leaving Buenos Aires. There are no jobs and those jobs that are available, can’t keep pace with inflation. The future of a city known for its sophistication, energy and colour is being drained. The next day while filling up gas, the attendant quizzes me on Canada. Is there any work there, he asks?

Buenos Aires is a large, sprawling city, over 15 million people, almost all of it low rise residential buildings modeled after Hausmann’s Paris. The coffee shops are delightful, and you are never more than a block or two from a small plaza or a park with a bench. The boys are getting tired of big city walks, so we decide to lure them into a city sized scavenger hunt for food. Fresh baked medialunas, dripping with honey and only available for an hour after 9am because they run out. Creamy gelato from a hole in the wall recently voted one of the top ten ice cream shops in the world (by National Geographic?). Crispy chorizo, dripping in sautéed onions, jammed into a hot baguette. Delicate alfajores cookies, in a thousand variations, all delightful. Fresh pasta from the Italian corner shops, bought by the pound from grandmothers behind glass counters, dressed in floral smocks. And everywhere - dulce de leche, that smooth, creamy caramel sauce that seems to hold together all of Argentinian cuisine. The pounds that I have lost coming through Peru and Bolivia seem to be finding their way back again in an awful hurry. But if I’m honest, we did not come to Buenos Aires for the city itself, or even the food. We came for soccer.

There is only one game you need to see in Argentina. The Boca Jr.’s play at a legendary venue called the La Bombonera. La Bomba is built entirely of concrete, poured into a small void in the gritty fabric of the immigrant turned tourist neighbourhood of La Boca. Lacking the footprint of larger, modern venues, La Bomba stacks its seating tiers on an extreme angle, offering a coliseum style experience. There are more fans packed into this stadium on a per square foot basis then any other venue on earth. These are fans for whom soccer is a life-or-death issue. Urban legend has it that La Bomba was designed to meet structural requirements for earthquakes not because there are earthquakes in Buenos Aires, but to withstand the forces generated by the rhythmic chanting of over 49,000 fans.

It was not easy getting tickets. Tickets to Boca matches are all sold as season tickets, and can only be had through private memberships. We finally find a scalper who procures tickets for a Saturday night match. The deal is concluded in the lobby of our Airbnb, where I slide over several tall stacks of cash and hope that the tickets we were getting are the real deal. When I asked if there were any special instructions, I am told the only rule to follow is to not wear any colours resembling that of the opposing team. This is not only for personal safety, but is a rule enforced by the stadium and the club. Boca fans only.

The game is memorable as much for the experience as the soccer itself. Boca scores early in the second half, and the game ends in a 1-1 tie. What I will remember from our night at La Bomba is the liquid swell of sweaty, blue and yellow clad fans, rising and falling to the heat of the game. Straight-laced, professional looking banker types with jerseys pulled on over white collar shirts who cheered, raged and swore at the refs with the best of them. Fans mounting the guardrails with one leg, pressing over the edge of the vertically cliffed seating tiers to unleash their chants and their jeers. We were on our feet for most of the game. There were no individual fans, there was only a single, pulsing mass, perfectly synchronized, and the chanting heart of this mass beat yellow and blue. Our boys took to the action with all the vigour and energy of youth. That night, in the heat of 49,000 bodies (there were no empty seat), they felt what it was like to be in a city where soccer is life.

The following morning we leave Buenos Aires reluctantly, although I am happy to be back on the road headed for quieter places. We must now cross the body of the continent, and to do so means we must cross the vast emptiness of the Pampa. Pampa is a word derived from the indigenous Armya language that means “space”. There is not much to see here, but there is space, and it feels very different.

It is here in the Pampa that we first encounter the infamous winds of Patagonia. If you look at a map of the southern hemisphere, you will see that the tip of South America is the only landmass that stretches into the southern oceans. The wind and the weather gallop around the entire southern circumference of the globe unencumbered, gathering together into a malevolent force that smashes into the Andes, where it is divided by the high peaks into torrents of raging air that sweep into the Pampa. The wind in Patagonia is as much a determinant of the landscape as the mountains, a force to be reckoned with. It sculpts the trees into awkward, one directional weather vanes. Everything not tethered to the ground is swept off. Thorny underbrush dots the landscape, one of the few things that grows here.

The Pampa seems lifeless at first, but between the scattered brush are herds of guanaco, the wild, undomesticated cousin of the llama. They are long legged, camel like and love to run. They seem born to the wind. There is no public land here in Argentina, and even the barren pampas have been carved up and fenced by the estancias. Barbed wire fences are to guanacos what they were to the buffalo - a death sentence. Their anatomy makes them susceptible to catching their hind legs on the top strand, and their dried, dessicated carcasses hang on the fences like gruesome mile markers. The boys tick off the mile markers, and the total over 30 minutes mounts over a hundred. Between herds of guanaco are thick wooled sheep that dot the landscape like bits of wind-driven plastic caught in the thorns. Long legged rheas (cousins to the ostrich) dash from roadside shoulders, their necks stretched straight into the wind like fighter pilots.

The wind has a personality. It bellows and roars like an ill-tempered beast as it storms over the grey earth. Its inconsistent huffing and puffing gives it a fickle attitude, like a child throwing a tantrum. One minute you are standing there, enjoying the warm sun, and the next it’s trying to tear the truck door from its hinges. We are discovering that our camper makes a pretty good sail. Staying on the highway requires two hands on the wheel, setting a tack and fighting our way into the wind, hoping the anchor points on the camper don’t pull out. The tires surf the pavement, looking for some edge, some toe-hold to keep us from being pushed off the road. Passing trucks create momentary windbreaks that require a readjustment of the steering angle, and the wind coming out of the leeward side hits us like a fist and often pushes us into the shoulder. In this manner, we fight our way through the bareness of the Pampas, a small dot looking for some landscape feature or town big enough to give us some shelter.

The road runs straight until it bumps into the eastern edge of our old friend, the Andes. The Andes have become the one constant by which we have oriented our entire geography around. Everything we do and everywhere we go is related to its position relative to this mountain range that stretches the length of the continent. We arrive in Bariloche, where it is still cold. A late winter keeps the snow on the mountains and the lupins late in blooming. Here in Northern Patagonia, we have tucked ourselves into an AirBnB to welcome two very special visitors.

My parents have used the excuse of a layover (while visiting my sister in Australia), to ensure that their three grandsons are still in healthy, working order. We spend two wonderful weeks with the first people from home that we have seen since Colombia. Their visit brings with it a small taste of another world, a world that now seems quite different to the one we have carved out for ourselves in our small camper.

The boys are smothered in the candy, hugs and quality time that only grandparents can dole out. Together we explore Northern Patagonia and then hop over the Chilean border to the island of Chiloe. We manage to get my Mum on a horse for the first time, take long walks through the Cohayui forests, and pick our way through one small shop after another. We stumble on the small workshop of Don Mathias, a knife smith, who takes Jonah under his wing and crafts a beautiful gaucho cuchilllo. Jonah is involved in every step of the process. He is delighted with his new knife, but is concerned because the traditional sheath it comes with can only be secured with a belt (he only wears sweatpants). Don Mathias looks at Jonah and tells him, it’s time for him to get some man pants. The next day Jonah marched off to the store and bought himself a belt, which he looped through his hiking pants. He’s barely taken it off since.

The boys are eager to show off their border crossing skills to Oma and Opa, and we slowly make our way to the Chilean coast. We shop in small markets for vegetables, explore small wooden churches, hunt for the perfect ice cream shop, retreat to kitchen tables for board games and enjoy the quietness of rural life on Chiloe. All too soon the visit comes to an end, and with tears in our eyes we watch the taillights of the rental car disappear down the dirt road. We are on our own again.

The visit with my parents is a much-needed break from the relentless rhythm of travel. It offers us a time-out from our South American reality - a small time capsule from home that reminds us not only of what we miss, but also how far we have come. The timing was perfect - ahead of us lies some of the wildest, most storied landscapes in the world – Patagonia. Our route into this region would be the Carretera Austral, a remote gravel road several hundred kilometers long that penetrates deeply into the steep, glaciated heart of Patagonia. After Patagonia lies Tierra del Fuego. The end of our journey is slowly coming into focus, and the name “Ushuaia” is coming up more and more in our conversations. Even as we enjoy our time capsule from home, the destination that has lured us all this way is increasing its magnetic pull. The tires crunch on fresh gravel. It’s time to move on.