Across the Pampas

We left Lujan around noon and headed out across the pampas towards the province of San Luis. Our first stop, on the advice of our Argentina guidebook, was the "gaucho town" of San Antonio de Areco. The town was a nice, quaint stopping place for a cup of coffee, but we really saw nothing even remotely guachoesque about the town and concluded that if we really wanted to experience what the author of our guidebook had experienced, we would need to return during the annual gaucho festival in November. Chris and Elli were a bit disappointed, but we knew that they would have plenty of other opportunities to see real gauchos in Argentina.

Kilometer after kilometer of the pampas went by

More of the pampas

It didn't take too long for us to begin to get a sense of the vastness of Argentina. It is the 8th largest country in the world, and after driving several hours across flat lush farmland our position on the map of Argentina had hardly changed at all. This might be a good time to mention a bit about driving in Argentina. Argentine drivers tend to be very aggressive and drive very fast (unless they’re in old cars in which case they drive too slowly). As far as I can tell, traffic signs in this country serve as suggestions rather than as rules to be followed. Since there are very few four lane divided highways, especially in rural areas, driving across Argentina means driving on two lane highways with large trucks and drivers who have no qualms about passing on curves, at the base of hills, and when the sign states that passing is prohibited.

This truck has just passed us even though we are going over the speed limit.

We had one “near death” driving experience on our journey to San Luis. I started to pass (with plenty of room) what I thought was one large truck. However, once I got into the other lane, I realized that there were actually 2 trucks with a small car in-between. Since I'm not as bold as Argentine drivers and didn't want to pass 2 trucks and a car, I attempted to go back into my lane behind the truck. Unfortunately, there were now several cars where I had been and they wouldn’t let me back in. I attempted to speed up and pass the first truck so I could move over between the car and one of the trucks until it was safe to pass again. But, alas, once again no one would let me in and the oncoming car was now almost upon us. My kids were now starting to panic (I was too focused at that moment to panic and my husband, bless his heart remained calm). What to do? As I didn't have enough time to pass both trucks, I had no choice but to go off the road on the left side just before the oncoming car passed us by. Thankfully the shoulder was wide and I was able to safely come to a stop and then proceed on a little wiser for the experience.

On a more positive note, we were quite happy to discover that even in “Podunk” places, the gas stations in Argentina have espresso machines with great coffee, as well as clean bathrooms. After traveling for about 6 hours, we decided that we would stop in the city of Laboulaye for the night, and continue on to San Luis the following morning.

Taking a Frisbee break at a gas station

We were really glad we brought this magnetic chess/checkers game with us. It was great for the long hours on the road.