Two days ago, Jynene, Claire, Garnet and I drove the 260 kilometers from San Julian to El Calafate. San Julian is a bay village with a beautiful wildlife refuge. We got to walk among penguin nests and we saw sea lions, dolphins, and other wildlife. El Calafate is a tourist town famous for the amazing glaciers you can explore in the local national park. In between these two wonderful experiences, we had an unfortunate problem with our car. That is the subject of this post.
There are two options for driving from San Julian to El Calafate: first, you can take a 520 kilometer drive along paved roads. Alternatively, you can take a 260 kilometer drive along a supposedly well-maintained dirt road. In the interest of time, we decided to take the dirt road. Also in the interest of time, we drove between 80 and 110 kilometers per hour along this road. There were almost no other vehicles on the road, the road was very wide, the sun was up, and overall, the speed seemed perfectly safe. On both sides of the road were endless plains where sheep, guanacos (wild lamas), and Rheas (ostritch-like flightless birds) graze. We saw a flock of Rheas composed of one or two adults and about 15 babies…it was very very cute. She sheep had recently had babies, so there were lots of little lambs everywhere, also. Overall, it was a beautiful drive. And then disaster struck (well, not disaster, but unfortunate-ness at least): we drove over a few BIG rocks about a quarter the size of the tires on our little Fiat Sienna. The car engine stopped (not sure if we stalled or if the impact killed it), and would not start back up again. When we turned the key to start the car, it engine turned over but didn’t catch.
Uh oh….. Jynene got out of the car and noticed that one tire was completely blown out, but other than that, we couldn’t find any damage. Actually, this little car is so close to the ground, we couldn’t even look under the carriage….a feature we should probably have considered before driving so fast that rocks kicked up from under the tires bouncing off the bottom of the car. It was about 5:30pm or so, and was starting to get very cold and windy outside. We all got back into the car to discuss what to do. The last vehicle we had passed had been a semitrailer going in our direction about 45 minutes prior to our breaking down, however this vehicle was travelling so slow that it would take a few hours to reach us. We reckoned the semi would reach us before nightfall because the sun does not set until 1030-1100 pm at this time of year in Patagonia. Also, there was a possibility that a vehicle coming in the opposite direction would be able to help us, since we were only 50 kilomters from El Calafate. If a vehicle capable of towing us didn’t come, we would try and hitch hike. If we couldn’t do that, we’d just stay in the car until morning and walk towards town: we knew the dirt road met up with a major highway at some point, and we would be able to get help there. We took stock of our water and food situation: we had a liter of water that would easily hold us over night if need be. We had a bar of chocolate and a jar of peanut butter for food…not exactly hearty, but plenty for one night.
Jynene suggested we change the tire immediately so that we would be ready to go if a vehicle capable of towing us came along. This presented a great opportunity: Garnet had never changed a tire before! Jynene and Claire taught him how, and he did very well. It was freezing cold out, so we got back into the car and watched about 45 minutes of Evita (essential watching for a trip to Argentina) on Claire’s IPad Touch. Finally, about an hour and a half or two after we had broken down, a semitruck drove up behind us (this was the semi that was going about 30kph that we passed a few hours prior). He stopped, and in very broken Spanish, we asked him for a tow into town. He tethered the front of our car to the back of his truck. We all stayed in the car, Jynene in the driver’s seat, for the ride. The truck driver went very slowly on the dirt road, but the last thirty kilometers of the ride was on pavement, and he averaged about 60 kilometers per hour on the pavement. Going downhill tethered about 15 feet from the back of a truck is terrifying! Jynene had to steer and hit the break, which had no power assistance, and make sure we didn’t smash into the back of the truck. It started raining/snowing outside, was freezing inside the car, and foggy on the windshield. Finally, we got to the police checkpoint at the top of a hill overlooking El Calafate, and the truck drove off and we asked the police for help. It took us about two more hours, but we finally got a tow truck to come pick us up and bring us down to town. Our lack of Spanish skills made the situation more difficult and, in a way, more amusing. But that night, with the car broken down outside a mechanic’s shop, we had a very tasty dinner and some hot chocolate to ward of the stress of the day. We learned that people who drive painfully slow on dirt roads aren’t being overly-cautious curmudgeons….they are being smart because at some point they probably destroyed their cars by driving too fast like we did.
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