The (First) Turn Around

Continued

We got a few lifts, but only made it fifty kilometers or so down Ruta 3 that day - the last three hours at a dusty junction by Pedro Luro were entirely fruitless, and we'd procured only a variety of pointy hand gestures.

Most people don't like to be seen as un-charitable when asked directly to help a stranger, and will make unending excuses instead of saying no.

In the context of hitch-hiking this manifests itself in all manner of funny pointing and gesturing.

Cars with empty seats, pick-ups with empty flat-beds and trucks with cab-space all excuse themselves, indicating they're only going to the next junction, are coming back anyway, are driving too slow or too fast by pointing and flapping in all manner of ways.

Well, this was at an all time high in Pedro Luro - apparently no-one was going anywhere.

We set up to spend the night under a tree with minimal hassle from local dogs, saw no big cats and I enjoyed going to sleep with a now almost normal sized face.

Just to keep us on our toes an almighty storm rolled in, but by this time we were used to our "no rain until Chile" and always had a planned storm-evasion-point.

This evenings was a bus shelter about fifty metres away which had a concrete bench long enough for us both, a good water-tight roof and no discernible piss-stench.

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

We got up early and had our thumbs out before 7:30 a.m. (a personal record), but put in a good five hours before a pick-up going the other way stopped and called us over.

It was the first person we'd met with any English we'd met since Bs. As., and he explained that only a few kilometres down the road are the most corrupt police you'll find in Argentina, and that no-one goes that way unless they have to, and won't do or take anything (or anyone) out of the ordinary for fear of arbitrary fines on the spot.

He said to get anywhere we needed to turn around, get further west, and take the famous Ruta 40 south.

It was actually a huge relief turning round, we'd been getting quite low-spirited after so many hours hitching at one place getting nowhere, so many hours thumb outstretched in the baking sun has a psychological toll.

In twenty minutes we had a lift the other way, and Tomas would take us back to Bahia Blanca which had taken us two days to get from.

It was great. He put on Metallica's Black Album and we rocked out all the way to the dusty junction where Nestor had dropped us off in his nice, comfy Nissan.

This led me to realise if we'd have stayed in his pick-up we could have got another five hundred kilometres west towards Ruta 40.

I suppose that way I'd have never come face to face with a puma, got a massive swollen face, or got eight hours worth of sunburn without a lift.

Wait a minute...