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    South America by RV: Uruguay, Brazil, and Argentina
    South America by RV: Uruguay, Brazil, and Argentina
    South America by RV: Uruguay, Brazil, and Argentina
    Ebook301 pages4 hours

    South America by RV: Uruguay, Brazil, and Argentina

    By Barry Pomeroy

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    My latest trip to South America was meant to be much more than just a return to the continent. Silvio had readied his RV for the three-country excursion, and more importantly, planned particularly enticing meetings with alligators and presidents.
    After arriving in Buenos Aires we almost immediately crossed to Uruguay where we spent an hour with José “Pepe” Mujica and enjoyed the beach. Then we drove north into Brazil where Silvio had promised tropical swamps and alligators. After hundreds of kilometres crossing rich farmland and marveling at the country’s infrastructure, we came to the pantanal region. The vast swamps of the pantanal were rich with life, and although the tourist trade had slowed to a trickle, we spent our time watching for the sudden animal through the trees and listening for the prehistoric calls of birds.
    Between an abortive attempt to cross the Bolivian border and an equally effective attempt at Paraguay, we photographed butterflies and coatis in the world famous Iguazú Falls area, talked to locals and learned about police corruption and cross-border smuggling. Back in northern Argentina we went against the advice of nearly everyone, and set out to explore the poverty-stricken and forgotten provinces of Formosa and Chaco before we turned south to Cordova and Sante Fe. There we spent long days in the mountains before seeing the cousins on our way back to Buenos Aires.
    Travelling by motorhome meant that we were more versatile than most tourists. We could pull over at remote vistas and extend a conversation that otherwise a set schedule might cut short. We didn’t require anything other than the truck’s shower and bathroom, water tanks and refrigerator, and cooking stove and furnace. This is not so much a story about the hardships of traveling as it is a report from the hidden corners of countries that are only accessible when you travel by RV.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBarry Pomeroy
    Release dateJan 4, 2019
    ISBN9781987922660
    South America by RV: Uruguay, Brazil, and Argentina
    Author

    Barry Pomeroy

    Barry Pomeroy is a Canadian novelist, short story writer, academic, essayist, travel writer, and editor. He is primarily interested in science fiction, speculative science fiction, dystopian and post-apocalyptic fiction, although he has also written travelogues, poetry, book-length academic treatments, and more literary novels. His other interests range from astrophysics to materials science, from child-rearing to construction, from cognitive therapy to paleoanthropology.

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      Book preview

      South America by RV - Barry Pomeroy

      South America by RV

      Uruguay, Brazil, and Argentina

      by

      Barry Pomeroy

      © 2019 by Barry Pomeroy

      All rights reserved. Copyright under Berne Copyright Convention, Universal Copyright Convention, and Pan-American Copyright Convention. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the author, although people generally do what they please.

      For more information about my books, go to barrypomeroy.com

      ISBN 13: 978-1987922660

      ISBN 10: 1987922660

      My latest trip to South America was meant to be much more than just a return to the continent. Silvio had readied his RV for the three-country excursion, and more importantly, planned particularly enticing meetings with alligators and presidents.

      After arriving in Buenos Aires we almost immediately crossed to Uruguay where we spent an hour with José Pepe Mujica and enjoyed the beach. Then we drove north into Brazil where Silvio had promised tropical swamps and alligators. After hundreds of kilometres crossing rich farmland and marveling at the country’s infrastructure, we came to the pantanal region. The vast swamps of the pantanal were rich with life, and although the tourist trade had slowed to a trickle, we spent our time watching for the sudden animal through the trees and listening for the prehistoric calls of birds.

      Between an abortive attempt to cross the Bolivian border and an equally effective attempt at Paraguay, we photographed butterflies and coatis in the world famous Iguazú Falls area, talked to locals and learned about police corruption and cross-border smuggling. Back in northern Argentina we went against the advice of nearly everyone, and set out to explore the poverty-stricken and forgotten provinces of Formosa and Chaco before we turned south to Cordova and Sante Fe. There we spent long days in the mountains before seeing the cousins on our way back to Buenos Aires.

      Travelling by motorhome meant that we were more versatile than most tourists. We could pull over at remote vistas and extend a conversation that otherwise a set schedule might cut short. We didn’t require anything other than the truck’s shower and bathroom, water tanks and refrigerator, and cooking stove and furnace. This is not so much a story about the hardships of traveling as it is a report from the hidden corners of countries that are only accessible when you travel by RV.

      Table of Contents

      Introduction

      April 21 ~ Goodbye at the Airport

      April 22 ~ Santiago and Buenos Aires

      April 23 ~ Crossing to Uruguay

      April 24 ~ Embassy Work and Meeting a Past President

      April 25 ~ Enjoying the Shore

      April 26 ~ Following the Coast to Punta del Diablo

      April 27 ~ Crabs on the Beach

      April 28 ~ Entering Brazil

      April 29 ~ The Pampas of Brazil

      April 30 ~ Tiny Mountain Towns

      May 1 ~ Meeting People along the Way

      May 2 ~ Close to the Paraguayan Border

      May 3 ~ Swimming with the Fishes

      May 4 ~ Finally Some Alligators

      May 5 ~ Not Crossing to Bolivia

      May 6 ~ Along the Border of Paraguay

      May 7 ~ The Road to Iguaçu Falls

      May 8 ~ Iguaçu Falls

      May 9 ~ Iguazú Falls in Argentina

      May 10 ~ The Amethyst Family

      May 11 ~ The Reducciónes of San Ignacio

      May 12 ~ Formosa

      May 13 ~ Go to Paraguay? Or South to Chaco?

      May 14 ~ Meeting Indigenous Argentineans

      May 15 ~ Birds beside Laguna Mar Chiquita

      May 16 ~ Crossing the Mountains to the Nazi Hotel

      May 17 ~ The Mountains and Seeing Prima

      May 18 ~ Running Late to the Family Gathering

      May 19 ~ The Day with the Family

      May 20 ~ Gaining a Day

      May 21 ~ Goodbye and Buenos Aires

      May 22 ~ The Long Flight Home

      Appendix I: José Pepe Mujica's Speeches

      Appendix II: Lunfardo

      Appendix III: The Legend of Difunta Correa

      Glossary

      Introduction

      I have visited South America three times now, for the first time fifteen years ago, and then again just last year in 2017. On this latest trip in 2018, we went along the eastern coast in order to learn about Uruguay and interior Brazil before we circled back through northern Argentina.

      Fifteen years ago I mostly stayed with Silvio’s family—now scattered over separate homes—and involved myself with their internecine struggles. That first visit coloured my way of thinking about the continent, rather like dark clouds suggest but don’t guarantee a downpour. The most significant moments in Argentina and Chile—we only ducked into tropical Chile long enough for Silvio’s allergies to drive us back to the desert of Patagonia—from my first trip were fleeting and mostly overwritten by an attempt to grapple with a culture that could be very isolating. I laughed with Silvio over strange people we met on our trip across the Chilean Andes, grimaced with him through the awkward confrontation with his cousin, marvelled at the way in which people in the coastal city of Mar de Plata dealt with organ-trade child abductions in the past and the mark that had left on the culture, and ran with him when the rabid cousin pursued us for over four hundred kilometres.

      I have fading memories of the trip, the confusing visit in the mountains at Villa de Angostura, the van ride over the Andes, snapshots of children playing in the street in Pucón, Chile while a massive volcano steamed passively overhead, and the long drive back to Neuquén searching the sky for elusive condors. Without a journal, these memories would be trapped in my head, although many of them have seeped out and hopefully enjoy a life of their own far from where I write about them. I returned mentally to Mar de Plata years later and tried to evoke the feeling of that dingy city—for all the world like a run-down Miami—the laughing crowds and desperate street performers, but I found that I held only a handful of cinders where once I had been burned by a bright flame.

      Necessarily, more negative impressions from that first trip fed a reluctance to return, but in 2017 he wore down my reluctance gradually by his insistence that this trip would be different. As well, he had invested both time and money ensuring that we could travel for thousands of kilometres in comfort.

      He had spent two years building a recreational vehicle, although that label does not do his achievement justice. He used a common Canadian RV as his model, but improved on that enough that the result is not easily recognizable as a similar project. He bought a Mercedes Sprinter truck chassis, and with the help of a man who has been building RVs in Argentina for years, gradually constructed the walls and roof, filled the truck interior with tasteful and carefully-designed furniture, and wired the truck with a dozen kilometres of cables for Direct TV, 200 VAC and both 12 and 24 VDC. As well, the entire vehicle is networked. Three flat-screen TVs allow viewing from either of the two bunks and the kitchen, and USB ports are available an arm’s length from nearly anywhere one might be sitting. Four hundred watts of solar panels run the electrical equipment, and the gas-powered oven, two-burner stove, water heater for the shower, refrigerator, and diesel-powered furnace ensure comfort, ease and, perhaps equally importantly, a transparent familiarity that allows the user to ignore their surroundings so they can focus on their trip.

      In the spring of 2017, Silvio picked me up in Santiago, Chile so we could drive the austere landscape of the Atacama Desert until we found a place to rest. In the abandoned saltpeter town Chacabuco in northern Chile we waited on the appearance of ghosts, barbequed while drug dealers fired handguns in the desert around us, and saw the bones of former inhabitants tumbling from untended graves. The arid landscape offered a strong contrast with the hospitality of strangers we met on the road, who fed us local delicacies and told us the stories that maintain them in the desert.

      Once we crossed into the high-altitude ranges of Peru, we agonized through our first experience of altitude sickness until we were rehydrated amongst the ruins in the mountain jungle of Machu Picchu. There we helped the Argentinian government search for a missing Argentine national, and dared the snow-choked Paso de Jama into gaucho country in Northern Argentina. We crashed country fairs, clambered through the ruins with tourists high on selfies, salvaged goods from a truck that had gone over a bridge, and negotiated for prices with village people. That trip modified my view of South America, and perhaps that made me more susceptible when Silvio asked about another trip in 2018, although this time we were going in a different direction.

      We abandoned the beauty of the rugged Andes and coastal Chile in favour of South America’s eastern shore and the vast swamps of the Brazilian pantanal. Although we drove without a firm notion of where we needed to be, Silvio had added enticements to this latest trip. He knew a man who was related to someone, and because of that we were able to meet the famous leftist José Pepe Mujica—the former president of Uruguay—and ask him about his experiences in the field of global politics. With that schedule in hand, we crossed to Uruguay the day after I arrived. We found a small well-run country with friendly people who take the time for a chat, and so we weren’t surprised that Pepe—when we met him the following day—was equally magnanimous. We talked about other world leaders he had dealt with at the UN as a result of his service to the state, and he told us about the school he had built near his chacra for the poor kids of the neighbourhood.

      Before long we were marveling over that conversation on the vast beaches of northern Uruguay before we crossed the coastal border into Brazil. After passing hundreds of kilometres of rich farmland and marveling at the country’s infrastructure and the friendly people, we came to the pantanal region. The vast swamps of the pantanal were rich with wildlife, and perhaps because the tourist trade had slowed to a trickle, we spent our time watching for sudden animals through trees and listening to the prehistoric calls of birds.

      Taken with a sudden desire to see part of Bolivia, we attempted the border. Unfortunately, due to rampant smuggling as well as huge queues, we abandoned the idea after discussion with the border guards. Then, as if we were turning a tanker, we reversed the truck until we were going south to Iguazú Falls. In the world-famous Iguazú Falls area, we spent time with locals and learned about police corruption and cross-border smuggling before we crossed to see the Argentinean version of the falls. Back in northern Argentina we went against the advice of nearly everyone and set out to explore the poverty-stricken and forgotten provinces of Formosa and Chaco before we turned south to Cordova and Sante Fe. There we spent long days in the mountains before seeing the cousins on our way back to Buenos Aires.

      The journal entries that make up this book were necessarily written at the end of long days and often this meant I was writing late at night once the thrill of the day’s events were over. That means the events were theoretically fresh in my memory, although their importance might not have been realized at the time. At the moment I wasn’t always in the most reflective state of mind, since I was often labouring while exhausted, hungry, rushed before sleeping, or deflecting interruptions. At the time, the relative importance of the incidents that make up a day on the road can be timid before approaching the light, and often they only appear on the page as a mundane grocery list of events. The richness of a particular interaction was sometimes forgotten as I tried to cite events in the order of occurrence, and the significance of a singular moment—the meaning in a tiny lift of a hand or a raised eyebrow—might, in the rush of recording, be lost because at the time I didn’t have enough perspective on the trip to realize its gesture.

      In the long procedure of editing and rewriting, some of these elements can be recovered. I find photos particularly useful for that exercise, as well as the palimpsest of the journal. It contains the gleam of the real trip, and only requires some retrospective polishing to bring it out.

      April 21 ~ Goodbye at the Airport

      The trip to the airport always begins with the farewells. The many times I have left home have not dampened the enthusiasm my friends have for saying goodbye, or at least being on hand when I leave. Perhaps there is a lingering feeling that I will not return—that this time my luck will run out and I will perish somewhere that most of them cannot even imagine in a way horrid to think about. They might also be suddenly regretting the times we haven’t spent together, the emergency cross-town trip for the vacuum-cleaner part, the many hours spent in front of the television, and now think that we should have met more often.

      The cachet of someone constantly departing should fade, you would think, but for my own part I know that I am grateful for those final meetings, those last-minute realizations, and how my friends wish to see me again before I disappear entirely. I once told a friend—since I used to spend every summer driving across Canada—that at some point I might not show up. With the incidence of car accidents, I said, it is possible that I might not arrive one day. That is true of everyone at any given time, of course, but my friend was shocked that I would presume it were possible. It was then that I began to understand that I might think about the presence of people in my life differently than others. I try to remember that when I see someone that it might be for the last time, and I try to take full advantage of the moment, for so often in my life people have disappeared entirely. Jeanette Winterson says that It’s hard to remember that this day will never come again. That the time is now and the place is here and that there are no second chances at a single moment. Perhaps I travel because I believe that to be true.

      Half a dozen friends met me the night before I left and we went out for a dinner at my favourite Vietnamese restaurant. There we swapped stories about our respective winters, for at fifteen degrees the air felt balmy with spring. Once we said our farewells, I returned to my empty house to pack for the next day. I had course work to complete and grades to assign, for I had been waiting on a few students who were more than tardy with their papers. Packing has always been easy for me, and with this relatively short venture of a month-long trip, soon my passport was topping a pile of clothes that would match the northern tropical climate. Even though our itinerary wasn’t yet certain, our plan was to spend our time at low altitude and we should be enjoying milder weather.

      The day I was leaving, I was awake early, likely due to the tasks still outstanding, so when Jasleen knocked on the door I was ready for breakfast. Lately we have been spending Fridays together, so in lieu of our new habit, she came to my house on Saturday morning. I did some last-minute jobs while she was there, which primarily consisted of filling my e-reader for the flights, but mostly we chatted until Tara joined us before she drove me to the airport. By the time I had packed up the spaghetti for Jasleen to take home Samidha had arrived. We said goodbye to Jasleen, and then Tara dropped Samidha and I off at the airport where we went inside to wait in front of security and, as it turned out, chat with my former students.

      While we were talking and inventing stories about the other passengers, my Kenyan student Harsh arrived to say goodbye to a friend. They joined us, and before long I saw another student from the year before. Susie was talking with her mother and two homestay students, but I went over to say hello, and to catch up on her life. Once it was time to enter security, I said goodbye to Samidha who was nice enough to wait with me, and joined Harsh’s friend in saying goodbye to those who were to remain behind, and going through security. He makes a bit of a game from racial profiling, so we waited to see what would happen. He told me he always gets pulled over for a random check on his laptop in Winnipeg, and airport security didn’t disappoint.

      As we went through—even though my pack was filled with camera equipment and all he had was his laptop to interest them—they rubbed a swab over its plastic case and then put it into their sniffer machine. I was carrying a camera and accessories that Silvio had ordered online and had delivered to my place so that I could bring it to him. I had removed most of the packaging as I tested it at home with Samidha and Jasleen, so I could make use of it along the way, if necessary; the camera, microphone, and batteries still made a bulky package in the middle of my rather small pack. That should have excited security at least as much as the brown man’s laptop.

      After finding nothing they released him and we walked together to his gate, since both of our flights were leaving at the same time. He had picked up a six-dollar ice cream, and we chatted about our respective trips while we waited. Once his flight was half-boarded, we said goodbye and I walked down the hall to my gate. If we had been in the Toronto airport we would not have had the chance to talk, for the gates can be a kilometre apart, but in Winnipeg—despite their local pretentions—the gates are separated by no more than a hundred metres.

      I still had lots of time to get online and send last-minute messages before I was ushered down the ramp and stood with the hopeful others so we could load. I have flown more than enough as I have visited a few countries around the world and worked in more remote areas of Canada, but some aspects of the experience are still estranging. As we waited I again noted how the workers at the end of the ramp were largely ignored by the passengers. They return the favour and also pretend the passengers are invisible. I felt as though I had happened onto the stage just in time to take a part in a bourgeois play. As the minions doing the grunt work of keeping the system working, they can only rebel by ignoring those who have paid to pretend they don’t exist.

      Once aboard I scarcely had time to watch a film before we were landing in Toronto. That flight, despite the rigid and unsocialized man beside me, went by quickly, and before long I was walking through the long walkways and stairs leading to the foreign flight area. At the risk of being thought a rabid environmentalist or exercise addict, I always walk beside the people who take the pedways and escalators. I knew I’d be sitting long enough, and if I’m not in a hurry, I always take advantage of the chance to stretch some muscles. I can’t imagine asking a machine to do my walking for me. Far from being rushed, my plane was early enough that I had time to do some writing while I waited.

      Unfortunately, Air Canada had lied about the one-stop flight from Winnipeg to Toronto to Buenos Aires. I had suspected as much, so I had asked at the check-in desk in Winnipeg. Their representative admitted that the plane would be stopping in Santiago despite the lack of that listing on my ticket. I’m not sure how they rationalize pretending that the flight is direct, but whatever their reasoning, they pretended that the stop didn’t count. This seems like a minor hassle, but I suspected—and my concern was borne out by my arrival in Santiago—that the stopover was more than merely refuelling while we briefly sat aboard the plane.

      The flight itself was fine, if a bit long at eleven hours. I typically order an Indian vegetarian meal, but the Jain meal was a bit bland this time. I was hopeful for it since it should have been vegan, but despite my hopes it wasn’t that flavourful. Next time, I’ll try Hindu vegetarian. For entertainment I watched Alexander Payne’s film Downsizing and I was surprised when it didn’t swerve in the direction of security and fears of terrorist attack. Instead, it concentrated on the twin problems of over-population and global warming. Payne imagines a future where the Antarctic shelf is melting and methane release—both from the natural gas frozen in the tundra and methane hydrates under the sea—are warming the planet beyond the ability of the feedback loops to mitigate the damage. Although the film made little of this conclusion, the plan of some Norse citizens to hide underground for eight thousand years until the climate settles implies how dire the circumstance seemed to them, at least.

      The main thesis of the film betrayed that worry however, and instead argued that we should try to enjoy life and help others instead of worrying about the future. In that way the film is a steadfast return to the dominant narrative. It was as if the creators of the film grudgingly accepted the reality of climate change but were grasping at any answer rather than immediate action.

      Like our society, they seemed to jump, as if from a denialist position, straight to global warming’s inevitability, where they then reveled in a strange kind of political helplessness. The new hypothesis—that nothing can be done since it is too late—is a little more than convenient considering that the characters never had any intention to change their lives. Now they can say it is too late and paddle in their pool or drive their hummer with a blind kind of impunity. Luckily, the seat next to me was empty so I was able to stretch out and once I was done pondering the film I might have even slept for a couple or three hours.

      April 22 ~ Santiago and Buenos Aires

      Once I arrived in the Santiago airport I resignedly followed my fellow passengers off the plane and went through security again. There was no information posted along the route, and I had no idea where to go, so I acted on the presumption that some of my fellow passengers did and followed them to what turned out to be our gate. I had an hour or so before my flight left, so I wasn’t that worried about missing it, despite the fact that Air Canada could not be bothered to have representatives to tell connecting passengers where to go, or even post a sign. If the worst happened, I knew I could take a later flight to Buenos Aires, but I could have lived without the mass confusion at the Santiago airport, where I was not even supposed to be. Despite that hour-long stopover, before long I was happily seated next to a group of Chinese travelers who I presume were rapidly exclaiming over their adventures.

      Once we filed back aboard the plane, I was in the same seat—albeit without a pillow and blanket—and my new Québécois seatmate struck up a

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