Asheville to Argentina

My little attempt at summiting South America reminded me of a night out drinking. When you first go out, all your friends are there, the conversation is interesting and everything sparkles, but as the night wears on, the crowd dwindles and your left alone with an annoying acquaintance who keeps drunkenly mumbling the same phrase over and over. “It’s flat. There’s a bush over there… It’s flat. There’s a bush over there… It’s flat. There’s a bush over there.” You quit listening but they drone on like a fly at the window. As they drift from consciousness something catches your attention. You think you hear a change in the refrain. “Purple mountain in the distance, smoke – could be a fire…” but the change of rhythm is just a trick of your own mind, the circle of words and scenes repeated over and over until they loose meaning and there is no beginning or end, just your annoying, unchanging acquaintance, the flat desert.

And with that, I’m left with where to go from here. More desert on Ruta 40 South? Should I go East through the desert to Cordova and Buenos Aires? Or should I engage in the insanity that will be the New Year and the start of the Paris to Dakar race (being held in Argentina because of terrorism in North Africa)?

Instead, what I would love right now is to be faced with trying to decide between cooking my New Years Day collards with jowls or smoked neck bones. Should I make ribs or a loin? Do I have enough pecan and apple wood to keep the smoker going all day? These are the kinds of questions whose answers leave your lips shinny and make your house smell good for days. They bring old acquaintances out from the woodwork for sips from the mason jar, a few of them happily overstaying their welcome, lost in the backyard and wishing you happy new year over and over and over…

“…sleepy ditch”

The colors through this mountain range were amazing.

Did I find Big Rock Candy Mountain?

Shrines dotted the roadside

As well as graves

The only trees here grow on peoples farms. I stopped for lunch under one and as I ate, I heard whispering behind the wall I was leaning on. These guys snuck-up on me! For the price of a Wherthers Original, I got two big smiles.

A llama house

Argentines, in this part of the country at least, don’t believe in bridges. The road goes down into the river, and it comes back up. Its funny, because this used to really scare me. After riding the Altiplano, I look and think nothing could be as bad as that, so I down shift, stand up and throttle through.

…. and after this, nothing but flat for days.