12:15 19/12/02
San Rafael
Last Sunday we came into San Martin de los Andes - the most restful, serene and friendly little resort town. The downtown consists of two streets, San Martin and Villegas which are lined with clothing, regalo, restaurants, chocolate and ice cream shops. There are two well-maintained plazas with a fountain and native trees. Sadly, there are a number of drunken gauchos living in the streets. These once highly skilled horse and cattle workers have no place in this new society based on monetary exchange with factory farms producing cheap beef. Most of the rest of the town has streets lined with droopy birch trees and rose bushes in bloom. Each home is unique and charming with hand hewn window frames and lace curtains. There are minimal Christmas decorations - a wreath on the door, fruit bread sold in the stores. John asked about fishing since this is supposed to be the last great fly fishing place on earth and was devastated to discover that you can´t take trout from the rivers, only the lakes and then only 1 per day. We have been reading a little of the history of Argentina and wish to read more now. Its hard to believe that the people we are meeting have experienced a time from 1976 to 1983 which over 30,000 people were detained, tortured and murdered without judicial system. There is an economic crises that had gone on for years with wildly vacillating cost of living and freezing of bank savings. They have billions of World Bank loans and may default. Some evidence of this is that we meet people who are curious and intelligent and they have little hope of saving enough money to go to college or study abroad. Wages are incredibly low - I had a massage for $5 which would buy this professional person about 10 apples.
This town is a get-away for the wealthy and the houses are grandly rustic. The streets are immaculate. The first night we had dinner at La Tasca, a 5 star restaurant that has the most amazing decorations of rustic old barn doors, gaucho horse bridles, hand hewn oxen yokes. There were 6 smoked hams hanging in the entrance from a hand-hewn cupboard and huge rounds of artesan cheese on the lower shelves. Under the ceiling beams were gallon jars of olives arranged artfully in rows with pimentos facing out. I ordered brocolli with smoked trout and cream sauce. John ordered mozarella stuffed tortellini with fresh tomato sauce. The entire meal was about US$10. We stayed here 2 days and then took a 15 hour bus ride to San Rafael. The bus broke down in the first hour and we waited by the side of the road while some good-natured Argentine tourists took photos of eachother next to the broken bus. We passed through the pampas. This has small sage green clumps with yellow bobbing grasses in between. The land slopes away so you can see for about 50 miles. Occasionally there are the bleached bones of a large animal. Several times the bus slowed and sounded its horn for herds of apparently wild white goats, horses and cows in the road. Across the huge expanse, the Volcan Lanin is a lopsided cone about 13,000 ft. Small streams run through, hugged by willows. Hawks and buzzards fly overhead. Occasional clusters of poplars with a road leading in mark a house. As dark fell on the horizon there was a huge bank of clouds while there were stars and full moon overhead. Most of the night the clouds flashed with lightning, illuminating entire cumulus clouds from inside, like a opaque lightbulb repeatedly blowing out with a flash. We pulled into the bus station at 5:20 am and sat there until it got light. Then we sat in a plaza - the streets were completely deserted. The birds were loud in the trees. At 7:30 we walked to La Esperanza, a simple hotel where we stayed.