Road fever : a high-speed travelogue

by Cahill, Tim

  Garry was playing with the little girl, Lorena. He said, "How come everyone calls you Pedro, Eduardo?"

  "Ah, yes. Ah. I don't know. Sometimes, I guess, they call me Pedro."

  "A nickname," I suggested.

  "Yes. I am Eduardo. My nickname is Pedro."

  Garry and Loreena were leafing through one of her books: My First English Dictionary. There were colored pictures of frogs and cows with the Spanish and English names underneath. In the front of the book were pictures of flags from various English- and Spanish-speaking nations. Garry showed Loreena the Canadian flag, then gave her a dozen maple-leaf lapel pins. The little girl clapped her hands in delight.

  "I have a daughter about her age," Garry told Eduardo. "I would like her to learn Spanish. You want your daughter to learn English. Maybe my daughter could write to yours. They could be pen pals."

  Eduardo said he thought that would be a very good idea. He seemed suddenly very emotional, choked up about the idea.

  It was time for us to leave. Eduardo walked us out to the truck. He kept clearing his throat, as if he had something difficult to say. Finally, at the last moment, during the last handshake, he mumbled, "They called me from the hotel and said some Americans needed a photographer. I am a photographer, but ..."

  Eduardo stared at the ground for a long time, as if shamed by what he had to say. "But . . ."

  "But you're not Eduardo," I said.

  "No."

  This was not entirely a surprise.

  "Don't worry about it, Pedro," Garry said.

  The next morning Garry took the truck to a local garage to have the fluid levels checked and the mud scraped off. I found a line of cabs outside the hotel. Pedro was sitting in the third one back. It seemed he worked as a cabdriver every other day. I was glad to see him, and realized that I liked him, whatever his name was.

  Pedro took me to the airport, where I expected to pick up Rich Cox who, once again, wasn't on the flight. Pedro said there was one more flight, at 3:30. What did I want to do until then?

  We were starting the drive early the next morning. There was plenty to do. I needed to buy a few pillows for the back bench seat in the extended cab. On the drive down Garry and I had decided not to sleep in the bed under the camper shell. It was lonely, and it locked from the outside, so you felt trapped in there. At border points, customs officials searching the truck regarded persons in the camper shell as an unpleasant surprise. Guns were sometimes drawn. This complicated the formalities.

  I wanted to buy a new coil to heat water for our freeze-dried food. The one I had gotten in Buenos Aires was not very good: it took over half an hour to heat enough water to hydrate the dinners and, in the space of half an hour, in South America, a driver will inevitably hit a large hole in the road, which causes moderately hot water to spill onto the chefs lap. Sometimes, when the water spilled, it was almost ready and very hot. The chef, in such circumstances, wonders about his ability to pass his genes on to future generations.

  We had also decided to pick up some canned food which we could eat cold, just in case there were similar problems with the new coil. In addition, we needed garbage bags for trash. And I had two large bags full of clothes to wash.

  Finally, I had to go to the tourist bureau and talk with Veronica Iglesias, the "ship" lady, who had told us that she could arrange to have police officers sign our logbook when we left. I wanted to confirm that and let her know that tomorrow was the day.

  Pedro regarded this as a large list of things to do. He sped through town, from the laundry to the dry-goods store to the tourist bureau, at top speed. After he had run ten consecutive octagonal signs clearly marked alto, I asked Pedro what a prudent driver should do at an Argentine stop sign.

  "Look both ways," Pedro said.

  Rich Cox arrived on the 3:30 flight. The plane out of Los Angeles had been canceled. He had spent four days trying to get to Ushuaia and hadn't slept in twenty hours. Pedro and I piled him into the cab, and we sped down the waterfront to the garage where the Sierra was being serviced. The truck was spotless, ready for pictures, and we had less than four hours of light left in the day.

  Cox wanted some shots in the strangest southern landscape we could find. That would be down the west road at the national park called Lapataia. We splashed through muddy puddles at seventy miles an hour and found ourselves in an area of meandering streams, grassy meadows, and trees that had apparently died in a flood. The dead, splintered trunks were a ghostly gray color, and dozens of hawks perched on the bare branches, surveying the lush green meadows below.

  We really should have been carefully packing the truck, Garry and I, but, as Garry said, nothing's free. He quite literally owed these pictures to his sponsors.

  We arrived back in town after dark. Veronica from the tourist bureau met us at Tante Elvira, the best restaurant in Ushuaia. It was a small place, with fifteen or twenty tables, and the local king crab was marvelous. Veronica said that the police would be delighted to sign our logbooks and escort us out of Ushuaia. They would be out in front of the Canal Beagle Hotel at four-thirty in the morning.

  "Why do you not start at the end of the road?" she wanted to know.

  Garry explained that the editor of the Guinness Book, a man named Alan Russell, had taken another job. The old editor, Norris McWhirter, was now in charge. McWhirter felt that the record should be set from the last settlement in the south to the last settlement in the north. Both were on the water. It was a race, McWhirter felt, from one distinct geographic point to another. The rule would eliminate arguments about where the road actually ended.

  "And you double-checked this?" I asked Garry.

  "I have it in writing."

  It was better, Veronica said. This way the police could be on hand. The start would be a formal ceremony.

  Veronica made us feel like important visitors. She was good at her job. Everyone agreed that she deserved champagne. And Rich Cox, who now hadn't slept for twenty-eight hours, had certainly earned his own bottle. Garry and I deserved a bit for ourselves, just for getting the truck to the end of the earth.

  It was 11:30 before we started back to the hotel. Dario Iglesias, Veroncia's husband, was waiting for her in the lobby. The police, he told us, would appreciate it if we could leave a bit earlier. Could we start at 4:10 instead of 4:30?

  No problem.

  It was midnight. The truck wasn't packed, but Garry and I had been up since dawn and we were both very tired. We could pack in the morning.

  "What a good idea," the champagne said.

  We talked to the man at the hotel desk and told him that it was important that we get our wake-up call precisely at 3:15.

  Yes, yes. No problem. Good luck on your drive.

  I fell into bed at 12:30 and at 3:15, precisely, the phone rang.

  I had a hiddach.

  LET'S SEE WHAT THIS BABY' LL DO

  September 29, 1987

  A

  wake-up call, in my opinion, is not a fire alarm. It is best to loll about for half an hour or so, contemplating the task ahead, which, on this morning, was a month-long drive at top speed through thirteen countries. It was 3:20 in the morning in the last hotel in the last town at the end of the earth. I was reading a small pocket Bible: reading Psalm 91 in search of inspiration.

  In Montana, my next-door neighbor, an Episcopal priest named Michael Morgan, had honored me with a blessing before I left home. Father Morgan's house is close enough to mine that he is often treated to involuntary glimpses of a less-than-spiritual life-style. He is, therefore, in the habit of giving me books with titles like Answers to Tough Questions Skeptics Ask About the Christian Faith. We do not discuss these books, and Father Michael gives them to me, I suspect, out of a sense of duty rather than any real hope for my immortal soul. This is one of the many reasons that I respect my neighbor. You get your inspiration where it falls, and for my part, Michael Morgan's faith is inspirational.

  His blessing had consisted of a brief prayer, smack to the poin
t. Father Michael used to own a motorcycle, a great screaming hog that he liked to ride through Yellowstone Park. Ahh, the wind in his face, the odor of fertile land . . . the sound of police sirens yipping behind. He has since sold the big bike but he knows something of the high edge of the highway.

  "Psalm Ninety-one," Father Michael said, "is a prayer of protection. It's a good highway prayer."

  My neighbor gave me a pocket Bible to pack away with my newly purchased knife and borrowed bulletproof vest. In a pinch, he thought,

  when quick action was called for, a prayer might consist of simply saying, "Psalm Ninety-one, Lord."

  So, at the end of the earth, by 3:25 a.m., I was in the process of pulling my way up out of two hours and forty-five minutes of sleep. The world felt thick, like fetid custard, and I tried to draw a bit of spiritual motivation from my neighbor's impressive faith.

  Trust in God, the psalm says, and

  You will not fear the terror of the night, Or the arrow that flies by day.

  There came an impatient knocking at the door: bam, bam, bam. In Psalm 91, the devout reader is cautioned to make the Most High his or her dwelling.

  Then no harm will befall you. No disaster come near your tent.

  Or I suppose, by extrapolation, your new GMC Sierra.

  The knocking became more urgent and protracted. It was Garry, sounding alert and Canadian: a real eager beaver.

  "Tim, there're about thirty people standing around outside. The police are there. Everyone's waiting. And we still have to pack the truck."

  I read:

  For he will command his angels concerning you,

  To guard you in all your ways.

  They will lift you up in their hands.

  So that you will not strike your foot against a stone.

  Bam, bam, bambambam. "We're late! People are waiting!" There was a silence that lasted for a minute or more: an agitated void. The psalm read:

  You will tread upon the lion and the cobra; You will trample the great lion and serpent.

  Bambambambam. Garry's voice had an edge to it. "Let's go." Oh boy. Wake up groggy to a friend suffering a full-blown case of Zippy's disease. It took three trips to carry everything out of the hotel

  room and I was bounding up and down two flights of stairs two or three steps at a time. We threw suitcases and duffel bags in the back of the truck, under the camper shell, and there was no rhyme or reason to the process. It was all just hurry-up time. People were shouting and laughing in the darkness.

  The police were there, four upright officers in comic-opera dress uniforms: all crossed white webbing and lacy cuffs. They signed our logbook at 4:15 for a 4:30 departure. Rich Cox took pictures and Pedro took pictures. Veronica and Dario Iglesias were there along with the young German boy (sans parents) and the Buenos Aires poet.

  It had rained heavily the night before and the streetlights gave the scene a kind of gritty film-noir look: long sallow streaks on the dark wet streets. There was the felt presence of mountains, looming above. Strobe lights were flashing randomly in what seemed to me to be a scene of gross confusion.

  At 4:43, thirteen minutes after our official ceremonial starting time, we piled into the cab of the Sierra and fired her up.

  Garry had offered to let me start the trip. He wanted to finish it, and it was only fair that I start. Garry Sowerby had worked two years for this moment. It seemed to me that he should both start and finish.

  "You sure?"

  "Do it," I said. "We're now"—I checked my watch—"fifteen minutes behind schedule."

  There was a police car in front of us, with the lights flashing. The officers had decided against using their siren in deference to the sleeping citizens of Ushuaia.

  "All right." Garry tapped the horn, and the car in front of us took off slowly down the street.

  "Let's see what this baby'll do," Garry said.

  The road over the mountains had developed more ruts and bigger puddles over the past few days. Ten miles into our trip to the other end of the earth, snow began to fall in great wet flakes that splashed against the windscreen like the flabby kisses of fate.

  We made thirty miles the first hour. High in the mountains, in the slush and snow, we were startled by the sudden flash of strobes in the darkness. Pedro had driven Rich Cox up the hill in his cab. They had found a vantage point, and both were shooting pictures of the truck as we shot by. Flash, flash, and then we were alone in the somber snow and darkness, with only a month or so of driving ahead of us.

  An hour and a half later, we were down out of the mountains on our way around the town of Rio Grande. As we descended through a series of muddy turns, the snow stopped, and the sunrise at 6:20 was glorious: all shades of crimson and rose against a lowering sky full of low clouds without a break. In only a few minutes the sun was above those clouds and the sky seemed suddenly low and gray and glacial.

  The land on the north side of the mountains was a plain, perfectly flat, and it seemed to cower under the weight of the sky. In places, the sparse grasses were tufted against the hectoring wind. A stand of sage spread itself flat under the sky. There was an occasional bush, low, dusty, and whipped by the wind into some grotesque gnomish parody.

  There were no trees anywhere, as far as the eye could see, and it seemed as if the wind owned the land. A man on horseback, bundled in a coat and multiple scarves against the wind, drove a pack of horses across a field the color of suede.

  The road was dirt and gravel. For a time we ran parallel to the sea and the Bay of San Sebastian. The ocean was cobalt blue, bold against the muted palette of the land. A ruffle of penguins on a rocky beach near the road regarded the truck with mild curiosity. Guidebooks say there are no penguins on Tierra del Fuego, but there they were, rock-hopper penguins, all in a row on the low rocky headland. They dove into the sea in a line, one after the other, like bathing beauties in a Busby Berkeley musical.

  Farther north on the island, the tufted grass turned a deeper dusty-golden color. Rivers wove through the country in sinuous curves. Geese by the dozen flocked near one large stream, which, in the glacial early-morning light, seemed the color of dirty silver. A large gray Fuegan fox crept catlike through the sitting geese. A black-and-white goose rose against the fox, its wings spread in warning.

  Much of the land was fenced and, in some pastures, robust sheep grazed placidly. There were a few small lakes and ponds, widely separated, and occasionally the land humped up on itself and formed small hillocks. When we passed over one of these higher points, I could see the road to the north, winding on forever through the tufted grass and low sage.

  In places, the road branched and there were choices to be made. We saw no signs at the crossroads, but we generally chose the path more traveled. When that was impossible—when there was no discernible difference between branches—we drove for a time, checking our best maps against the compass mounted on our dash. I had always thought a compass on the dashboard was a moronic affectation. On the flat plain

  with strange roads stretching out in all directions, it was a necessity. Happily, we made no wrong turns and it usually took only fifteen or twenty miles to confirm our decision.

  A rancher's house—the first we had seen—was set just below a knoll and out of the prevailing wind. It was the kind of place photographers win prizes shooting in the Plains States of the U.S.: a broken-down abandoned cabin low in the composition, with the sky and land rolling away in indifferent majesty so that it seems as if the land itself defeated the homesteaders. This rancher's house, however, looked newly built and was freshly painted. It was like a child's drawing of a house: a box with a door and one window on either side. It was dark blue with bright yellow trim—a child's cheerful colors—and it stood out against the leathery-looking fields like an act of bravery.

  Where did the rancher get the wood for his house? Had the material come down from the north in one of those big semis? Did one of the big orange Scania trucks simply stop on the road and dump out a load of wood?r />
  Other houses—we could count those we saw on one hand—were similarly painted, but three out of the five were constructed of corrugated metal. The colors on the wooden homes and the corrugated homes were all fever bright: magenta, purple, fire-engine red. They seemed the colors of courage and cheer.

  The northwestern part of Tierra del Fuego is owned by Chile, and to catch the ferry we had to pass into that country. There were a series of weather-beaten wooden-frame customs buildings on both the Argentine and Chilean sides. We went from one building to the next, getting our passports stamped, our visitor's cards validated. We filled out forms that asked about our marital status, and our mother's maiden name. An officer on the Chilean side came out to search our truck. We had described ourselves as international rally drivers, and I suppose the Sierra looked enough like a vehicle that might be used in an international rally that the officer simply waved us through. We asked him if he wanted to come with us to Alaska. The comment struck him as a very good joke. Fellow officers encouraged him to go, as if they were tired of having him around, and the officer himself pretended to seriously consider our proposal, as if fed up with his colleagues.

  "Let's remember that one," Garry said later.

  "What?"

  "Asking them to come with us. Seems to soften them up."

  As Garry explained it, it was wise to develop an act for policemen, customs officers, and other officials. The idea was to treat them with

  great respect initially, give them every paper they asked for without much comment, and then, once it was clear that our papers were in order, start barraging them with a blizzard of other papers, good fellowship, and bad jokes.

  "We give them," Garry said, "all the required papers, then we start with the handout describing the trip, the Guinness Book in Spanish; we show them letters requesting assistance written by bigwigs in their own government. And we do it lightly. We don't want them to think we consider ourselves big-deal guys. Don't want to alienate them or challenge their authority in any way. The best thing, I think, is to start joking when we bring out our heaviest letters of introduction."