Tuesday, November 22, 2005

El Calafate, Argentina

Went to see another glacier today, this one with enormous chunks of ice calving off and tearing into the aqua-blue lake below. Ho hum. Had another steak as big as my head for $5 last night that was so tender I cut it with a butter knife and am getting quite bored of this kind of thing. More insanely good local red wines that I´ve never heard of and the only real treat was that I finally got a real cup of coffee. Not sure I can take this much longer.

Had a good night at the casino on our last night in Ushuia with Alex and Fiona (Aussies) after draining down beers at John Lennon´s bar and feasting on king crab. This was a good thing, but also brought back memories of the rather bad night at the casino in Puerta Natales, which I had somehow managed to completely forget. So if you´re counting, Tindall, that´s even-steven in match play on the "Gambling South of the Equator Scorecard" though I fear I´m still way behind on strokes.

Rented a car last night to take to the glacier this morning with a British guy from the Ushuia hostel who´s had malaria before, a pretty wet-behind-the-ears vegetarian kid from Birmingham, AL, who is about to go into med school because he couldn´t find an investment banking job, and The Duchess. I stood there with the two other guys after finishing off the paperwork. We intended to leave the car at the agency overnight and return the next day for our departure. The car, however, had to be moved from the driveway into the street.

I, unfortunately, am still suffering from severe tennis elbow which has rendered me incapable of skillfully operating a manual transmission. The British guy looked at me and said, "I´ve had a beer, so I´d rather not operate this vehicle." The Alabama kid, being somewhat in awe of this older, distinguisted-sounding Brit, concurred.

"Yeah," he said. "I drank a beer, too."

"Jesus," I said. "Are you guys wasted?" It was only eight o´clock in the evening. The dinner restaurants weren´t even open yet.

"No," said the Brit. "But I´ve had a beer."

"Me too," said the American kid.

"For the love of God," I said to myself, preparing to go move the car myself, tennis elbow and all.

"Do you think you can just, you know, pull the car 15 feet to the curb?" I asked the Brit.

"Surely," said the Brit, "This fellow has another key and can move the car for us later.

He then proceeded, in broken Spanish, to make this request. It is a request that would be absurd in any language under the most ideal conditions, but in broken Spanish I´m sure it sounded even more ludicrous. The owner of the car shop looked over at me and made a gesture like, "Is this guy serious?"

I had no choice but to nod back in grave affirmation.

"No," said the man in Spanish. "I do not have another key."

"Do you think," I asked the American, "That you can move this car 15 feet to the curb without crashing it?"

"I don´t know," he said. "I´ve had a beer." He said it exactly the same way his hero, The Brit, had been saying it.

"Surely," said the Brit. "Surely we can just leave the car in the driveway tonight."

More broken Spanish.

"No," said the owner. "The car must go in the street."

Finally, the British guy assented and got behind the wheel to move the car 15 feet to the curb.

And sure enough, he just about damn near pulled into traffic the wrong way and killed himself.

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