Dec. 10, 2008   So much to say, but where to start? Let’s take it from the beginning.   Getting insurance in Ushuaia took some time and a lot of walking.  There even came a point where I began to think that I might not be able to get insurance.  I visited insurance office after insurance office, each directing me to another, saying that they don’t sell policies to extranjeros ‘foreigners’   One place that I finally found that was willing to offer me a policy needed 6 days to apply, file and receive the proper papers from Buenos Aires.  Finally, however, just as I was running out of ideas and Ushuaia was running out of insurance offices…after even attempting, unsuccessfully, to phone the underwriters of my old policy in the US, I found a place that thought that they might be able to do it and sure enough they did.

     By the time all was said and done, it was after 12:00 when we (Kevin and I) pulled out of Ushuaia.  As this was the first real driving Silver Al had seen since I left her, I was closely observing her behavior, and it did not take long before I had full confidence in the repairs.

      So Kevin and I drove…and we talked.  As it turns out, compared to Kevin, I’m a pretty boring guy because, as it turns out, this guy I was giving a ride to is a US government experiment.  Many years ago, the US government captured Kevin, because they thought he was a cult leader. (a gross misunderstanding, because he was merely a spiritual therapist).  When they got a hold of him they put him to sleep for 13 years and then they installed 13 silicon computer chips in various places all over his body.  With these chips, the US government tracks his every move.  They also project voices into his head, which constantly are speaking to him, and occasionally holographs into his brain.   He told me that he didn’t mention any of this to me before because he did not want me to get scared.  Apparently everyone that helps him ends up getting murdered…by the US government.  These voices are a real pain in the ass, so be glad you don’t have them.  Sometimes they tell him to do things he does not mean to do.  The Silicone chips inflict different sorts of pain (as a means of torture), get worse the longer he stays in the same place, so that is why he keeps on moving around.  In the past these chips gave him super crazy levels of cholesterol (830, whatever that means….I don’t understand the cholesterol scale, but he said that was inhumanly high).  Now ‘they’ were working on his heart.  Naturally, he could not just remove the chips without dying.  Furthermore they could kill him at any time.  Anyway the government gave him a bunch of money to keep him quiet about all this and he lives and travels permanently off the interest he makes from this secret account. 

      With Kevin having such a better story than I, I struggled to remain in the conversation, saying things like “I know there are a lot of things going on ‘behind the scenes’” and “The only thing I know for sure is that I know nothing at all” –Socrates (I added the ‘for sure’ part, because I feel like I sort of might know a couple things…maybe…but I’m not completely sure).  I asked if the voices were always the same voice or different voices.  (they are different, it turns out, because of voice modulating devices…but it could be the same person). 

       Kevin made a great travel companion for the day…interesting….very passionate about his situation.  He split expenses, made ham and cheese sandwiches and even had a little portable DVD player on which we watched part of a movie on the Chilean ferry.  The movie was called “Cyborg” and was an action movie with no recognizable movie stars about a man that the government made into a super warrior complete with computer chip insertions and cellular realignment and intelligent roving healing microbes in the blood stream.  “This is almost exactly my story” Kevin said.  “You mean you’re bullet proof?” I asked.  “No”  he laughed “…But the rest of it….yes.”

     Our drive took us back over the road that ruined Silver Al last time around, and I took it slow and she did fine.  We crossed into Chile and then back out again, passing through the most efficient and friendly border crossings in the Americas.  We arrived in Rio Gallegos around 8 PM and found a budget room, then went out for a good dinner.  We both had lomo (Beef) and ensalada (Salad).  I had a beer, Kevin a coke.  Then we went off to bed because we were tired.

      The next morning we got up and had some coffee at the hotel before I dropped Kevin off at the bus station.  Then I was on my own…but before I move completely on, I would like to say one last thing about Kevin.  Whatever his situation, Kevin was a very friendly, very helpful and a very normal seeming guy (besides his ‘situation’).  I wish him all the best on his journey through life…his adventure.

       Driving out of Rio Gallegos, I just cranked tunes for hours…blasted them and flew north.  For many hours I felt elated…free.  I did things I don’t normally do like head banged (in my sort of way…to funk music) and sung out loud and moved my right hand to certain words in songs like a rapper might to emphasize a certain word of phase.  I blew through hundreds and hundreds of Kilometers averaging 100 mph down the long straight roads.  I saw hundreds of Guanacos, some rheas, some sheep some maras and tons of different birds.  The landscape was barren, but with sunglasses on, very beautiful and colorful.  (not as colorful without the sunglasses for some reason).  The front right tire is giving me a few problems when I take left hand turns and I am thinking it might be the wheel barrings. 

     After hours of driving I pulled into one gas station, got her filled up, went in to buy a coke and when I come out, I had a flat….the gas pumping guy pointed it out.  He also pointed out that the gas station shared a lot with a tire repair shop. I hung out with the young repair man with tattoos and a goatee as he fixed the tire real quick while sipping on his mate all the while. There was a long nail buried into the tire all the way.  In the corner of his dirty little shop…dirty because everything was black with tire grease and dirty because he had a lot of porno posters on the walls…..slept an old man….most likely, and judging from his living conditions… a dirty old man. 

     When I finally got on the road after the tire incident…which could have been a lot worse, if you had seen the nothingness that I had been driving through.... the next set back was a protest which had the road blocked.  They had some debris smoldering and some banners.  I got out of the car and waited to see what would happen.  Eventually they let a line of us through, and then blocked things off again. 

     Because of the road block/protest, many cars and trucks had backed up and it was slow going.  I slowly passed what may have a hundred cars and trucks as I worked my way to the front of the pack.   It took a couple hours probably, because these kilometers were through suddenly hilly terrain, without much distant visibility of oncoming cars and trucks.  I listened to a Mitch Hedberg comedy CD for a while and it was very funny. 

       Anyway I rolled into this town Puerto Madryn last night around 9 or 10.  (Time is still not my friend down here, but I think the time changed by an hour as well.  Puerto Madryn is near the entrance of Parque National Penninsual Valdez, where we saw the armadillos and penguins and sea lions last March.  Because of the park there is a little going on here and I found a hotel that claimed wireless but has no signal anywhere but at the front desk.

     I grabbed dinner last night at pubbish cafeteria, with friendly servers and very good beer.  I had the fish special, which was absolutely delicious…maybe because it was my first food of the day, but I think it would have been delicious regardless.  It was my second time having fish and the second time the fish was served with cheese…this time a thin layer of orange cheese melted over the top.  I know that it sounds terrible and I would never be able to bring myself to do that to fish, but it was fantastic.  I don’t know what kind of fish it was, but the first word was ‘negro’…so, black something-or-other.  The fish was served on a nicely arranged fan of roasted tomato, zucchini and eggplant slices under which was a bed of arugula.  The beer was called something or other del mundo and it was also really good…like a  micro brewed ale.

     After I ate I went outside and talked with an older fellow…a mechanic as it turned out… and he asked me to join him at his little table.  It turned out he was from Ushuaia of all places and heading to Buenos Aires.  He seemed a little tormented (when I first asked him ‘como estas?” he had to think about it and then he shrugged and gave a ver unconvincing ‘bien’ and I suggested ‘mas o menos’ (more or less) and he agreed ‘mas o menos’.  I think he had been talking to himself a little when I first came out, but once I got talking with him he didn’t seem completely loco.  The mechanic talked a mile a minute and I had a hard time understanding him, but I think we talked about my car, the economy, George Bush, Obama, the war in Iraq and my drive down here.  He was drinking whisky and he was very insistent about certain points that he was making and got fiery from time to time and swore quite a bit, especially when it came to George Bush.  He kept apologizing before going into a rant and then after it.  I mostly agreed with what I thought he was saying about my country, and he kept reiterating it was the politics not the people.  He also had plenty to say about Argentina, both good and bad and He strongly dislikes Chile.  I couldn’t get his points on Venezuela, but he had some strong opinions about Chavez, whether for or against.  When we got talking about history I brought up the tens of thousands of people who ‘disappeared’ in Argentina between 976 and 1983.  This got my friend very agitated and uneasy and he said some things very quietly that I didn’t quite understand.  He was looking nervously around in either direction and I felt like I was in Myanmar again or some country where you can’t criticize the government with out getting hauled off to a labor camp…even if people criticize the government in Argentina all the time.   I told him we were just reaming out my government and our atrocities, I thought we could talk about his.  ‘No’ he said, ‘not today, maybe tomorrow’.  I changed the subject.

   After a little more chit chat I went off to bed and here I am now, getting ready to drive again.  It is later than I wish it was and I am in need of coffee.  I have more stories from yesterday even…but now I should run…drive.  I’ll try to find an internet connection tonight if there is one to be had!