this morning i splurged and bought a new tire….for $60. tires are very expensive here (that was the cheapest one available). i got rid of one really bad tire and was going to repair the other tire….but the guy at bridgestone just gave me an old tire instead (which was in better shape than the one he was going to repair). so, now i was driving with 1 new tire, 2 newish tires (from santiago, about 1 month old) and 1 older tire. while shopping for tires, i also came across a discarded shopping list — on the top of the list? yerba, of course (used to make mate, which is drunk a ton….for instance, the tire repair guy stopped to drink it 3 times in the 10 minutes he was fixing the tires).
then, we drove up north to viedma and carmen de patagonia. there’s a river that separates the two….which feels very similar to the charles (in boston/cambridge). both places are pretty dead. when we showed up at 5pm, we went to the tourist office. ironically, according to their brochure, the only tourist thing open was the tourist office itself. that gives you an idea of the place we’re at. so, as in boston, we decided to do a bridge loop.
later, while driving around looking for lodging/food something crazy happened…i got ANOTHER flat tire. that makes 5 in about a week. this time it struck the front driver’s side wheel (with a newish, cheap tire from santiago). it’s probably a sign that i should head home….except my friend is showing up later this week…so we’ll have to keep on going. maybe when i reach brazil i can buy some new (cheap) ones.