Remeber we were in Patagonia?

Well, we made our way back towards Bariloche as our week was quickly coming to an end. The car had to be back and we hoped the return journey would not cause the death of the poorly constructed VW. We did decide to take Route 40 the entire way back, and with Byron's now more superior knowledge of how to drive on such piss-poor surfaces, it worked out quite well. The only question marks were when the gas needle edged towards empty and there were absolutely no gas stations nor signs of civilization in sight. Hanna would worry while Byron plodded along putting the car in neutral when necessary to save gas. The random sounds the car started making were quite horrendous, both the drivers and passengers doors were becoming more difficult to open, but the car went forward and there were no more flats.

We stopped the next night at an estancia (like a ranch) in the middle of nowhere. A pristine place which offered camping or a B&B option. We decided to camp even after the owner told us about the pumas that roamed around the grounds at night. We're not quite as meaty as the horses and not quite as easy to bring down as all the chickens that were running around, so we felt safe. Once we got settled in, we walked around the grounds a little bit and took in the scenery and the wonderful stench of horse manure. As darkness decended in our little valley, we lit up the night with a huge bonfire. We started it with some fresh wood that didn't burn extremely well, but when one of the farmhands saw this he let Byron over to a huge stack of wood that was perfectly ready to make this bonfire visible from space.

As Byron was walking back, the owner noticed the crappy donut that was on the front right side of the vehicle. As a self-proclaimed auto mechanic, he took me into his shop and told me what we should do to make it all better. I showed him the tire that had blown and didn't feel comfortable using (since there were a couple major dents in the rim), but he grabbed his hammer and went to work remolding the wheel. I watched as he pummeled the tire with flathead screwdrivers, picks, hammers, mallets, the works. I figured it couldn't get any worse than it already was, so I let him go to town.

He made the rim look presentable and even got the hubcap to fit back on. Things were looking up, especially after we had gotten the sticky doors fixed after a thick application of WD-40. I returned back to the fire and enjoyed the rest of the evening which included some leftover pasta and sauce from the night before with a can of tuna added to the top for man (and Hanna) fuel. We slept well that night, even though we were quite cold in the brisk evening. I thought better about bringing some of the burning embers into the tent to help heat us.

The next morning, we woke up the bossman to help us rotate and change the tires around. He hooked us up perfectly and sent us on our way, but not until he completely inflated the price of the estancia. For the most part, the guidebook we had was a good base. However, many of the owners of the hostels, hotels, restaurants, and National Parks, saw it as an outlet to gouge us. If they got published in the Let's Go, they were 'made'. They could charge whatever they wanted and tourists would flock to their locales and be none to the wiser. In this instance, the only time on the whole trip we didn't investigate the costs involved beforehand, was the time that we got hammered.

Bossman decided his arbitrary amount for us would be 17. It surprised us because that's exactly what it said in the Let's Go. Maybe someone didn't raise their prices, what a welcome change! When we got out the pesos and began to pay, he went and got a calculator to figure out our 'favorable' exchange rate. He was going to make us pay in DOLLARS. We could have rented a cabin in the woods or gone out for a ridiculous steak dinner, but alas, our backs were a little achy from sleeping on our hammocks (we used them since we didn't have any pads) and we were still thawing out after the chilly night. Lesson learned...