Travelling stopped

11.3.20 to 18.4.20

Thanks to extremely good luck, we had a wonderful month in South America despite the Corona crisis. Argentine hospitality was proverbial and made friends for life.

Travel is no longer possible

After we managed to drive through to our friends in Tres Arroyos, we became painfully aware that travel would not be possible anymore until further notice. The national borders are closed, moving outside your own piece of land is not permitted, and foreigners are not even allowed to go shopping themselves. It feels like the free and hospitable area changes into a police state. For the time being, our concept of life can no longer be lived.

Happy moment

We were incredibly warmly welcomed to the farm by Christian and Mirna, Horacio and Mariana, Santiago, Lola, Ines, Juanse, Clara, Alfonso, Emilia and Franzisco. We experienced these difficult times for everyone in a relaxed and interesting way. We were treated as if we were part of this extended family. We were very happy, felt safe and were treated as guests. At Lago Aluminé we met these lovely families during their vacation for the first time. We agreed then that we would come to visit them. Of course, it was not intended that the visit would result in a curfew. However, they all welcomed us with open arms and gave us the opportunity to live with them on their Campo for more than a month. We were so lucky and very grateful for the warmth and generosity of all family members. Despite difficult circumstances, we spent an eventful month in friendly company and with sensational Asados. Time brought us closer together and we enjoyed the life on the farm closely with all it facets, an enormous gift. The opportunity to work in the fields with their huge tractors was of course the icing on the cake of our lucky streak.

Encounters

Anke and Wolfgang from Germany caught up with us in the middle of nowhere on a gravel road (Ruta 40). We chatted a bit and then decided to spend the night together. They have obviously been to this area several times and gave us some good tips. The next day we parted ways because we wanted to visit the Caverna de las Brujas. Two days later we met each other again at the Malargüe Camping Municipal. The two wanted to stay there for a longer time. We had another nice evening together and hope that we will meet the two more often.

Technology pitfalls

Our beloved bread maker, a super tip from Herbert Füss, baked worse and worse, in the end it didn’t knead anymore at all! After analyzing the problem, it was clear that the drive of the kneading lever had stopped. Santiago, one of the farm owners, attended to the machine. He disjointed it into its individual parts and dismantled the drive. The inox drive had to be welded! Santiago managed it successfully, of course. Not a single screw was missing after assembly. Gabi would have had to continue to bake bread by hand, as we couldn’t have repaired the machine ourselves.

At some point the lamp over the dining table also logged off. In gloomy weather and eating indoors this is really uncomfortable. We tried to solve it via Mastervolt, but everything seemed fine at that end. To check whether the failure was in the line, we connected the lamp via the router line and we immediately lost the router as well! So the lamp had a short circuit. That was an important finding. We removed the lamp and Santiago and Horacio neatly disassembled it. The internal cables were vibrated off. The lamp is built for home use and not for washboard roads! Santiago soldered this very fine joint back and the lamp worked perfectly again after installation. He would have made a good watchmaker. We were also able to restart the router by booting the master bus. There is simply nothing like a lot of electronics.