Teresa Bruce's Blog, page 4
February 4, 2018
The secret to drinking mate (Drive Day 220: Feb 4th, 2004)
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Magali and Yamil have no place to be and neither do we, so they decide it is time to teach us the proper way to drink mate. You’re supposed to shake the mate leaves in the little metal cups with two handles, designed for passing. Then invert it against your palm to settle out some of the dry tea leaf dust and create an angled path for the water to slide down into the mix, not disturbing the carefully placed dust. Then you block the end of the silver straw as you slip it into the mug so that nothing blows up into it until you draw the first slurp of water. It still tastes a bit grassy and bitter to me, so Magali shows me how to put a teaspoon of sugar on top of the leaves and leat it slowely dribble through, offering your boyfriend or just a sip only after a few rounds of water pours have distributed the perfect amount of sugar. My English, tea-loving granny would be impressed, except for the shared sipping part. But hey, what’s a little saliva when you’re already sleeping on top of strangers?
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Follow this bonus-material blog and ride along on a one-year road trip that inspired the memoir The Drive: Searching for Lost Memories on the Pan American Highway. On sale now. Get yours through the buy-the-book links at the bottom of the landing page on my teresabrucebooks.com website or here or here. Planning a road trip? Buy the audiobook here. Like The Drive’s Facebook page and tweet back at me @writerteresa. Like travel anthologies? I’m in a brand new one called Alone Together: Tales of Sisterhood and Solitude in Latin America which you can get here.
February 3, 2018
Piggyback campers (Drive Day 219: Feb 3, 2004)
[image error]That feeling of isolation turns out to be a mirage. When I wake up to use the campground outhouse in the morning, I almost step on a tent pitched under our camper steps during the night. It’s laughably bizarre – I’m afraid of waking whoever is inside and literally leap over two snoring campers. Gary figures they must be young people who were drunk when they arrived or newbies so afraid of wild animals that our camper seemed like protection.
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It turns out that’s just what Argentineans do – it’s a communal, collegial culture and the assumption is that happy campers love company. Which is how we meet Yamil, a 24-year old aspiring musician and his med-school girlfriend Magali. We spend the entire day together: hiking, swimming, trading CDs, learning that Argentineans think the voiceover artist who does Homer Simpson in Spanish is much better than the American original.
I am suddenly acutely aware of how easy it is to become isolated traveling in a private vehicle in this wide-open country and of how much we would have missed if we did the American thing and stuck to ourselves. That mate-sharing thing? I don’t even wipe the straw anymore when its offered by our new compadres.
Follow this bonus-material blog and ride along on a one-year road trip that inspired the memoir The Drive: Searching for Lost Memories on the Pan American Highway. On sale now. Get yours through the buy-the-book links at the bottom of the landing page on my teresabrucebooks.com website or here or here. Planning a road trip? Buy the audiobook here. Like The Drive’s Facebook page and tweet back at me @writerteresa. Like travel anthologies? I’m in a brand new one called Alone Together: Tales of Sisterhood and Solitude in Latin America which you can get here.
February 2, 2018
San Martin de los Andes (Drive Day 218: Feb 2, 2004)
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It is hard to leave a place as River-Runs-Through-It, movie-set beautiful as Junin, but we assume the next town bearing a similar name will be worth the drive. Turns out the drive needs no added bonuses; the trail of seven lakes is a destination in itself. In the space of 40 kilometers, the entire scenery goes from expansive Montana to piney, mountain Oregon, with bright blue lakes instead of wide open rivers. San Junin de los Andes is to Argentina what Vail must be to Colorado – a place for wealthy skiers and socialites to enjoy the mountains from resort lodge comfort. We, in our dusty camper, are distinctly underdressed so we stock up on some overpriced groceries and find a campsite on the shores of still-lovely Lake Lacar. It is far enough from espresso shops and art galleries to bore the winter jet set, so it feels like we have this national park all to ourselves.
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Follow this bonus-material blog and ride along on a one-year road trip that inspired the memoir The Drive: Searching for Lost Memories on the Pan American Highway. On sale now. Get yours through the buy-the-book links at the bottom of the landing page on my teresabrucebooks.com website or here or here. Planning a road trip? Buy the audiobook here. Like The Drive’s Facebook page and tweet back at me @writerteresa. Like travel anthologies? I’m in a brand new one called Alone Together: Tales of Sisterhood and Solitude in Latin America which you can get here.
February 1, 2018
Touting trout (Drive Day 217: Feb 1, 2004
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I haven’t been a meat eater quite long enough to cook a huge slab of beef over our campfire. And why would we, when there’s fly-fished trout? I’m not saying we ourselves caught our dinner, but charcoal grilled fish on the banks of the river it came from – can’t be beat. The sun sets late here, around 9pm, lighting up the hail from a sudden storm like flashlight beams through falling crystal.
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Follow this bonus-material blog and ride along on a one-year road trip that inspired the memoir The Drive: Searching for Lost Memories on the Pan American Highway. On sale now. Get yours through the buy-the-book links at the bottom of the landing page on my teresabrucebooks.com website or here or here. Planning a road trip? Buy the audiobook here. Like The Drive’s Facebook page and tweet back at me @writerteresa. Like travel anthologies? I’m in a brand new one called Alone Together: Tales of Sisterhood and Solitude in Latin America which you can get here.
January 31, 2018
Fishing in the shadows of volcanoes (Drive Day 216: Jan 31, 2004)
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There is something so simple, artistic, even literary about fly fishing and yet existentially frustrating. I love the noise the fly makes when you tug it out of the water, like a sucking “pop” and then a “zing” as it whizzes through the air and a “snap” when your arm hits one o’clock and the line whips out behind you. Gary gets two strikes but I am too distracted by the magic hour illuminating a snow-capped volcano right in my line of sight.
Follow this bonus-material blog and ride along on a one-year road trip that inspired the memoir The Drive: Searching for Lost Memories on the Pan American Highway. On sale now. Get yours through the buy-the-book links at the bottom of the landing page on my teresabrucebooks.com website or here or here. Planning a road trip? Buy the audiobook here. Like The Drive’s Facebook page and tweet back at me @writerteresa. Like travel anthologies? I’m in a brand new one called Alone Together: Tales of Sisterhood and Solitude in Latin America which you can get here.
January 30, 2018
Descent into Montana-like paradise (Drive Day 215: Jan 30, 2004)
We leave the swarming stillness of Laguna Blanca, flamingos still sleeping with their heads tucked under wing. The drive is hypnotizingly beautiful, sun dancing between pine trees lush in comparison to what we’ve left behind. This is gentle, welcoming Argentina again – luring us to the town of San Junin de los Andes with its cowboys and campground on the banks of the river Chimehuin.
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I’ve never seen water so clear, each pebble on the river bed sparkling with color. It is irresistible but but there is nothing gentle about this water. We wade out in dusty shorts and plunge in, yelling “Timber!” The force of the current swirls around us like fallen logs, tugging and slurping at our quickly puckering bodies.
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Follow this bonus-material blog and ride along on a one-year road trip that inspired the memoir The Drive: Searching for Lost Memories on the Pan American Highway. On sale now. Get yours through the buy-the-book links at the bottom of the landing page on my teresabrucebooks.com website or here or here. Planning a road trip? Buy the audiobook here. Like The Drive’s Facebook page and tweet back at me @writerteresa. Like travel anthologies? I’m in a brand new one called Alone Together: Tales of Sisterhood and Solitude in Latin America which you can get here.
January 29, 2018
Laguna Blanca National Park (Drive day 214: Jan 29, 2004)
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I can’t imagine driving two days without seeing another vehicle in the United States. So I certainly don’t expect to find a national park all to ourselves. But in Argentina we do. In truth we are surrounded by life; avian creatures much more adapted to the cold and altitude than we are.
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The sky is savage here, even in its deceptive, lavender hues. The steel grey clouds swirl and twist above flattened earth. The volcanic mountain remnants meet the lake in ripples, lips and curves like frosting on an old, dry cake. There are no campgrounds here, or showers. So we strip down naked in front of ostriches and pour gallons of chlorinated water over our heads as the sun sets, swatting at the hordes of primeval mosquitoes that emerge out of nowhere at the smell of intruding human.
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Follow this bonus-material blog and ride along on a one-year road trip that inspired the memoir The Drive: Searching for Lost Memories on the Pan American Highway. On sale now. Get yours through the buy-the-book links at the bottom of the landing page on my teresabrucebooks.com website or here or here. Planning a road trip? Buy the audiobook here. Like The Drive’s Facebook page and tweet back at me @writerteresa. Like travel anthologies? I’m in a brand new one called Alone Together: Tales of Sisterhood and Solitude in Latin America which you can get here.
January 28, 2018
Offroading (Drive Day 213: Jan 28, 2004)
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Highway 40 has become our new master, but we break off on the way to Barrancas just because the truck can handle it. And somehow it would be a shame not to explore the vastness and isolation. So tonight we don’t bother looking for campgrounds and revel in the solitude instead.
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Follow this bonus-material blog and ride along on a one-year road trip that inspired the memoir The Drive: Searching for Lost Memories on the Pan American Highway. On sale now. Get yours through the buy-the-book links at the bottom of the landing page on my teresabrucebooks.com website or here or here. Planning a road trip? Buy the audiobook here. Like The Drive’s Facebook page and tweet back at me @writerteresa. Like travel anthologies? I’m in a brand new one called Alone Together: Tales of Sisterhood and Solitude in Latin America which you can get here.
January 27, 2018
Shimmering seas of yesteryear (Drive Day 212: Jan 27, 2004)
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The last time I saw flamingoes was in Peru and involved high-altitude hallucinations I’d rather not repeat. So I am startled and a little nervous finding them here, 75 kms from the town of Malargue. But this country has every other conceivable natural wonder, why not a huge expanse of dried-up salt water in the middle of the desert?
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It’s blindingly beautiful and the altitude is high enough that I do, for a moment, dream of ice skating across the crystalized surface.
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Follow this bonus-material blog and ride along on a one-year road trip that inspired the memoir The Drive: Searching for Lost Memories on the Pan American Highway. On sale now. Get yours through the buy-the-book links at the bottom of the landing page on my teresabrucebooks.com website or here or here. Planning a road trip? Buy the audiobook here. Like The Drive’s Facebook page and tweet back at me @writerteresa. Like travel anthologies? I’m in a brand new one called Alone Together: Tales of Sisterhood and Solitude in Latin America which you can get here.
January 26, 2018
Understanding mate (Drive Day 211: Jan 26, 2004)
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Omit the accent mark above the e, as this WordPress font does, and the word mate conjures up Australian friendliness. Which actually makes it a not-so-terrible typo. Because friendliness is what this ritual of tea drinking demands. I’m not used to sharing lip germs with strangers but what I’m beginning to learn is that strangers are just friends you haven’t met. And in Argentina that describes every person in a municipal campground who ambles over for a look at the Ford F350. It’s ugly-American rude to refuse a sip from a shared silver straw. Never mind that the stuff tastes like soaked twigs and dirt – it’s the comradery that counts. And the farther from civilization this road trip takes us, the more that human connection matters.
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Follow this bonus-material blog and ride along on a one-year road trip that inspired the memoir The Drive: Searching for Lost Memories on the Pan American Highway. On sale now. Get yours through the buy-the-book links at the bottom of the landing page on my teresabrucebooks.com website or here or here. Planning a road trip? Buy the audiobook here. Like The Drive’s Facebook page and tweet back at me @writerteresa. Like travel anthologies? I’m in a brand new one called Alone Together: Tales of Sisterhood and Solitude in Latin America which you can get here.
