El Rio Chimehuin

Thursday morning (January 21st) we drove to the put-in for a two-day/one-night float. It was just a half-hour drive, but the landscape changed dramatically; we passed out of the green, pine-tree valley containing San Martín de los Andes, and into the dry, low-brush rain shadow containing el Rio Chimehuin. It reminded me of driving from Leavenworth to Wenatchee.

We have two fishing guides, whom Mom and Dad have fished with all five times they've been down here: Darío and Pablo. Both are super knowledgeable and conversational; we can ask them any question about Argentine history, culture, wildlife, you name it, and they gladly launch into a thorough and interesting answer. Darío and Pablo speak great English, but since we speak Spanish, with us they use Spanish mixed with the occasional English word.

Darío and Pablo.

I started the day in a boat with Dad and Darío, and caught a fair number of fish. The fish here fight much more than the fish in the Madison. They thrash and run and jump; I kept thinking by the fight that I'd hooked an 18- or 19-inch fish, but then I'd get them up to the boat and they'd be only 12 inches long. We think maybe because the water was colder that there was more dissolved oxygen, so the fish were stronger.

 

  

 

Lunch was an outrageous three-course spread. Kiwis, cheese, and pancetta speared on toothpicks, followed by a delicious quiche, followed by dessert. And served with a bottle of Malbec, of course.

 

 

After lunch, since it was like 80 degrees and since Mom, Dad, and I had just split a bottle of wine, we took a little siesta.

 

 

In the afternoon I fished with Mom until I mailed it in and just stared at the beautiful landscape. It's amazing how similar the river and surrounding landscape are to the Madison River in Montana. Dryish plains dotted with plants, steppes that have eroded over the millennia. I don’t know why, but I had harbored the irrational belief that South America would look totally different, as if continents in the southern hemisphere weren’t formed by the same volcanic or glacial processes as continents in the northern hemisphere.

When we arrived at camp at 7:30ish, it was still plenty light out. Darío and Pablo have two guys who help them out at camp, Yiyo and Quique. Yiyo and Quique had set up the most elaborate, luxurious camp I have ever seen. There were five tents -- ours were enormous and already made up with cots(!), sleeping bags, and pillows(!); a soap and water dispenser; a portable outhouse; a grill with half a lamb on it, slowly cooking over the coals; and a dining tent. As Darío put it: "five-star camping."

Yiyo, Quique, Darío, and Pablo at camp.

Best of all, this is what greeted us in the dining tent:

And here was dinner: empanadas, cordero a la parilla, and chorizo. I think that night I consumed more meat than I have in the last three and a half years combined. (I don’t eat American meat. That shit is gross!)

Two gin and tonics (each) and three bottles of Malbec (shared) later, the seven of us were well into a lively dinner conversation in the dining tent. It was entirely in Spanish, and I understood all but a few vocabulary words, which I could guess at in context. I even made a well received joke: We were talking about wild boar for some reason, when Dad all of a sudden asked Pablo to tell us the story of how he met his wife, Carla. And I was like, "Espera. Como llegamos a Carla desde un boar?" ("Wait. How did we get to Carla from a boar?") And everyone laughed while Pablo vociferously assured us that Carla is attractive. (She is.)

When I woke up, Yiyo and Quique already had a new fire going, and when I came out of the tent Yiyo offered me some mate from the communal mate gourd. I accepted because I'd always wanted to try mate, plus it was early and I knew mate had caffeine in it. It tasted slightly bitter, but in a good way; I liked it. What surprised me was that the straw is made of metal, and transferred the heat from the hot water to my lips, so I could only take quick little sips. I wonder why they never changed to a less conductive straw. Here I am, drinking mate and looking super attractive and awake:

That morning I fished in a boat with Pablo. He told me about gauchos (old-school Argentine cowboys), jodedas (pranks), and we swapped Simpsons quotes; The Simpsons is really popular down here. In between conversations, I jack-pulled fish all morning long, mostly rainbows. At one point I caught two fish at the same time, man.

 

 

When we stopped for another three-course lunch, Dad and I went swimming, then we tossed the disc around a little.

 

 

In the afternoon I fished a bit more but then mailed it in again to stare at the stunning surroundings. Massive, regal, faintly red, Sphinx-like basalt cliffs jut out of the steep, brush-covered hills. On some of these cliffs reside Andean condors. We could see them soaring on thermals, and on the drive back we stopped at a lookout and busted out the binoculars. It was a sight to behold; the condors glide so effortlessly.