A Valentine's Day Bet

The next morning we pile back on to the truck at 6 am and start the long journey down to Tierra del Fuego. It’s long and boring. I

Claire on the left and Naomi on the right

come up with a trivia game to occupy the time, but it still drags on. The first night we camp in a little nothing coastal town named San Julian. The last time we came through here Steve decided that he wanted to drive all night, so we didn’t stop here and it had been a year and a bit since I had been here. I can’t say that I missed it. The campsite’s all right though. Plenty of room, trees that protect the sites from the wind and good showers (that’s all it takes). The next day is a little bit more interesting because we cross over the border into Chile, take the ferry across the Strait of Magellan and cross back over into Argentina.

That night we stay in what I call the yacht club. I don’t know why it’s called that. The only boats that are evident are kayaks that hang over the main room and I’ve never seen them go anywhere. Maybe it’s supposed to be facetious and I just hadn’t got it. The good thing is that we don’t have to put up tents. They have a large room upstairs with wooden floors where everybody can just throw down their roll mats and sleeping bags and down on the first floor is a serviceable kitchen that we’re allowed to use.

However, because we had to cross a couple of borders that don’t allow meat and veg across, we don’t have anything to cook for dinner, so we go out. The last time that we were here we went out to a nice restaurant, but it turned out to be a bit expensive and they mucked up our bill so badly that I vowed never to go back. So I asked the guy who runs yacht club for a suggestion. He told me that there was a nice little place down the street that has a good cheap buffet with a parrilla (a BBQ). I think excellent, that’s just what we need. I’ve never seen a bad Argy parrilla. As the pax go to dinner I run up to the supermarket. I decide that after basically a week on Doris they need a little morale boost, so I buy all the fixings for a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich breakfast and some champagne and OJ for mimosas.

When I join the pax I find that dinner’s a little bit of a disaster. The buffet is horrible and even the meat from the parrilla’s cold. One of the difficult parts of my job is that no matter what happens or who’s actually responsible, if something goes wrong it’s my fault. Not that anybody was outwardly blaming me, but I felt bad for it. Luckily, I was able to announce that the next morning we would have a sleep in and a champagne breakfast.

That night, after being stuck on the truck for a few days, the kids were anxious to go out a bit on the town. I seemed to remember that once when I was here I passed what claimed to be an Irish bar, and as I have two very ardent Irish people on board, I thought we would go check it out. The problem with Irish bars in S.A. is that 90% of the time the only things Irish about an Irish bar is the fact that it says Irish bar on the outside, has a name that starts with a O’ or Mc and maybe has a Guinness poster hanging up somewhere and if, by chance, they have a bottle of Guinness or two for sale they’ll cost as much as a full Irish soccer team. This is one of those bars, but fortunately there’s a (surprise) pool and bowling place next door.

After playing a couple of games of pool on the ground floor, I decide to go upstairs and check out the bowling. S.A. has some weird bowling alleys and this is shining example. The balls are a size between a large grapefruit and a small volley ball. There are no holes and though the lanes are normal size, the pins are also miniature.

I run back downstairs and grab Claire. We play a game and, of course, she beats me by about three points.

Happy Valentine’s Day