One Apple A Day #181
Estancia La Angostura, January 8th, 2017
It’s freezing outside tonight, but we can’t help staying out staring at the stars. It’s not a typical show for people used to live in bright western countries. But here, in this isolated estancia, we feel as far from our world, with its lights and noises, as we ever been.
We still don’t know how we get here. When we left Cueva de las Manos in the afternoon, we had only a few details given us by Pablo. A name, “you must visit Tonchi”, a place “Estancia La Angostura, you won’t regret it”, and a very useful indication, “when you find the broken wagon on the Ruta40, turn left”.
The idea that we could get lost didn’t cross our minds until half past nine in the night, on a long straight stretch of gravel road. The sun was almost gone, the wind so strong that we struggled to open the doors of the car and nothing and no one was visible anywhere around us up to the horizon. Stopping to open the tent wasn’t an option with that wind, but we were angry, and we were feeling the long day spent on white roads in our bones.
But just there, when we were ready to give up, and we started looking for someplace to hide, we saw it. The broken wagon.
If we weren’t here at this moment, staring at the sky and surrounded by sleeping animals, we would believe that we dreamed what happened next.
The vision of the estancia in the distance. The lady who welcomed us as if we were late for dinner. The warm hugs of Tonchi when we enter the dining room. The big fire, the bottle of cabernet, the guanaco’s ham —who said it is impossible to find? The food that kept arriving at our table, our first “cordero” —grilled lamb and the huge cake. And at the end, Tonchi playing the guitar and singing some old Argentinian songs for us.
This starry sky is just the perfect closure for this awesome day.