Things We Have Learned
25 february 2001
We've learned a few things ourselves.
For example, there's another alternative to a broken windshield which Guilló taught us. You can get a thin, flexible sheet of plastic (called polycarbonato in Argentina) cut to fit around your windshield, about 1 cm larger all around than the glass. Glue small pieces of dense foam rubber (1 cm thick) across the glass, in a cross shape, to hold the plastic away from the glass. Duct tape (Sorry, West Virginia chrome) the plastic over the windshield. When rocks hit the flexible plastic, they bounce off. There are two problems with this method: My first crack happened almost simultaneously with crossing the border into Brazil. You would have to have the thing on there for the whole trip. Lamentablemente, the stuff scratches very badly and soon becomes impossible to see through. The other problem is that, if the tape separates slightly in the Patagonia wind, the whole thing will come off and whirl madly to someplace very far from where you are standing, scratching your head in amazement.
We heard about 2 other tricks in Ushuaia. Strangely enough, it's the cars coming toward you that throw rocks at your windshield. When a car approaches, if you press your hand lightly on the inside of the glass, it seems to provide enough pressure to repel the rocks without cracking the glass. We saw many people approaching us in Patagonia with hands pressed against the glass. The other idea I heard, from a guy who had hitchhiked all over the world, was to turn the windshield washer on. He said it had the same effect as pressing from the rear.
Nevertheless, Tyler caught a big rock a couple of days ago and has a new crack.
Regarding propane tank filling: I just learned the hard way that the propane tanks that we refill our tanks from in South America are frequently filled with crud. We had witnessed, while filling our tanks with the Other Caravana, that sometimes the valves stuck open and the propane spewed out everywhere, polluting the atmosphere and terrifying everybody within sight or smell of the gas. Well, it happened to me in Tarija. A guy with a propane car came into the yard and looked at my still-spewing tank and said "It's a dirty valve. Follow me to the best valve guy in town." So off we went. The valve guy took the valve apart, cleaned it (It was indeed filthy.), and went back with me to the propane yard to refill it. Amazing. Up to this point, filling the tank seemed to take forever. This time it took only a couple of minutes and behaved exactly like it had in the US when I had it filled from the big tanks, taking only slightly longer.
Another thing we have learned in the last few days: Patagonia does not have the worst possible roads. That dubious distinction MUST go to Bolivia. We forded at least 3 rivers and countless lesser streams today, drove through axle deep mud, climbed 13,000 feet in first gear and never saw anything remotely resembling asphalt. It took us more than 16 hours to drive from Tarija to Potos̀ (with a stop in Camargo for the night) and we consumed less than a tank of gas. We were grateful when, occasionally, we could get up to 25 or 30 miles per hour.
I bet there's more we've learned if we put our minds to it. This was a good idea of Larry's. Sometimes we forget that some people are reading this for advice and not just vicariously going along for the ride.
(I'll post something separately about the joyride.)
Jeanne
