{"id":22152,"date":"2020-02-02T12:00:41","date_gmt":"2020-02-02T20:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/community.nrs.com\/?p=22152"},"modified":"2020-02-05T13:32:58","modified_gmt":"2020-02-05T21:32:58","slug":"chasing-trout-on-argentine-backroads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/community.nrs.com\/duct-tape\/2020\/02\/02\/chasing-trout-on-argentine-backroads\/","title":{"rendered":"Chasing Trout on Argentine Backroads"},"content":{"rendered":"

I felt a subtle misfire in the van, did my best to ignore it, attributing false hope toward a sudden blast of wind swaying the vehicle. Moments later I felt another. I hit the accelerator and she bucked, stuttered and finally died, forcing me into the sand where a shoulder ought to be located. I wasn\u2019t entirely unfamiliar with this process after chasing an electrical short to the fuel injectors across half of Ecuador and the entirety of Peru but this time it was different.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Here I was, in the Atacama desert, a Mad Maxian sandscape, the driest place on earth with a dead motor and a raft frame strapped to the roof rack. The irony of the moment left me feeling like Don Quixote\u2014wrong time, wrong place and drifting toward madness. Had I come this far to hear my motor seize in a place completely void of water?<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Shale dog jumped ship and made use of the van for shade, panting uncomfortably on the uncooled patch of mid-day dirt. A few hours of tugging on wires and adding pressure with a series of zip ties and it fired. We limped into Arica, a moderate size surf town on the north Chilean coast and finally found a mechanic willing to re-wire the system, a mere three countries after the problem began. <\/span><\/p>\n

The Venezuelan mechanic worked behind a series of tarps on an abandoned lot. His business was unofficial to say the least, a patchwork of tools and scrapped parts. He was confident, however, and proved to really know how to fix the problem. The van experienced a born again surge of power, jetting upwards to 16,000 feet, El Cajon pass, through the Argentina red rock desert, into Golden Dorado territory and south, through the agricultural heart of Argentina until we reached the banks of Rio Negro at Neuquen. Here, we had reached the tail end of trout country where it meets desert and I made the final turn toward distant snow-capped peaks in Patagonia proper, relieved and ready for the rivers ahead.<\/span><\/p>\n