| South American Race |
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Page 5 of 6 
Before long, millions of dollars’ worth of exotic sports cars are lined up to use the pump, and a panic sets in: No aceptamos tarjetas de créditos. Suddenly, millionaires are panhandling their buddies for spare pesos.“Now I’ve seen everything,” says Diego, the station’s lone mechanic, who looks like a diminutive George Clooney. He says he’s been busy all morning dispatching his amigos to rescue disabled racers. “One car’s wheel just fell off.” Happily, lunch is not too far away, on the grassy banks of Río Limay, near an open glowing pit where a flock of lamb carcasses are splayed and roasting on metal spits. This is authentic Argentine parilla, the cooking of the gauchos. Plates heaped with blood sausage and empanadas (little meat pies) are passed around. There is not a cloud in the sky. In the snowcapped mountains beyond the river, waterfalls cascade down into lakes ringed with evergreens. A few drivers stretch out lazily on the grass. Where yesterday they were freezing and wet, today they’re applying sunscreen. Life is good. Spirits are high. The only thing that might spoil the moment is, say, hitting what feels like a log-size speed bump at 60 miles per hour on the way home—precisely what the Rowans did. “I guess my father shouldn’t have been asleep when he was supposed to be navigating,” Ned says. “Our English friends riding in the car behind us said the bump was clearly marked on the instructions.” In Spanish. Well into the wee hours, the dusty two-lane road linking Llao Llao Hotel to the bars and restaurants of San Carlos de Bariloche is buzzing with Porsches, Cobras, MGs, and Healys. These guys are here to drive, and for some, even sleep is a distraction. Mark is playing “Freebird” on the grand piano in the lobby of Llao Llao at 1 A.M. One group of drivers is returning from dinner in the historic building where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid shopped for supplies a century ago, when the outlaws were hiding out in Argentina near the town of El Bolsón, the destination for the following day’s final stage. Dawn brings another postcard day. Horses nurse their foals in meadows filled with giant lupines blooming in an assortment of candy-store colors. It’s spring in Patagonia, and the crystalline trout streams are running full with glacial melt. The road bends and swoops and climbs and falls among precipitous mountains and lush green valleys. The arrival of the 1000 Millas cars is a big event for the village of El Bolsón, and clusters of children wave to each car as adults snap photos. One niño asks Ned Rowan for his autograph. “Hopefully he was smart enough to get Nalbandián’s as well,” Ned says. |
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