Thursday April 20th , three months since we left the US, we were on our way to Cordoba. What we saw of the city wasn’t too pretty. But it had just experienced some severe flooding so maybe we weren’t seeing it at its best. Somehow I had misplaced Rosalia’s address, leave it to me. But between us we remembered enough of it to find her. We arrived at her place about 2:00 in the afternoon. She was expecting us but not sure when we would show up. Bill had written to a friend, Mecha, and told her we were on our way and she had notified Rosalia. She and his father had spent some time with us in California in 1972. She was amazed at how much the kids had grown. She hadn’t changed much, maybe a little thinner and her hair a little grayer. She almost squeezed us all to death. Then tweaked the cheeks of the kids while exclaiming “Que lindo” (how cute.) They learned to hate that greeting and would hide in the bathroom whenever any one came to visit. Her place was cozy, 4 rooms and a little garden; it was part of a triplex. We stayed the night parked in the street in front of her home.
We were just settling down after visiting and eating when there was a knock on the door of the motorhome.
When Bill opened it there were two men in dark suits and ties standing there. They introduced themselves. One of the men owned a company that converted colectivos (buses) into casa rodantes (motorhomes.) They asked if they could come in and look at ours. They were amazed at the appliances and how modern everything was. They were really impressed with the fact that the Pace Arrow had a microwave and air conditioning.
The owner of the company offered Bill $40,000 US for it right then. Wow we only paid $11,000 six years ago when we bought it. As we sat and drank coffee he told us a little about the ones he built. They have ice boxes (you know the kind you have to put a block of ice in to keep it cold), kerosene stoves, weird toilets, kind of a porta-potty type, it had to be taken outside and emptied. A person would have to buy the engine and frame and then spend $45,000 US for the conversion into a motorhome. We thanked him and said No Thanks we weren’t interested in selling.
We left Cordoba around noon the next day. Rosalia was coming with us to Mar del Plata a city on the Atlantic coast south of Buenos Aires. We traveled about 450 miles driving late into the evening and again spent the night at a truck stop - in Navarro. Rosalia got the bench seat and John Mc slept in his sleeping bag on the floor with Randy.
Left early the next morning and made Mar del Plata around noon. The weather had really cooled down as we neared the coast. It was also the beginning of the rainy season.
Mar del Plata was a pretty city.
There was a huge casino that sat right on the water front. There was a very nice downtown section and lots of nice homes and apartments. We drove around a little, looking for the places Bill used to live.
We drove to Mecha’s home, Rosalia will stay with her. She had a small apartment. Mecha and Bill have been friends since he was shot when he was 24. She was and still is a nurse. A very nice lady. She was quite tall and had short red hair and looked like a head nurse. That night we all went to her apartment for dinner and met her brother, his wife and their son. We parked in the street in front of her building for the night.
Wouldn’t you know I got really sick, don’t know what it was but it kept me down for a couple of days. Mecha gave me all kinds of pills to take; I guess some of them worked as I got better.
We couldn’t stay in the street so Bill started making inquires as to where we could go. He found out about a campground about 20 kilometers south of the city. It was named El Griego.
As we headed out of town towards the campground it started to pour, it came down in buckets. The main highway was paved but the turn off to the campground was not. It was slippery, slimy, black mud about five inches deep. The further we got from the main highway, the deeper and slicker the mud on the road became. To add to the fun there were irrigation ditches on both sides of the road were about a foot deep and two feet wide. Their banks were shinny black mud and water was rushing through them.
Bill was driving very slow trying to keep the motorhome and trailer on the road. There were no shoulders just irrigation ditches on both sides of the road. The motorhome would slide to one side, he would correct, the trailer would slide the other way, he would correct. We could see the campground just ahead. We were almost to the cross road that led into it. Only a few more yards to go and wed be off this. A car coming down the cross road from our left turned towards us cutting the corner causing Bill to move the wheel just a little. That was enough. The trailer started to jack knife and slide sideways. Once the trailer started sliding through the oozy black mud there was nothing Bill could do, the motorhome was pulled along and we slid into the ditch.
“DAD!” wailed Gil. “We’re going to tip over.”
Thunk! We stopped moving. Our left wheels were in the ditch the right ones still up on the road. We were tilting at what I thought was a dangerous angle. Inside, everything that wasn’t attached to something, or hanging on, slid to the floor or slammed up against the left wall. Including people.
The motor was running and we were going nowhere. Bill still in the driver’s seat was leaning against the wall. For a second no one spoke. Over the whirr of the engine we could still hear the squishing of the mud as we settled deeper into it.
Now what? How were we going to get out of this mess? As I opened my mouth to ask The Driver John pointed saying, “Look a tractor.”
Sure enough from behind the campground office emerged a big red tractor. Two men wearing yellow ponchos and knee high black rubber boots were riding on it. One had a rope coiled over his shoulder. They were headed straight towards us. Thank goodness, help was on the way.
They pulled up next to us and motioned for Bill to stay inside. They got off the tractor and slipping and sliding in the mud managed to tie the rope to the front bumper of the motorhome. The oldest one got back on the tractor and turned it around. The younger tied the other end of the rope to the tractor. He motioned “Go.” The tractor slowly moved forward, the rope playing out behind it. When the rope was stretched tight we felt the jolt inside and saw the back wheels of the tractor dig even more into the muck. We could hear the engine of the tractor revving - nothing happened. The young man yelled “Go, go, go” again. Bill carefully gave the engine some gas, trying to get some traction to help. The tractor strained, mud flying from its back wheels, slowly it gained momentum. We started to move forward and up. Bit by bit we came out of the ditch and back up on the road.
The tractor kept going. He towed us all the way into the campground and up next to the building. The other man followed on foot keeping a close watch on the rope.
Once we were stopped Bill got out to meet our benefactors. The older one, with the big bushy mustache was El Griego the owner of the campground. The younger, one of his sons, Carlos.
He told us that they had been watching us come down the road and were betting on when we would slide off. They were pretty impressed that we made it as far as we did. (As days passed watching vehicles slide off the road during the rain became one of our major entertainments.)
We inquired about spending some time at the campground. As it was almost winter and the place was nearly empty there would be no problem. In fact we could park out by a couple of A frames that had electricity and water spigots. We could use both of them.
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Arriving at El Griego Campground in Mar del Plata
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