Hitchhiking success! I'm saved! By the nicest family in Argentina!

So now day 4 of Alex stuck in the middle of the Patagonia, alone with the random sheep that come by to say hi to me.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. I threw down the motorcycle on the side of the road for visual effect and made it look like I was hurt.

A few cars passed by and nothing! Not like they could take the motorcycle or anything but still, lying there pretending I was hurt still didn’t stop people, this was impossible!

So I finally just put away the motorcycle, got my backpack and started my emergency plan of walking. By my calculations it would take me around 3 or 4 days walking 10 hours a day to reach civilization.

Only an hour or so of walking a vehicle passed me…, I had my hobo cardboard sign out saying “Rio Gallegos” the nearest city.

For some reason, they turned around and came back. I almost yelled at excitement I had that finally after a total of almost 4 days somebody finally stopped! I’m saved!

As this was my first time hitchhiking inside the vehicle, usually I get put in the back of a truck or something, I was a little skeptical to say the least.

The thoughts of, I’ve been waiting on the road for 4 days for someone; I sure hope they don’t decide to rob me, beat me up or worse. All those horror movies of bad hitchhiking experiences didn’t help my imagination. 

But regardless I’m always up for an adventure, fear nothing but fear itself!

As I chatted with the family in the vehicle I immediately knew they were good people.

I told them my story of my 4 day adventure and being stranded and were empathetic about it. They were very nice, we had some tea, and cookies inside the car on the 200 mile journey to Rio Gallegos.

As we got into town they invited me for more tea and cookies at their house with their family, how could I say no to the sweetest Argentinean family I’ve ever met.

My Tocayo( tocayo means a person with the same name in Spanish), Alejandro that was driving the SUV said he would help me look for tow truck place after tea (aka Matte).

So we headed out to find a place, but it was Friday afternoon and everything was closed, not to mention the holiday weekend so everything would be closed until Monday!

So we went back to the house, and one of the daughters of the family Marcela was kind enough to call a friend of hers which had a little pull trailer. To my luck it was disposable and available for use.

Now all I needed was to wait until Monday to rent a pickup truck or something with a hitch. Well my Tocayo offered to help. I couldn’t believe it! He just offered to drive 300 miles, aka 5 hours to g pick up my motorcycle and bring it back! And it was already 7pm at night!

I was already asking too much of this family and I couldn’t ask for more, but seeing this would save me $600 dollars or more, I had to accept. Of course I paid all his gasoline, (aka-Nafta-that what they call it down here) and bought him dinner and food and anything else he wanted.

So that very same day of being picked up hitchhiking I was on my way back to pick up the bike with the same guy who picked me up, if that isn’t kindness I don’t know what is.

So by 12am we were back in Rio Gallegos with the bike, and gas and food only cost me $75 dollars, that beats $600 any day.

So as we unloaded the bike I asked where the nearest hotel or hostel was. Well wouldn’t you know it I had definitely met the nicest family in Argentina, they offered their home to me and even gave me dinner. This was turning out to be too much, what luck.

One of the daughters lived right next door and was alone and had an extra bedroom, so it was quite convenient.

So off to bed I went, I was quite content, finally after 4 days of crazy waiting, transporting and hitchhiking I was finally in a somewhat good sized city to deal with my mechanical issues.

The next day was Saturday, so everything was closed. I spend the entire day walking around looking for mechanic shops and such so I could go in first thing in the morning on Monday.

The family had offered their house to me until I could get to a mechanic on Monday, so at least I didn’t have to look for place to move to until then.

Sunday was spent unpacking, taking apart the motorcycle to have it ready for the mechanic on Monday and rested.