Dark

More driving through the steppe emptiness of Patagonia. One morning I look at my hands and see that I have blisters and I think, how did I do that? These strange blisters arc across the edge of my palms. What did I do? I get into my car, put my hands on the wheel, and realize they line up perfectly with the arch of the steering wheel. I have blisters from driving and the backs of my hands are so tan that it seems the palms must belong to some other whiter person.

Driving through the steppe that is closer to the coast is still all about huge distances and nothing, but now the nothing is dotted with massive, slow moving oil derricks. These giant black arms rise and fall and churn continuously around me. They produce long lines of trucks which actually mind the speed limit and that I have to pass again and again, my small car being sucked into the vortex of crosswinds created by their bulk.  I pass a line of double-decker 18 wheelers packed with two levels of sheep. Their dark eyes peer out at me from between the slats.

There is a small smudge of blue gray clouds just over the horizon and I wonder if it might rain. I have never seen rain in the steppe. The clouds seem to be very, very low to the ground and I am driving straight toward them. An hour later, I am surprised when the clouds have suddenly merged with the ground and form a low, small mountainous range. Then, on the road far in front of me, I see an 18 wheeler which is floating just above the pavement. I watch as it approaches me and it too eventually merges with the road. The distance is so wide and flat that it is creating mirages with the light. Something I have only seen on the movies. At one point, the sky floods the road and I am amazed.

There are long flat slicks of sick blue water surrounded by brilliantly white shores of salt where small inland lakes have formed, evaporated, formed, evaporated for centuries.  They are white and untouched and ghosts of themselves.

A truck going opposite of me throws up a rock so large that when it hits my window I slam on the breaks and swerve for a second before regaining control. It takes a chip the size of my small fingernail out of my window. It is not the first chip. Driving down the gravel roads I have worn the paint to the metal on casings around the wheels. The car regularly bumps so much that the tail light falls from its suspended place on the back hatch so frequently I no longer bother replacing it and instead just let it dangle and swing from its wires. I think, while driving on the steppe again, that I have hit some pothole that has broken the alignment in the wheels. My upper arms ache from holding the car on the road because it is fighting me to swerve constantly to the right.  Then, when I park perpendicular to the road for a picture and I open my car door, it is literally ripped out of my hand by the wind. . A plastic bag is ripped from my backseat and into the wind and I have no hope of catching it. It is gone so quickly that within seconds the bright white floating plastic has disappeared from my view. I have trouble getting out of the car because of the strength of it. And I realize the alignment is fine. I am fighting the wind to stay on the road. It is blowing the side of my car like this constantly, insisting I get off of the pavement.

In the small towns that I pass through, there are pigs and horses wandering the streets. All the men older than 20 wear small circular hats that resemble a beret. They fill the gas stations with their smoke and conversations as they crowd into the tables near the television. For most people in these towns, the gas station is the only place they have to watch t.v.  And, of course, they’re usually watching soccer.  I pass women with groups of children standing on the road in what appears to be the middle of nowhere. They are hitchhiking. Few people have cars and women often hitch their way for jobs in town.

For the first time during my trip, I choose to drive five hours in darkness. There’s nothing to see anyway since I am driving through the steppe. And then I learn about driving in the dark here. It is entirely dark. This is the appropriate way to experience the steppe. To experience a void. My car beams are on High and they hit nothing. Absolutely nothing. There are the white and yellow lines of the road and beyond it absolute blackness. I roll down my windows. I stop and get out of my car. The stars are silent. The wind still rushes. And around me there is an absolute void. It makes my heart rush and my palms sweat. I discover that the best way to see the steppe is not to see it, but to sense it opening around you. My animal instincts say I should not be in a place that is a dark and without cover.