Salt Flat Shenanigans, Argentina

The kindness of strangers! We knew we had a long day of driving ahead from Huacalera to Salta, Argentina. We didn’t know the roads were like gravel washboards. So much shaking that our gas gauge quit, which we didn’t notice. So we actually ran out of gas, in the middle of nowhere, 40 miles from the nearest town. No cell phone service. I’m using Google Translate offline to read the Spanish owner’s manual from the car when a gaucho comes running across the desert. Turns out he lives there, and is talking a mile a minute. We finally understand that he wants us to come to his mud brick hut, where it turns out he wants us to sit and drink mate (Argentinian tea). We keep trying to ask him about the nearest gas or phone. He offers Mike his rusty bicycle (to ride a gravel road 40 miles?), which we figure might be our only option. We hadn’t seen another car in hours, but just then one pulls up as we wave furiously. A young British/French couple gives us a ride, so we ditch the bicycle and hop in. About 10 miles down the road, Mike spots a farm with a truck, and figures the guy might have gas. After a lot of sign language and our crappy Spanish, this nice man fills up a tank with his last 3 gallons of fuel, and gives us a ride back to our car. I was able to translate, “Eres nuestro milagro de Navidad”! (You are our Christmas miracle!) He smiled a big toothless smile, we gave him a huge tip and we had ourselves a high five. We fully intend to pay these random acts of kindness forward.