Jasper the Fleming
The year 2013 brought us the rare confluence of Thanksgiving and Hanukkah. But Jenya and I were thousands of miles away from home with nobody else to celebrate. Not that we cared all that much, as we were waking up in the tiny town of El Chaltén, Argentina - a quaint, windy mountain village that sprang into being only recently in one of several remote corners within Patagonia.
As we checked out of our hotel I realized we were missing our pink folder. This folder contained many important papers (car rental stuff, flight info, passport copies, maps) that Jenya put together for this trip and we've been stuffing all kinds of necessary receipts and visa documents and shit.. Did we leave it somewhere? I last remember bringing it into the car rental place days ago back in El Calafate when going to complain about the broken fuses and headlight, but I don't recall seeing it since.
Well, it has to be somewhere. We quickly scanned the car, and the luggage, and the trunk, and couldn't find it. How could I be so careless as to lose this? I was so mad at myself for letting that happen. I usually keep my cool in general, but I find misplacing things incredibly vexing. I slammed the trunk shut, slammed the car door and we left El Chaltén. Steam came out of my ears, and Jenya talked me down.
On the way to the highway we hit the tiny gas station - basically a shipping container turned into a solar powered fueling station - and the only one in town, or actually just outside of town. It's so new last year's travel guide book didn't mention it. We had to wait in line as there was only one pump. Fine. I fully regained my composure while we waited. Eventually got a full tank and hit the road back to El Calafate - over 200 km away.
Immediately we passed a solo hitchhiker. Should we pick him up? I didn't want to deal but before fully deciding we were already 100 yards down the road and he waved at us in frustration. So that was that. We did check out a vista point up ahead to get some pix looking back at the town.
While soaking in the view we could see the hitchhiker still in the distance near the town. Jenya convinced me to circle back to get him. Fine. He was shocked that we returned, and also quite pleased. We had plenty room in the back for him and his luggage.
He thanked us in Spanish as he loaded in and said he was aiming for Rio Gallegos, but anything toward El Calafate would work. We headed off and he asked where we were from, still in Spanish, and we said the United States. He asked, "so you'd rather I spoke in English, then?"
Turns out he was from Ghent, Belgium. And quite fluent in English, more than Spanish. As well as Flemish, French, etc. He was a young architecture student studying abroad in Buenos Aires for the year and traveling about in between classes. Nice dude. We talked about our respective travels here and elsewhere, tourists we've encountered, the charm of different languages, etc. The driving was easy and fast, though I had to slow down to avoid hitting some crossing guanacos.
When small talk died down we listened to Radiohead for a while - a good choice as that's a perfectly good and globally neutral band. We stopped at one lookout to take pictures, but otherwise it was a straight shot. We reached the fork in the road where we had to part ways. As he loaded out of the vehicle we realized - oh yeah - we never did ask each others' names. His name was Jasper. Jasper the Fleming.
Well, take care, Jasper! The guest rider nicely passed the time. We made it beyond that guarded stop at the edge of El Calafate after basic questioning, and then we headed right to the hotel.
After loading into the room we walked all the way to the car rental place on the off chance that's where we left our pink folder full of paperwork. As with previous dealings with the employees behind the counter, we hit a lingual barrier, failing to adequately translate "we are looking for a pink folder" to the young ladies. One of them seemed too frustrated to deal and disappeared into an office nearby. With the door ajar I saw on the table inside a pink folder amongst the mess of other papers in there. I squealed and pointed at it.
The other employee dug the folder out of the pile and holy shit, that was it! Yay! So I did leave it there, just sitting around unnoticed for the past few days. Phew. That was a load off.