High Winds=Bad for Plants

The wind in Patagonia, Argentina can be somethin’ fierce. Witness the whipped trees, barren lands, and flying ladies. In Bolivia, the wind and rain has ruined this year’s corn crop…here in Argentina, it seems the land’s gotten well-used to the tempest, and simply, um, stopped growing things at all. Hitchhiking and riding my way back to the greener pastures of Bariloche, I asked one of my kind rides what he did for a living out here in the empty rolling hills. “I keep 10,000 sheep,” he said casually. Oh, me too. Not. I looked out the window at the flat, gorse-and-nettle covered steppe, birds of prey circling above in the updraft. No sheep. Nothing, in fact, wandered the land except for me, about fifteen minutes later, pedaling with the headwind and singing really loudly. Awesome.