Roadside Diversions
Photography by Bob Dickinson
Many roads in Argentina are unpaved, or as we say in the UK, unmetalled. In the summer, great dust clouds rise up above the busiest routes near to where I’m living at the moment, in Patagonia. Yet there are always people milling about at the roadsides, bunched together as they wait for buses, or straggling along, hitching for a ride. At traffic lights, car drivers and their passengers are entertained or irritated by street performers who juggle for change. The wayside, where the dust settles, is also the stomping ground for innumerable, itinerant dogs, some of which wander into the traffic, and don’t seem to care about oncoming vehicles.
But frequently you see places by the side of the road where people stop, to enter what seems like an alternative universe. Near to where we live, along the dirt road that leads to the town of El Bolson, you usually see cars pulled up at a spot where a natural spring pours water from the base of a steep, forested rockface. There was a rumour that this was some kind of holy water, perhaps associated with beliefs of the Catholic church, or maybe the indigenous Mapuche people. But after a recent walk to the spring, we talked to a man who was happily filling his 20-litre plastic water holder through a funnel, and he told us it had nothing to do with anybody’s gods, it was simply very good water. And cupping our hands, we tried it and found out he was right. The water was cold, crisp and pure. A perfect remedy for dust.
But often you also see shrines by the roadside. Some are “official”, little statues of Catholic saints, stuck in a box, raised on stilts, staring at you from behind a glass window. No-one seems interested in these, for the most part. The shrines that really attract people are improvised, and dedicated to saints the church does not recognise.
Photography by Bob Dickinson
We discovered a very large example, high up on a busy highway, with trucks roaring past on their way to Chile. It was dedicated to one of the most popular figures in Argentina, Gauchito Gil. And it was impossible to miss, because the whole construction, of flags and stones, was coloured bright red. We stopped the car and watched a young guy standing there, lost for some minutes in silent thought, before he got back into his dust-covered white hatchback and drove off.
We climbed out to take a look. On top of the mound, accompanied by a glass of evaporated red wine, were several plastic figures representing Gauchito Gil in his characteristic blue shirt, red bandana, long hair, and moustache. Gil may actually have existed, in the nineteenth century, as a gaucho – or Argentinian rural cowboy – who was conscripted into the army to fight in the murderous Triple Alliance war in which Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay joined forces against Paraguay. He is often portrayed carrying a boleadoras – the gaucho’s favourite throwing weapon, used to catch cattle. To this day, Gauchito Gil appeals to travellers, outlaws, and military deserters: lost people, in other words, outside of society.
The site was large – with a kind of altar and steps, and red flags flapping in the wind. Large, rounded stones paved the “floor”. But you could feel them sinking into the earth when you walked on them. It all felt temporary. And it seems these places do really move about. They fall into disrepair, or get vandalised, and are then demolished. Then someone builds another one, at a different location.
We drove away, and a couple of kilometres later, we saw another red-coloured shrine to Gauchito Gil. Parked next to it was the same little white hatchback that we had pulled up behind, a few minutes earlier, with its young male driver standing beside it, staring at all the flags that bore the words “Gracias, Gauchito Gil”. This time we left him in peace, and sped on.