Argentina 1998

I was in Argentina for 4 weeks in the summer of 1998 as a field assistant. I had never been in the field. I had never been outside of the US except to Canada. I didn't speak spanish and I was flying to Buenos Aires by myself to meet with two American colleagues I had never seen or spoken to before. As was typical of travel in Ithaca, my flight to La Guardia was cancelled and I piled into a shuttle van to Syracuse so I wouldn't miss my connection to Miami. I was nervous about my trip. I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know what I was doing. I pressed my forehead against the van window and inhaled damp air through the crack. Jeremy appeared on the other side of the glass. He said everything would be okay. I nodded. I was so choked with anxiety, I thought I was going to cry. He reached two fingers up through the window gap and I squeezed his fingers with two of mine. The van began to move and he stepped back and waved.

I made it to Buenos Aires, bypassing my American colleagues somehow for 2 hours in the airport until our taxi driver noticed me and pointed to a sign that had my name on it. I finally met Becky and her advisor, Bob. Becky and I hit it off immediately. She had the equivalent of Spanish One under her belt and from that point on, la Gringa and la China were a team. We sorted through heaps of gear, loaded the truck (La Burrita), and then I drove. I drove with Becky for company through the insane streets of Buenos Aires into the country for 14 hours to Mendoza on Coke and Skittles. We arrived at the motel by 3 am and crashed. Next morning we met with my Cornell friends, Ben and Matt. And the four of us headed into the field - el campo.

Sunset at the first GPS sight in a wash in Mendoza Province.
Camp the first morning.
Becky.
The GPS point on a gooey oil pipe (which is mounted very far into the earth).
Buen dia, Los Andes (buenos dias, Buenos Aires style)
This site is Active Tectonics 43 with an Argentine Peso for scale.
Level that baby.
The antenna records data for 40 hours.
We pass a bird of prey on our search for bedrock.
Horses trot by as we lunch on the truck's tailgate and listen to a World Cup match in spanish on the radio. Goal is goal in english or spanish.
Becky and some local friends. We watched Britain beat Argentina in the World Cup match - very painful for locals to talk about.
While taking samples of desert varnish, Ben found a scorpion.
Desert varnish.
Kids, this is how NOT to use your rock hammer. Matt and I could hear shards of rock fly past our heads at incredibly high speeds. Ummm Ben, we're gonna watch from over here...
What's field work without getting stuck in the mud? I carved this trench the night before.
After getting out of the mud, we struck a rock and had a flat in the middle of almost nowhere. We walked into Jachal and found a motel for the night before returning to change the tire in daylight.
Here's the abandoned farmhouse we camped by while the GPS antenna gathered signals from the sky.
Time to take down the antenna and move on to the next site.
Becky and I realized we hadn't washed our clothes in about 3 weeks. Blegh!
The clothes dried in no time, it's like California out there.
My last GPS site before leaving for Chile.
Alas, some geology - a lovely Chevron fold to say good-bye.

At the end of the trip, I spent a couple of days on my own in Mendoza before flying over the Andes to Chile. In hindsight, this was the best field season I ever had. It wasn't my project, so there was a lot less stress. Ben is great to work with and he even quizzed me on some structural geology in the field. I got to see my first real fault, fell in love with the southern hemisphere night sky, talked interferometry and seismology with Becky by the fire for two nights in a row, enjoyed the hospitality of dozens of wonderful Argentines... Ben even orchestrated getting us into the YPF kitchen with the staff one night so I could bake cookies. I'd go back.