Mendoza Province, Argentina, April/May 2009. On the eve of the expedition to the agate location, we fortified our minds, bodies, and souls with a fine dinner of roasted chicken and fried potatoes at the home of the expedition leaders. The hunt will take us eight miles on a trail too steep for pack animals, where everything is sharp and wants to hurt you. We left at o-dark-thirty. It was my first look at the Southern Cross. The fire was to make the matte that the shaman in our group fortified with herbs, including ephedra.
When we returned to the jeep, my feet
were killing me. Sixteen miles round trip plus climbing for hours at the agate
site.
A few bumpy miles down the road, we came to a nice place to eat with beer, chicken, and Argentina’s ubiquitous (thankfully) papas fritas.
This trip taught me that Condor agates are hard to find. After a 16-mile round trip journey (actually more like 14,000 miles), this is the best and only good agate that I found. While the others were digging down three or four feet and not finding much, I used my Colorado climbing skills to work my way around the face of a steep cliff where I dug this one out with my rock hammer. The matrix is soft enough to dig with a butter knife, although a rock hammer is much more efficient. I brought it from the US. After the agate hunt, Luis had to return to Buenos Aires for a family emergency. He took a bus, and I took my propane fueled rental car and drove to Patagonia, visiting all four provinces. Rough country! And beautiful. Of course, I went to their version of Petrified Forest National Park.
