I Can’t Drive 55

TEACH YOURSELF TO DRIVE STICK SHIFT IN 20 EASY STEPS!

1. First, determine that you want to take a four-day road trip around the north of Argentina, or as they call it, “el Norte.” Apparently the landscape is beautiful, the wine is cheap and plentiful, and it’s the most Andean part of Argentina. Determine that the best way to do this is by renting a car. All the guidebooks will tell you it’s the best way to get around: on your own time, with your own itinerary. We chose to start from the home-base of Salta, head south to Cafayete for some wine tasting, then head north again to Cachi via some beautiful rugged terrain, and ultimately wind up north of Salta in the Jujuy province to see the “Salinas Grandes” salt flats. By the way, “Jujuy” is pronounced like this: “HOY-HOY!!” That’s how we should all answer our phones from now on – “Hoy-Hoy!…May I ask who’s calling?…Just a minute, please…AMY! IT’S YOUR PAROLE OFFICER – THE ANKLE BRACELET’S COMING OFF!!”

2. Having settled on renting a car, rent a vehicle from one of the local agencies. In doing this, find out that you really only have two options: pay an arm and a leg for a 4×4 automatic SUV, or go on the cheap with an older, smaller Renault manual transmission vehicle with nearly 100,000 kilometers on it. We chose the latter, from Avis, because Amy’s a member, and because I’m…thrifty.

3. BIG STEP: Realize you’re nearly 46 years old and have only successfully driven a manual transmission car ONCE, in college, under circumstances you would rather not get into for legal and ethical reasons, but suffice it to say that people needed to get home, and you were the most sober, and it was mostly downhill, on empty streets, in a farming community in Ohio.

4. Pick up the car at the local Salta airport. Drive the car around the parking lot for twenty minutes, trying to get the feel for things. Stall out repeatedly while trying to get into first gear. Do this in front of the taxi stand, the police post, the long term parking booth, and once or twice in front of the Avis office itself. Smell the clutch burning. Smell your forehead burning. Successfully put the car into gear three or four times (non-consecutively) over the course of twenty minutes. Decide that with this 15% success rate of putting the car in gear, it’s time to hit the open road, in a foreign country, in a language you can barely speak.

5. Pull up to the airport gate. Wait for the arm of the gate to go up. Close your eyes and shift into first. Slowly let the clutch out. Stutter and jump forward a bit. As the car shakes, it slowly moves forward, and…you’re in gear. Continue to drive forward and hope you don’t have to stop for the next 180 kilometers.

6. Find out 10 seconds later that you’re at a red light. Cars pull up behind you. Slowly let out the clutch and start hitting the gas. Stall out.

7. Hit another ten or so red lights before getting on any highway of sorts. Stall out once or twice, and one time, let out the clutch so fast while jamming the gas pedal, that you chirp the tires, burn rubber, and nearly fishtail through a busy intersection.

8. After a mostly uneventful journey of 180 or so kilometers on country roads, shifting through the upper gears, pull into your first destination, Cafayete. Navigate the town, and the gears, with passable skill. Pull into a parking spot and thank Jesus. Feel what Jim McKay called “the thrill of victory!” Check into your hotel.

9. Having checked into the hotel, decide to explore town and see a few of the local wineries. Get in the car, turn the ignition…and realize you have no idea how to put the car in reverse to get out of your parking spot. Feel what Jim McKay called “the agony of defeat.”

10. Have your wife get out of the car and stop a local gentleman about 70 years old or so who’s been busy taking photos of the lovely colonial square you’re parked on. Explain to this confused older man, in terribly broken Spanish, that you have no idea what you’re doing and, by the way, how do you put the damn car in reverse? Explain that it’s your first time driving stick (thinking better than to discuss in broken Spanish about that one time in college). Explain that you’re actually doing pretty good going forward, but going in reverse has become a new and quite timely challenge.

11. Have the gentleman lean in the car, through the open window, and show you that you have to pull up on the stick to put it in reverse. Get excited about this newfound information, which most high-school kids know. While he’s still leaning in the open window, take your foot off the clutch. Have the car jolt backwards a few feet, with the older gentleman still waist deep in your driver’s side window, still holding his expensive German-made camera. Apologize profusely. Have a few laughs, and a handshake of gratitude. For the first time ever, at nearly age 46, drive a manual transmission car in reverse.

12. The next day, drive 150 kilometers to Cachi. Drive through the following terrain:

Do this while driving an economy-sized French-made manual transmission vehicle that you haven’t really mastered. Learn that going up steep, rocky grades requires something called “down-shifting.” Stall out numerous times in very awkward locations, and several times, roll the car backward, in neutral, to a point where you can put the car in first gear without flying off a mountain road, killing you and your wife.

13. Drive over 100 kilometers on a one-lane gravel road. Feel every bump, every jolt, and every rock at every turn. Know that at some point, you will come face-to-face with an oncoming truck, and you will have to back up, or slow down, or come to a complete stop on a surface that you would rather not back up, slow down, or come to a complete stop on.

14. Be reminded by your wife, on several occasions, to stay on the right side of the road. Realize that the last four months of your life (which included car rentals in South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand), you’ve driven on the left. Keep hitting the windshield washer instead of the turn indicator.

15. Stop to take a picture of a mountain. Stall out. Stop to take a picture of a cactus. Stall out. Stop to take a picture of a 200 year-old church. Stall out, restart the car, and stall out again. Stop to take pictures of some goats. Stall out again. Realize the toughest part of your learning stick shift is not the actual shifting, it’s the “taking the car out of gear” part when you stop.

16. Pull into an old pueblo town for lunch. Stall out, three times, in front of the police station, with the police laughing at you. This is what’s called “a confidence builder.” Drive on to Cachi and spend the night.

17. The next day, leave Cachi, and head towards Salta, and eventually Jujuy (“Hoy-Hoy!…May I ask who’s calling?…Just a minute, please…AMY! IT’S THE PROCOTOLOGIST – YOUR LAB RESULTS ARE BACK!!”). Climb a 10,000-foot mountain pass covered in snow. Yes, snow. Deal with snow, treacherous road conditions, and narrow mountain roads while finally figuring out how to “down-shift” on the uphills. Cross the mountain pass and start your descent. Only stall out once or twice.

18. While descending down the winding, single-lane mountain road, this is the best opportunity for your accelerator to GET STUCK. I’m serious! Like a scene in a James Bond movie, this is where your accelerator will become stuck on a narrow, winding, unpaved, snowy mountain road and your car will decide (against your wishes) that “cruise control” is now mandatory; that without STANDING on the brakes, your car would prefer to go over 100kph downhill; and that the only way for you to escape death is to turn on your hazards, put in the clutch, turn off the car, and coast to the safest place you can find without getting killed by a passing motorist. Turn the car on and off a few times, with the RPM gauge jumping to 5000rpm every time, and revving like it’s about to explode. Pump the gas pedal when the car’s off, hoping to “unstick” something, and try driving again, even with the engine revving. Do this repeatedly, driving each time until the car is going at an unsafe speed, about 200 meters down the road from when you last turned off the car. After traveling this way for about a kilometer and continually turning the car on and off, get lucky, and have the car only rev to 2000rpm at one point. Drive like this, cautiously, for the next 70 kilometers until you get to Salta. This includes sitting at several stoplights with engine revving like you want to drag race the horse cart next to you; and putting the car into high gear while in dense traffic so the engine doesn’t wind out too loudly, scaring the local stray dogs and empanada vendors.

19. Drive immediately to the Avis car rental at the airport. Tell the Avis agent about your latest brush with death. Switch cars. Breathe a sigh of relief.

20. After three days and roughly sixteen hours of difficult driving, eventually reach Jujuy (“Hoy-Hoy!…May I ask who’s calling?…Just a minute, please…AMY! IT’S YOUR MOM – SHE FOUND YOUR TROLL DOLL COLLECTION!!”). Realize that with some hiccups along the way, you can now drive stick, and that with a few more days of practice, you’ll probably be pretty comfortable and pretty confident. Take a modicum of pride. Stall out at the stoplight in front of your hotel, while the teenagers laugh at you.

POSTSCRIPT:

The following day, we drove from Jujuy (“Hoy-Hoy!…May I ask who’s calling?…Just a minute, please…AMY! IT’S YOUR ACCOUNTANT – YOU CAN’T WRITE OFF DYE JOBS AS A BUSINESS EXPENSE!!”) to the Salinas Grandes salt flats. This took us two hours through a nearly 14,000 foot mountain pass with huge switchbacks and precipitous drops. It was scary as hell. But it was also thrilling. And the best part was that I was able to navigate it without too many problems. Down-shifting came naturally, I’ve had no problems going in reverse, and I may have stalled out only once pulling out of an scenic overlook. I still forget to put the clutch in when stopping, so we’ve had a bunch of very jolting stops when parking, but all-in-all it was a good day. Now that we’re back in Salta, and we’ve dropped off the car, I think I pretty much have it down – just enough to forget entirely when we’ve got an automatic in Europe.