SOMEWHERE ON THE COAST of Buenos Aires, the Argentine capital and metropole, there is a sea tunnel. Except that it’s not actually a tunnel per se. The coastal road just disappears into the blue waters of the Atlantic. Maybe it resurfaces on the other side, in Uruguay, around Colonia del Sacramento, or maybe you can ride it all the way to Senegal, Morocco, and France. I just don’t know. I couldn’t get that far driving in my rented Volkswagen.
I went to the tunnel during the South American winter, which for Northerners like us is summer. It was a gray day, and I wore a pair of jeans and a wool sweater. The horizon was gray and the sea was also gray, but a bluer, deeper gray. The coastal road emerged from an industrial area of the city, cut by factories and telephone lines, and then for some distance it was contained in by massive stone walls on both sides. I drove through this part of the coastal tunnel, and then emerged into a wide open breezy space, where the sea flowed on both sides, and the orange sandy road below was barely visible. My car began to slide on the sand and into the water, and I decided to turn around and park it by some roadside cantinas, where they sold snacks and drinks. There were other cars parked there while people waited for nightfall.
At night, I understood why they had waited so long, munching on hamburguesas and sipping hot mate. There were hieroglyphics cut into the stone walls of the coastal tunnel that glowed in the dark. The faces of the gods, heroes, and tricksters of the Charrúa people became visible in the moonlight. Grinning devil faces, and warriors with spears, animals pulling carts, dotted with the artistic flourishes of the indigenous tribes. I tried to take photos of the glyphs, but it was difficult because of the lights from the passing vehicles. I managed to get a few shots.
Later, when I returned from my trip, I shared the photos with my musician friend, the Argentine Luís, who said he knew all about the place, and that when he was a teenager growing up in Buenos Aires, he and his Catholic school classmates would sneak there at night to smoke pot, skateboard, and listen to the Rolling Stones on a portable cassette player. Even native Buenos Aires residents no longer bothered to visit it anymore, he said, and many were unaware of its very existence. “Ask anybody in the city about the ancient coastal tunnel these days, and you will get a blank stare, I think,” Luís told me. “It’s as if the place doesn’t exist.”
north! 