EL CONDOR PASA

13.5.2026   North West Argentina

Today, just like yesterday and the day before, is a beautiful warm autumn day. The midday sun at an altitude of two and a half thousand meters burns with relentless force, the sky is without a single cloud, and the air has that peculiar dry clarity one finds only high in the Andes. Since morning, we have already spent several hours rattling along the old dusty unpaved road of Ruta 40, the legendary artery of Argentina that winds along the spine of the mountains from icy Patagonia almost all the way to the Bolivian border.

Here, somewhere around kilometer 4440 — measured from the very south of the continent — the landscape belongs among the most beautiful on the entire route. The reddish-brown mountain slopes rise into sharp teeth, deep valleys disappear into a bluish haze, and among the rocks an occasional green strip of vineyard or a few solitary cacti as tall as pillars flash into view.

Paul is driving. Both hands firmly grip the steering wheel of our dust-covered car, which long ago lost its original white color beneath a layer of fine Andean dust. I navigate, watching the map and occasionally checking whether the road ahead splits or if a truck is coming toward us in the distance.

The engine drones monotonously, and clouds of dust rise around us, instantly swept away by the wind into the endless wilderness.

And then it happened.

Something suddenly cut across the sky. A massive shadow swept over the hood of the car, and an icy gust pierced the scorching air. A chill ran down my spine.

My first thought was a UFO.
A UFO is definitely following us.
God… please let it be a UFO. I've been waiting for one my whole life.

I look up.

But above us the same empty blue sky stretches on, without a single movement, without a single cloud. Only the sun blazes over the Andean peaks, and Ruta 40 continues endlessly into the distance.