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seventh. Our two-day trek to the site was largely uneventful, at least
until we left the highway for the final seventy miles of dirt roads that
wound deep into the desert. As we turned north for this last leg of the
trip, we noticed a dark thunderhcad looming just above the horizon.
Within half an hour, the first sprinkles began to splatter on our wind-
shields, but more ominously, the sky above us had transformed itself
from a hot but tranquil blanket of blue into a roiling cauldron of dark,
greenish gray tumult. Part of this storm had passed just ahead of us,
and large puddles began appearing in the low spots of the dirt road. As
we drove on, the puddles transformed into deep ponds, which pre-
sented no problems for the larger, four-wheel-drive vehicles, but our
entourage included a small Fiat sedan owned by Luis's brother, Eze-
quiel Chiappe. He had willingly volunteered to help us for a week, and
his physical strength was a great asset during the early days of heavy
lifting and excavation. But his car was not built for these kinds of road
hazards; with only six or seven inches of clearance, it struggled to ford
the deep ponds. The rain was torrential, and in places the road was
covered by almost two feet of water. While Lowell was filling in for
Ezequiel during the last stretch to camp, the wipers on the Fiat
stopped working, and he had to stick his head out the window to see
where he was going. Water splashed over the hood as we plunged into
the pools on the road, and the car could barely cross to the next dry
patch. Finally, we crossed over a small ridge that led down into a wide
ravine; at the bottom, we could see a flash flood crossing the road. We
were stuck in the middle of nowhere.
Initially, we considered turning around and trying to outflank the
storm, but a semi truck soon pulled up behind us, and the driver told
us that the road we had come on was now washed out behind us. For
the moment we were trapped: we had no other option but to wait until
the torrent ahead of us, which turned out to be over two feet deep,
receded. It seemed rather ironic to us that, 80 million years after floods
had wreaked havoc on the sauropods' nesting ground at Auca
Mahuevo, our own expedition had, at least temporarily, fallen prey to
the same natural hazard on the parched desert landscape of modern
Patagonia.
Within a couple of hours, the thunderstorm passed to the south-
east, and the stream ebbed somewhat. With the larger vehicles lead-
ing the way, we ventured into the current. We had seen when the semi
