On the Ground at the World Cup: Hanging With Argentine Road-trippers

RIO DE JANEIRO—The city has been flooded with Argentines, and Copacabana's Avenida Atlantica is a sea of blue and white. Thousands of fans sit out in front of their old vans, buses, and campers that they drove here in, barbecuing, singing, and drinking. Some of them are selling wine to pay for gas. Their enthusiasm is contagious, and even many Brazilians, traditional enemies on the pitch, are lining up to get their pictures taken with them. While it's true that Argentina and Brazil are next-door neighbors, they are both huge countries and, since the highways are mostly just two-lane roads, most of these guys drove for a really, really long time to get here.

I invited myself into a camper bus that looked like it was 50-years old, covered in Argentinean flags. There were two guys drinking beers and another waving a flag on the roof.

"Where did you guys come from?" I asked.

"Jujuy," they answered, referring to a place 10,000 feet up in the Andes Mountains, "but please talk softly, our buddy is still sleeping back there."

I looked back and saw a foot sticking out of a door. A dirty one.

"Did you have any mechanical problems getting down here in this old thing?"

"We did. Our brakes gave out. It took us four days of driving to get here but everywhere we went the Brazilians cheered for us as we drove by."

"What time are you going to head out to the stadium to see the game?"

"We don't have tickets."

"You drove for four days to watch the team play on TV?"

"We want to join the party and cheer for our team with all of the other Argentina fans. Anyway, it's not so bad. We found this great parking spot here."

He points out the door, showing off their view of the giant TV screen on the beach.

Brian Mier is an American ex-pat who lives in Rio. He is the author of Slow Ride. His previous work for Vice can be viewed here.