After a great time in El Calafate and El Chalten we boarded a
bus to Bariloche together with some of our new found travel amigos. We had
dreaded the 30-hour bus ride a fair bit but luckily numerous violent movies,
police controls and a flat tire kept us entertained and we managed to make some
more friends on the way. Argentinean buses are actually rather nice, they
served food similar to what you get on a plane and our ‘cama’ seats could
nearly go flat! So we can’t really complain but we were still happy when we
finally arrived in Bariloche around 10pm, craving a hot meal and a hot shower. Little
did we know…
After dropping our stuff at the nice and cheap hostel El
Quijote we went to a nearby restaurant where the waiter mumbled something about
‘gas’ that we all didn’t really understand and (without showing us the menu) suggested
we’d take the vegetarian platter. We all agreed and the food was pretty good, but
just a few hours later we understood what he had tried to tell us. There had been an accident at a construction
site and the whole city of Bariloche had no gas. Which meant: no cooking, no
heating, no hot water. Nobody knew when the gas would be turned on again. But
at least this explained the temperature of our room and why I had the coldest
shower of my life. Anyway, what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger…
Once we had established what’s happening, our little
international travel group (Helga and Katharina from Austria, Karim from
France, Bernard from Canada and Rich & I) went for a little walk through Swiss-like
Bariloche, where trees wear scarves and where Argentineans place big St Bernard
dogs around the plaza to try and get some money off tourists.
Bariloche is surrounded by beautiful lakes and mountains and
the best way to explore the area is by bike. So off we went to ride along the
Circuito Chico. Soon into the ride we made another friend: an affectionate dog
that Ritchie quickly named ‘Hans’ in honour of our German travel amigo who we parted
from in El Calafate. Hans turned out to be quite a sporty dog and he actually
followed us all the way along the 28km ride. I must add that dogs in South
America are usually let loose during the day (which also helps breed a nice population
of stray dogs) and therefore we first thought that Hans would help us keep the
angry dogs at bay but it turned out it was the other way round… We must have
passed about 50-60 dogs and they all had the same mission: Kill Hans! So Hans
usually hid somewhere between the wheels of our bikes and our laps. Not the
nicest experience when you where too tight to pay for rabies shots back in
Australia… Luckily we all survived – including Hans – and the Circuito Chico
took us through some stunning landscapes!
There was still no gas when we got back to Bariloche, which
meant that most restaurants were shut or only served cold food (to Ritchie's disgust McDonalds only served salad), so we spent a while in the supermarket to figure out what
we could have for dinner. For some reason Argentinean supermarkets aren’t
stocked very well and don’t seem to have anything that you can just heat up in
the microwave, so we ended up making a bean salad followed by a heap of chocolate. Unfortunately
we had bought the cheap chocolate and whatever they put in it does not agree
with Ritchie’s stomach. So he spent the next day at the hostel while our travel amigos and I walked
up Cerro Companario to enjoy an amazing view over the lake district.
Back in town, Karim and I went to one of the many infamous
chocolate shops where I enjoyed the best hot chocolate of my life. And I must say
this definitely made up for the coldest shower of my life! Mmmmmhmmmmmm!
The next day, our little international travel group parted
ways and Rich and I joined Melanie and Urs (Switzerland) for a quick pit stop
in San Martin de Los Andes. It’s a pleasant little town also surrounded by
lakes and mountains but unfortunately we were there just before the skiing
season and therefore the town was pretty dead.
We went for a nice little walk
to a mirador but the highlight of this little stint was probably the drive
through a national park on the way to Pucon, Chile. Especially the sight that
awaited us at the Chilean boarder was amazing and got us very excited about
what we were going to do at our next destination…
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY
Right! The truth in technicolour!
Having survived the cold we pressed north to Bariloche. I
learned very early in our trip not to ask too much about where we are going. It’s
best to keep my sometime erratic imagination in the dark because any
respectable drug mule knows that nerves = firing squad. I inadvertently found
out through various French sources that we were in fact going to be on a bus
for 30 hours. Instantaneously a realisation rushed up my spine much like the
waves of nausea that sweep over a pregnant woman’s body just before vomiting. I
had never spent that much time alone without distraction. What was going to
happen? What was I going to do? Who was I going to talk to? Who was going to
annoy me? What if the toilette was blocked and everyone has noro virus? And what about the cocaine in my bottom!
Charly was quick to see the anxiety gaining momentum behind my silence and
offered a reward for my impending suffering
much like a bribe offered by a parent to a child who is about to have root
canal. Charly stated that we were indeed heading north, therefore, the
temperature could only increase. Travelling north for 30 hours… her theory
seemed sound so I bought a book and charged every electronic device I had in
preparation for hysterical boredom.
As Charly said above that buses in Argentina were surprisingly
good except when you have to flush the toilette with the last of your Fanta
because there is no more water to flush! I would like to take this opportunity
now to thank the person who went before me who obviously had chilli con carne
at some stage.
Well into our journey we received
what may have been dinner? Charly described earlier that “the food was
comparable to what you would receive on a plane”. That might be true if Amelia Earhart was the pilot. The bread/building material resembled
something that would have been exchanged by Cuba in return for textiles just
after the instigation of the trade embargo. As a crude measure of determining
which decade the bread was baked in, I knocked it on my fold out table. It
broke the table. Thinking that indigestible dry food would be good on a journey
like this one I thought that I should probably have some. Upon opening the
?bread roll? revealed a contents that
resembled the colour grey. Probably an organic compound. I didn’t have my mass
spectrometer handy to determine the origin of this matter; therefore, the
mystery grey stuff had to go into the ‘I abstain from dinner tonight’ category.
I cherish the decision not to eat that bread roll to this day because one
should not compromise on their principals even if they are hungry.
Frequently throughout our journey the bus was stopped by
presumably highway patrol looking for I don’t know what. Each time they boarded
the bus they yelled out PAPERS! This startled most of the people sleeping but
not me, wide awake…waiting. What for? I didn’t know. The first few times I was worried because I
was travelling on my British passport and I wasn’t to certain if the sting of
the Falkland Islands misunderstanding had left the memory of the average
Argentine police officer. Needless to say, every time I heard PAPERS! I desperately
wanted my passport to make the clear distinction that I was in fact borne in
Scotland and not England. To my
relief/annoyance my passport was not checked once but to the fear/confusion of
our American friend Gladys, who has Guatemalan heritage, she was interrogated every
time. The intensity questioning seemed to intensify with each subsequent checkpoint.
I wanted to help and defend her but I thought; this bus doesn’t need another
hero. That honour went to the guy who ate the chilli con carne. 100mg of Xanex
later and it was the next day. 30hours
what a breeze!
