more buses

after seeing the penguins, I took the 18 hour bus ride down to Rio Gallegos. luckily, I was tired so I slept through most of the night. in the morning, looking out the window, the scenery was mostly the same as the day before. dry with grey and green splotchy bushes everywhere. most of Patagonia is on a huge flat plateau, so everything around you in all directions is perfectly flat as far as the eye can see. just flat, flat, and more flat. eventually, I got to Rio Gallegos, found the cheapest hostel I could find which ended up being pretty far from downtown, checked in, showered, and made the long walk into town. it was raining, but luckily I had an umbrella. unluckily though, I snapped the handle to the umbrella 5 minutes later. doh!

I was staring when I got into town, but it was late afternoon and all the restaurants were shut for the break between lunch and dinner. I walked up and down the street for a long time. no luck. I would have to wait. in the meantime, I killed some time online. eventually, I went to eat. what I wanted was a steak, but to save money, I got a hot dog with some mashed potatoes for 3 bucks. after eating, got back online, and then when I realized it was way too freezing to walk all the way back to my hostel, I caught a cab. the guy didn’t know how to get to my hostel. apparently, he also didn’t know how to read maps, because even though I showed him exactly where he needed to go on a map, he still was confused and dint take me to the right place. the whole time, he kept talking to me in Spanish, even though I had told him I don’t speak it.

it was midnight when I go to the hostel and all of a sudden I remembered something: they hadn’t given me a key. to make matters worse, this place had this insane doorbell. one of those super annoying ones that plays a song that goes on and on for like 20 seconds at a million decibels. crap. I totally didn’t think I could ring that bell at this hour. I peaked inside the window and all was dark. oh man. I could just picture them coming to the door all angry and slamming it in my face. so I knocked quietly, hoping not to wake everyone. then louder. then louder still. luckily, finally someone came to the door and I never had to ring the bell. I snuck into my dorm room and, seeing that someone was in there sleeping, didn’t turn on the light. but I guess I woke the guy up, cause all of a sudden a hear all this yelling and he flips on the light. oops! he wasn’t angry though, and then, like everyone else, he started talking to me in Spanish even after I told him I didn’t speak it. I don’t know why everyone does this. eventually he stopped talking and we went to sleep. in the middle of the night, I woke up to insane snoring. seriously, it sounded like this guy was choking in his sleep. so annoying.

the next morning, it was off on another bus ride. this one was 12 hours. if you look closely at the southern tip of south America, you’ll see that the bottom tip isn’t actually connected to the mainland. so, in some ways, I guess Tierra del fuego is an island. both Chile and Argentina wanted to own the island, and eventually they ended up dividing the island into sections, with Chile owning the west half, and Argentina owning the east. the problem though is that to get to the Argentinean side, you have to drive through the Chilean side. here’s a map to have it make a bit more sense. yellow is Argentina and orange is Chile:

so, we drove south from Rio Gallegos, then in Punta Delgado we got out of the bus to have the Argentineans stamp our passports. then we got out of the bus to have the Chileans stamp our passports. then the bus was loaded on this huge ferry that hauled us across the straight of Magellan. after driving a few hours, we got to the next border. we got out of the bus to have the Chileans stamp our passports. we got out of the bus to have the Argentineans stamp our passports. then, we drove to Rio Grande where everyone had to get off the bus and get on another bus. basically, this bus ride involved us getting on and off the bus over and over. not to mention, now I have 4 new stamps in my passport and I’m a bit worried that it’s gonna fill up soon!

as we kept driving farther and farther south, the landscape slowly changed. it got colder and colder. soon, everything around us wasn’t flat anymore, there were mountains everywhere, and eventually snow on the mountains. there were now trees and forests. and finally, as the sun was setting, we arrived at Ushuaia… the city at the end of the world. I couldn’t believe I made it. but I was also exhausted. in the last 4 days, I had been on 3 bus rides: 18 hours, 18 hours, and 12 hours. ouch!

*v