The Wheels on the Bus

Happy Fourth! We are in Salta, Argentina. We have been in this city for about 24 hours, which is exactly six hours fewer than the amount we needed to get here. By bus. Well, two buses, to be precise. And to be completely fair, we were in the bus terminal of Antofagasta, Chile from 5-6am. However, let me underscore that we needed to be on a bus for a total of 29 hours in order to get to Salta from La Serena, Chile. One day and five hours on a bus. Forgive me, but I have to talk about the bus for a little bit.

The first 14 hours were spent in cama class, which features wide, soft leather seats that recline to about 165 degrees. This was comfortable, even if it was a long time to be on a bus.

Then, we were in the bus terminal of Antofagasta, Chile. It looked like this:




We spent the final 15 hours in semi-cama class, which, while perfectly fine for trips up to about 8 hours, rapidly deteriorates in quality after that mark. The seats are close together, recline less than in cama, and there is significantly less leg room. Essentially, it really isn't a nice place to be for the better part of a full day under any circumstances. However, there were several aggrevating circumstances of which I'd like to make you aware, in bullet point format.

• First, we had just spent the better part of a full day on a different bus in superior conditions, so this was a notable downgrade.


• Second, we were sitting right in front of the bathroom, which had doors that failed to stay closed and banged around noisily, which invariably caused the rest of the passengers to stare back at us (really just me, since I was on the aisle), silently holding me responsible for both the existence of the noise and the task of fixing the situation. Further, because the door had a handle on the outside, people assumed they needed to pull on the door to open it. Not so. Many would become agitated to the point of using the wall next to the door for leverage and heaving on the handle with great force, then cursing loudly. Sometimes, my leaning back and saying "empuje", or push, was sufficient to get these people on their way. Usually, however, they needed a full demonstration. This happened no fewer than eight times.


• Third, one of our fellow passengers snored for the entire ride, save for the 20 minutes he managed to keep himself awake in order to stuff more food into his fat, moustachioed face. This man's snoring was the stuff of legends. Have you ever heard someone snore for 15 hours straight? It wasn't even consistent. Sometimes it would be low-pitched and evenly paced. Other times, it was so chaotic, you thought he might actually be choking, not snoring. Still other times, it was just inconceivably fast. It varied not only in pace, but also in volume. I believe his max range was 12 rows. And then, of course, the occasional mini-finale, in which he would wake up momentarily in order to triumphantly dislodge all the phlegm and God-knows-what-else from his various facial orifices into his sleeve, or the seat ahead of him if he didn't have the time or energy to pull his arm up. I spent a fair amount of time making noises to mimic him, and asked Dylan if my noises were better or worse than the man's. He said better. The man looked like this:
  
  
  
• Fourth, somewhere about halfway through, when we were crossing the Andean border between Chile and Argentina, I suddenly got altitude sickness. For about three minutes, I was completely disoriented, had blurred vision, was sweating profusely, and couldn't even muster the awareness or strength to tell Dylan about it. I managed to get myself up, drink some water and furiously peel and eat a clementine, which calmed me down. But I had a headache for the rest of the trip, which was exacerbated by the lack of sleep and comfort.


• Fifth, we had to watch Braveheart in Spanish. You know Mel Gibson's famous, defiant scream of "FREEEEDOOOM!!!"? Let's just say that "LIIIBEERTAAAD!" doesn't get the blood moving quite the same way.


• Sixth, and possibly most importantly, we had no real food. We were kept alive over the 30 hours stretch by three clementines apiece, two bags of potato chips, two tiny containers of fruit salad in syrup, two oatmeal raisin cookies, and four boxes of peach juice. Oh, and ten saltines. I may never have been as sad as I was when we got to Jujuy, Argentina for a brief stop about 12 hours in. I stepped out of the bus and there was a man selling the most delicious ham and cheese sandwhiches I'd ever seen. They were only four pesos each! Tragically, I only had Chilean currency. Dylan nearly cried.

There were eight movies over the two trips, of which two were good. La Misma Luna was really terrific. Wedding Crashers goes without explanation, although they cut off the ending. Everything else was abysmal, including several contenders for "Worst Movie I've Ever Seen". Worse, everything was bootlegged, so the audio was often off and the video quality was, well, you know what bootlegged movies look like.

Anyway, I hope I have impressed upon you how bad that trip was.

The scenery was often beautiful, though it would quickly become monotonous. Nothing like our first trip across the Andes. Where we had then been in the middle of enormous, dramatic snow-capped peaks, now were were in the middle of deserts and salt flats. Where customs and immigration had there been in the middle of a mountain, here it was just sand and dust and dirt for as far as the eye could see. I will add some pictures later.

We came to Salta primarily, though not exclusively, because my grandfather told me to. He was here many, many years ago, doing publicity for a film called ________ (Abuelito, feel free to finish that sentence). He told me that this city had the most beautiful girls he had ever seen. I have to admit that I'm not sure if that's still the case, as Buenos Aires was pretty good in that department. However, we're going out tonight to the bars so we'll probably have a fuller report tomorrow.

Upon arrival in town, we found a hostel, dropped off our bags, and went for the biggest steak we could find within two minutes walking distance. What we found was decent, not great, but those steaks more than filled the voids that the previous 30 hours had created.

Today, however, we followed a recommendation from the hostel and went to a place a little off the beaten trail. We both ordered items from the "meats" section, though neither of us knew exactly what we were ordering. After taking our order, the waiter returned within a few moments to inform - no, warn - us that the portions were muy grande. We laughed him away. Then I opened our Lonely Planet guide and discovered that the restaurant had been reviewed, favorably, partially because each entreé was actually meant for TWO people, and individual portions would be provided only upon request. While what we got was delicious, it was indeed meant for a total of four people. Dylan did his best to be a good American and he finished all of his, though I think he'd admit that he later paid for it.