30.5 hours In A Bus : Part 1

What could be worse when preparing for your 27 hour bus trip? Having it last 30.5 hours. Don't get me wrong I am just whinging as it really was not that brutal. Time went by fairly quickly. TAQSA the bus company kept the movies going throughout the waking hours. Angels and Demons, 2012, Ritcheous Kill, Ingloreous Bastards, and Babel plus I had Moneyball on my laptop. I just realized, that is 3 Brad Pitt flics. Whatever I liked him as an actor ever since True Romance
**As an aside my laptop battery now only charges to 65%. This sucker is less than 2 years old. Time for a little email to Gateway and Toshiba however I know the response I will get. Parts are not our fault, they are made somewhere else and we just put them together. At least I will tell them thier product is shit and feel better about it. It also does not help that I have dropped this puppy on more that one occastion but I am not going to tell them that.**

Friday Jan 6, 2012
Today was going to be another of my famous lazy ass days, something that I am going to have to shake sooner rather than later, but not just yet. I just realized I lost my travel alarm and I have no idea when the last time I pulled it out. That speaks for itself. My bus was not leaving until 4:00 and the guy at the hostel told me I could hang around most of the day if I wanted to, which was decent of him. I got up late, wandering into town for some lunch and travel supplies and was ready to say good bye to El Calafate.

11:30 am.
I got online and found myself FB chatting all afternoon. A great way to spend my time on this day thats for sure, thanks Bama. I had until 2:00 before I was going to be asked to leave. They needed to clean etc and I was cool with that. Howevere 2:00 came and I explained to the owner that I was chatting and who I was chatting to. He smiled knowingly and told me to stay another hour if I wanted to. Be nice and people will be nice and people will be nice right back to you.

3:00 pm.
Holy crap, how did that happen. Logging off and shutting down I had to get my ass to the bus station. It was only a 15 minute walk however I have learned to be early for any bus trip. They have been known to leave early, and Bariloche awaits. I am going to arrive on Saturday night so Sunday is going to be all about finding a bar that is showing the NFL playoffs and eating a good meal.

3:30 pm
My TAQSA chariot arrives. A double decker beauty. I climb aboard, find seat 31 and settle in. Now I am all about the excitement of a road trip however the two couples to my left have taken it to a new level. They start talking and it gets louder and faster. I recognize that its Italian not spanish and they are all talking at the same time. How is that possible? I torrented Moneyball so I put that on loud enough not to hear them. What a good movie. Well done Bratt Pitt and Jonah Hill. During lulls in the movie I hear my neighbours babbling away however the wife of the guy next to me has settled back into her seat.
Moneyball done and the silence is deafening. I watched the end of 2012 on the buses movie screens. What a piece of crap even if it did have Thandy Newton and Amanda Peet. A look out the window and it is all flat scrubland. *yawn*. Maybe a nap.

6:45 pm
I just spend the last couple hours staring out the window with my internal monologues rattling around my head to keep me entertained. My mind does drift into wierd and wonderful places at times.

8:00 pm
We pulled into Rio Gallegos for a bus transfer. We all jumped off the bus, grabbed our bags and stood around looking confused. It was organized chaos thats for sure but easy enought to figure out. You look for your bus company, TAQSA and check the digital read out on the front of that bus. If it says Bariloche that is your bus, if it says anything else dont ask the driver if this is the bus to Bariloche. However as a fail safe and if your not sure just hang around, let everyone else on your bus do the leg work and just follow the herd when a bus shows up.
Anyways 3 very bad beef and olive empanadas and a scray bathroom visit later I am back safely in good old seat 31 with the Ipod at the ready. Bariloche in 23 hours, mas o menos.

** I guess it is human nature to be stressed to the point of panic when you dont have all the percieved information you think you need and have to resort to thinking for yourself. Bus changes as an example. I try my best not to be a part of the herd mentality while being a part of the herd.**

9:00 pm Suppertime! Good Grief, why this just popped into my head. Suppertime from Your a good man Charlie Brown. Snoopy Rocks!  Well yes sir, like our hero Snoopy I was now being fed. With our laptop tables not securly fashioned it stared with a some type of pizza bun a flat bread and then there were two slices of very good spiced beef with sliced roasted potates. It was a small meal but it will be enough to carry me through the morning, plus I had lots of fruit and other healthy type snacks. With AC DC as my dinner music the food was devoured in about 3 minutes.
The thing about heading north is the sun starts to set at a reasonable hour. The sunset was not glorious but pertty enough over the scrubland, but this was scrubland of Argentina so that gave it a special feel.

Saturday Jan 7, 2012

3:00 am 
zzzzzz, snort, zzzzzz

7:00 am I surprised myself and slept through the night. The seats on the buses here recline to about 160 degrees plus there is a well designed leg and footrest the pulls out from the seat in front of you. This gives you the possibility of stretching out. Its not awesome but does the trick. However my hips are sore, that is a first. Again sucks.
We pulled into some town which was probably fairly important because 10 people left the bus. This place looks like an old Communist Eastern European town of the 70s. Lots of drab, high and square apartment buildings and just a dreary feel. There was a huge waterfront so why so drap town of Argentina? One of the Italian couples were part of that group and it was kind of sad to see them leave so early. I have some great convesations with them and they were really nice. When they left they gave me a small bag of food and like the stray dog that I am right now whoever feeds me is my friend for life.

9:30 am
I just woke up from a pretty good morning snooze. The bus is quiet and I just had breakfast of a chocolate filled coissant and carmel candy. Ok, sure whatever.

I was out of Patagonia. The soaring mountains were gone the sun set at a reasonable hour.