Okay, so we survived the 24-hour busride with minimal scarring. We have arrived at Rio Gallegos (Argentina) and boy are we excited to get out of here tomorrow! No, it´s not that bad...it is a fairly large coastal town, but we have no idea what people are doing here. . . we believe it was founded by shephards, but now what are the 80K inhabitants are doing here? Go figure.
It is clear that summer has arrived to South America as the prices for hotels and overall travel have increased a bit. In addition it is difficult to get tickets for busses.
We went into a supermarket in San Martin de los Andes that will be closed from Dec 23 - Jan 23! Fascinating to think of a comparable supermarket in the US closing for a full month for vacation...
So here´s our plan:
- Puerto Natales (Chile) from where we can explore two incredible national parks - Monde Balmeceda-O´Higgins and Torres del Paine - both full of glaciers and great hiking.
- El Calafate (Argentina) as a springboard to visit Los Glaciares Nacional Park, where as you´ve already guessed, we will check out more glaciers.
- Chiloe (Chile)
- Santiago (Chile) by Jan 11th.
For now, that´s the plan . . . tomorrow things may change . . .
2 comments:
I'm curious to know (perhaps you could address this in a blog post) how you survive these endless bus rides. Do you have lots of reading material? Do you try to sleep almost the whole way? Do you play 20 questions and hangman for hours on end? I can't imagine keeping myself entertained in one spot for so many hours -- and not just once, but over and over again.
We have been purchasing or trading in the books we´ve read for used ones - either at cafes, bookshops, or in the hostels. Unfortunately, the books floating around here really are bad. Andrew just finished a lovely one written by a nasty, bitter veterinarian about being a country Vet. Many of the books are thrillers or mysteries - but written at a low brow level. So we do our best to pick up books that both of us want to read - i just found Constant Gardener (never saw the movie) - it´s a good bus novel - long and entertaining. It makes us ill to play cards on the bus, but somehow reading is okay. Also, the views are sometimes fun - sometimes not so much. The overnight busses, we do our best to sleep a bit. There is food service on the busses and sometimes they stop in towns for a half hour or so. In addition, many of the busses show movies - not great movies, but sometimes they are okay...Pirates of the Carribbean I and II the other day - entertaining but not really very stimulating... That´s about it. Often we are so exhausted from days of running around, that it is a welcome excuse to sit for a bit.
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