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Published: February 5th 2007
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La Campana
More water than land... I´d left San Martin to go to Bariloche for a few days and now I´m in El Bolsòn. Been having a lot of fun, made some great new friends, and the country keeps on getting prettier the further south I go. Yet somehow it´s still shorts and tank top weather, which is great. Why did I pack my fleece, again?
In San Martin, I met a good fellow named Sebastian. I was looking for a trailhead and he was looking for a pub. Needless to say, he was more lost than I, so we took the hike and became instant friends. He and his family were on vacation from Chile, and he speaks German fluently and English very well. I´m so envious of these multi-lingual people! So he was delighted to practice English and I was happy to practice Spanish with someone who could correct me. Right before the vista point, the local indians stopped us to charge us one peso, which was funny. And lame. But what can you say? Later on that night we hung out and talked forever. Met his sister and his sister´s boyfriend, Jim. They have a brand new baby girl and are very cool
Buddies
You can see the cheaters in the background... people. Jim is hilarious!
A few days after that I decided to head down to Bariloche for a little while. That was fun. There is something unremarkably punctual about travel sickness. Whatever the bug is, it always knows the most inconvenient time to hit, which happened to be on the bus ride between San Martin and Bariloche. The road is frequently traveled because there is only one road in and one road out of San Martin, which would cause one to think that it would be smooth and well paved. Hah! This is not so, which is normally fine, but just sucks when bouncing around on a minibus with no shocks and no bathroom, puking into a bag. Props to the panaderia, though. Not a single hole in that flimsy little bag, which I was so very grateful for. Four hours later we pulled into Bariloche where I sat in the bus station in a stupor for about 30 minutes. I found there was a local bus from the station that lead downtown frequently for 50 cents, so I hauled my stuff onto one of those and hoped I´d get to where I wanted to go. This was a
momentary, but critical, lapse in judgement. I should have just taken a stupid taxi to my hostel because it would have saved me a long trip out of town. I wasn´t paying attention and missed my stop by a long shot, so I figured I´d stick it out and maybe it would loop back around like many busses do. I didn´t feel well, and besides, the route was very scenic along the huge glassy lake. Well, if the bus was planning on making a loop back into town, it may as well have been going to Tokyo first, because it went forever. Eventually, I got off, crossed the road, and caught another one going in the right direction. To my dismay, the bus was jammed full, and I had to stand with my pack trying not to get sick within that close of proximity to strangers. I couldn´t believe it when a girl stood up and let me sit in her seat, which I was eternally grateful for. People are so nice here! Eventually, I made it to my hostel (which was a good hike up an impressive hill) and half-conciously filled out the information. I don´t even think I got my passport number right! But I had a room! So close, yet so far, since it was located four flights of stairs up. I had to take a break at the bar with a water after the second floor, where I zoned out for awhile. With a wave of determination, I hauled my sick butt up to the top floor and made it to my room, which happened to be the very last one at the end of the hall. As if the bed had been mocking me from the start, I had to climb another set of steps into the loft where I could finally drop my bags and flop onto the lower bunk. I was so glad I didn´t have to scramble the extra few feet to the top...it coulda been the last straw! Whatever the bug was, it was mercifully short-lived. Later that night I felt well enough to walk around a bit, and by the next day I was good as new. Which is a good thing, because I ended up meeting Jim and Sebastian again, and they weren´t going to wait around for a sick girl.
We hopped on a bus out of town and took a ride that looked mighty familiar from the previous day. They wouldn´t tell me where we were going, except we had to get off at km marker 18. The driver had the tendancy to slam on the brakes at every stop and burn rubber after the passenger set foot in the vehicle, so I had to concentrate on not stepping on my new friends or falling over onto strangers. At marker 17 the bus had had enough of his driving habits as well, because it just stopped. The conductor mumbled something, and everyone got off. A clear fluid was gushing out the back of the bus onto the dusty roadside, and something else was hissing, so some people started hitching as the elderly made themselves comfortable to wait for the next vehicle. Lucky for us, we only had to walk a kilometer to La Campana, which is a ski run in the winter and a vista point in the summer. You could pay to take the lift up, or you could hike up the mountain, which is what we did. I discovered that ¨switch back¨is not within the Argentine vocabulary, because that trail went straight up the hill! It seemed to have a mind of its own, forking in random spots, sometimes reuniting, other times the destination a mystery with no signs to speak of. Some places lacked shade and the sun would fry us on the spot. I think we were the only people on the trail because there was not a soul within earshot. By miraculous guess work, Sabastion, the fearless leader, got us to the top. Exhausted and smelly, we were rewarded with an amazing panorama of white-capped mountains with shimmering lakes tucked in between. And cold beer. Fresh tourists snapped photos, and these Japanese ladies took our picture with their camera. The guys explained that they weren´t Argentine, they were Chilean, but no matter, they snapped away. So now we´re in someone´s photo album in Japan, which is funny to think about. It was a beautiful place to be, and I´m super stoked that we went there. Afterward, we picked some random trails to get back down the mountain, and ended up in someone´s back yard.
The rest of the day was spent lounging around in the center by the lake, listening to what sounded like a half-rate garage band and watching kids with foul mouths play on the lawn. Jim and Sebastian had to catch a bus back to Chile at 7am, so rather than sleep, they decided to drink. It was a fun night, and a rough morning for those guys. Alas, my friends are gone and I am traveling sola again. They will be sorely missed.
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Grandma
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Flealess
Is Fearless now flealess?