Ruta 40 - The Road to Bariloche

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It served to underline my good fortune that, after 4 days of excellent walking weather, I left El Chalten as I'd arrived, in the rain.

I had booked on the bus from El Chalten to Bariloche. If money were no object I could have flown up from El Calafate but it was time to think of finances. Besides very long bus journeys are supposedly intrinsic to South American travel and I was curious to test myself against this experience.

On the positive side the bus would be going along Ruta 40, reputed to be amongst the most scenic roads in Argentina. If it stopped raining I would have 35 hours to soak up the view. On the negative side - 35 hours on a bus! It was a length of bus journey that was difficult to get my head around.

The bus was modern and comfortable. There was generous leg room, reclining seats, curtained windows and ceiling-hung tv's at points in the aisle.

The rain soon stopped and we made our way out across the desert. The landscape had a stark beauty but the overwhelming impression was of miles and miles of the same emptiness. I tried to take some photos but soon gave up. The windows were dusty and besides there was no focal point, nothing to latch onto. My brain soon rebelled against the sameness and I turned away from the window drawing the curtain against the fierce, low sun.

Most of my fellow passengers were soon sleeping or at least trying to. The motion of the bus lulled any putative conversations into a drowsy silence. This was simply too long a journey to be talked through, better to sleep or read. Before long we had all been sucked into the dissociative bubble of transit, drawn into an altered state, a no man's and between A and B. Transit-land, a place where different priorities apply, where people turn in on themselves and wait for time to pass.

Every few hours the bus stopped at isolated garages or cafes, places chosen for convenience rather than aesthetics. We all trooped off the bus, blinking and stretching into the sun, bought drinks and snacks, went to the bathroom, before, still in our collective stupor, drifting back to our cocoon.

At the end of the first day we overnighted in an anonymous hostel in anonymous Perito Moreno (other than sharing its name no connection to the glacier). In truth the food was quite good, the dormitory basic but comfortable enough. The next day we were up early and back on the bus to repeat the first day, although this time under greyer skies with more mountains on the horizon. Time passed. I tried to work on my Spanish but despite or perhaps because of the surfeit of time found it difficult to concentrate. The motion of the bus did not help. Alternately gently rocking whilst on tarmac and a bone-shuddering rattle when on gravel.

There were films. A blockbuster sequel to a hugely successful US comedy Quite dreadful, but no one seemed to mind. At least it broke up the monotony and there was the vicarious pleasure of matching the English dialogue to the Spanish subtitles.

On day 2 the desert and plains of Santa Cruz province at some point gave way to the more rolling landscape of Chubut province. Shrubs and trees appeared on the hills. There were cattle in the fields where previously there had been only the occasional sheep. The countryside remained beautiful but it was remote and austere. Our capacity to appreciate it had been compromised, our faculties scrambled by the soporific motion of the bus and enervated by a road that could be measured in days.

But it was not all negative. I had the very great consolation of reading Eleanor Catton's "The Luminaries" - a tour de force, part historical detective story, part Dostoevskian enquiry into motive and the partiality of truth. I loved it. Definitely the most enjoyable book I've read in the last year and one I wouldn't hesitate to recommend to anyone faced with a very long bus journey.

Finally as dusk fell and it began to rain we crossed over into Rio Negro province, dimly perceiving lakes and mountains through the gloom, before eventually, after two days travel, we arrived at Bariloche. Despite doing nothing but sit, doze and read for two days I felt a tiredness infinitely greater than any I'd felt after the activity of El Chalten.

It's a weird place Transitland. Not awful by any means just somewhere you wouldn't want to go to too often or visit for very long.

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Comments

[John]

Congrats Mark , you\'re now a hardcore backpacker. Enjoy transitland, one day you\'ll be back in the ratrace even wishing you were back in those hot smelly dusty cramped buses. Great narrative mate , keep writing J