The long march

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Pucon to El Calafate was one epic voyage. By the time I blew into town, it was about 54 hours after I had boarded the bus in Pucon. That 54 hours was comprised of around 36 hours on buses, and the rest if the time spent in what Ned Flanders would describe as "goshforsaken heckholes" such as Osorno and Puerto Montt in Chile, and then Rio Gallegos in Argentina.

I had already wandered around Osorno when I had stopped over there for 4 hours on the way from Bariloche to Pucon, and found the town thoroughly un-noteworthy save for the fact that the local population of stray hounds was particularly frisky. In just 4 hours, I saw at least 6 couples and one threesome physically expressing their love for each other, and they were not discreet about it either. Most of these passionate displays were in the middle of town, in the middle of the afternoon, in front of hundreds of passersby. Fair dinkum, it was as though the 'free love' spirit of late 1960's San Fransisco had sown a slow growing seed down this way. Perhaps Jerry Garcia raised a dog and sent it down here to perpetuate the movement long after its demise in the USA. Having said that, the local establishment certainly didn't seem too 'freaked out' by any of it - I can't imagine they'd be scratching their heads in Osorno City Hall wondering why the dog population seems to double each month.

The dogs were still at it the second time I passed through, and the town was still little more exciting than the wooden benches at the bus terminal. From there it was on to Puerto Montt, which I'm told is a staging point for some good trips to Chiloe Island and a ferry down south to Puerto Natales. Pity I wasn't doing any of that myself, as the city itself wasn't much chop. After an exhaustive string of enquiries at the bus station, I came to terms with the fact that I would have to stay over night and get an early morning bus. Once again the Lonely Planet led me to a dodgy hostel with many flies and a funny smell.

I was relieved to get out of there the next morning and get on the bus back to Bariloche. Two hours after I arrived in Bariloche I departed on another bus to Comodoro Rivadavia (about 12 hours) and then straight off and straight onto another bus to Rio Gallegos. This leg should have only taken 10 or so hours, but in galeforce winds on the Patagonian plains the back window of the bus blew out. This inconvenience cost another 2 hours, but I was just relieved that the bus hadn't blown over - I think I felt it tip over onto two wheels on a few occasions. The highlight of the trip was definitely when we stopped at a roadhouse in the middle of nowhere and there was a guanaco sauntering in and out of the place at its own leisure.

There was a silver lining to the 2 hour wait while they fixed the back window of the bus (ie covered up the hole with cardboard and electrical tape) as I met a great group of people who were also heading to El Calafate - Josh (English) and Imelda (Irish), a couple, and Katie (English) and Rachael (Northern Irish). The 'window incident' meant that we arrived too late in Rio Gallegos to get the bus to El Calafate that night, so we all trudged through the streets together hunting for lodgings. It was remarked by all the striking resemblence that Rio Gallegos bore with the pictures we'd seen on TV of downtown Grozny during the Chechen war of independence. The Falkland Islands were just 1,000 odd km off the coast but as far as I'm aware the 1982 war did not involve a siege of Rio Gallegos, and thus am still not quite sure why the town looked like a wartorn village in the Caucasus.

Needless to say, we were all happy to leave the next morning and finally make it to El Calafate.

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Photos

A friendly guanaco
This was one chilled out animal

Lady and the Tramp
Nothing much fazed these two characters