My Adventures and Travels

The United States uses dogs to search for explosives and drugs. Chile uses dogs to make sure you're not illegally transporting produce into the country. I'm sure there is a good reason for this, but it makes going through customs at the border a time-consuming ordeal! I had friends who were stuck at the border crossing for 4 hours so I was a little nervous about it, but I think my bus got through in about an hour and a half. Since the border dividing Chile and Argentina is the Andes mountain range, it's quite a scenic location! We had to get off the bus, go inside, and everyone had to go through a line to get stamped "out" of Argentina. Then go through another line to get stamped "into" Chile. Then we went back to the bus, where they take all the luggage out from below, and it goes through a metal detector (apple detector?) while dogs sniff all the bags. While that is happening, passengers take all their other luggage from the bus and put it on...

When I left you, dear readers, I was holding on for dear life in the brutal Patagonian wind, looking for a place to spend the night. Okay, maybe it wasn't that bad. But it was pretty bad. Anyway I got to the bus station in El Chalten after the bus out of town had already boarded and I had to ask the bus driver to find me the ticket seller so I could get on! Predictably, she was taking a break, but luckily it was a break with the bus driver. Anyhoo I got a ticket and had a couple hours to relax and thaw out on the way back to Calafate. It is kind of nice, when traveling, to get to a city that is even the slightest bit familiar. Apparently the downside of that is that I didn't take a single picture this time. Oops. Even though I only spent 2 nights in Calafate I knew the main street and was able to find my new hotel easily. Did you notice I said hotel? Not hostel? Well I decided it was time to splurge a little bit and I sure did enjoy the luxury of not only my own room but also...

When we woke up the morning after the hike in El Bolson, it was raining pretty hard. I felt like I timed it just right, if it's going to rain all day I might as well be on a bus, right? I got a cab into town and hung out at the bus station/travel place. I was a little nervous, this was to be my first REALLY long haul ride: to leave at 11am and arrive at 1pm the following day. What would I DO for all that time? What if I sat next to someone who smelled bad or something? All I could do was download some new books on my kindle, buy a bottle of wine, charge all my devices, and hope for the best. It was a long time. But it wasn't *that* bad. I did a lot of reading, sudoku puzzles, logic puzzles, sleeping, movie-watching, eating, and sleeping more. The bus class for pretty much all long-hauls is "cama" which means bed. The seats are big and do recline really far back, and have more than adequate leg room for my short self. But they don't go totally flat and it's n...