Maybe cheapest isn't always easiest. You would think I would know that by now. Prior to coming to Argentina I booked our entire Patagonia travels with a company. They were by far cheaper then some of the big tours out there and they were able to customize our trip to include trekking, fishing and wine tours. I knew going into it that it probably wouldn't be totally smooth with all the transfers that we would have to make, and knowing that we wouldn't be with one group the whole time. Prior to our Antarctic trip we had 2 days arranged and they went off without a hitch, maybe we would get lucky. Today I'm questioning that.....
It started last night, at 7:30pm when our guide called and said our bus ticket couldn't be prepaid from Ushuaia to rio grande , so we needed to go by 8:30 to pay so they would pick us up at the hotel in the morning (at 5:30, not 7 like our itinerary said). Ok, no big deal. We walked down to pay for our tickets and were told that the 6am bus wasn't an option.....hmmm that is the one we were supposed to be booked on. With our lacking spanish we were unable to communicate and ended up with a ticket at 8:30 am. Back at the hotel we struggled to get a hold of our travel agent, but were eventually able to thanks to google voice and us leaving a message on some French answering machine. The agent called the bus company and got everything straightened out...crisis avertered, we think!
While we were packing our bags we realized that we had left both of our duffles on the Antarctica ship...they are probably enjoying more icebergs as I type this. We had to buy some extra gear and were planning on carrying it all in a duffle....now we had to mash it into our already stuffed bags and wear our huge snowboots on the bus travel tomorrow. Once we finished getting everything in our backpacks, a minor miracle in itself, we headed across the street to eat ice cream for dinner. Adam then used a knife to open our bottle of wine because there was NO room left to take it with us. We enjoyed the bottle and set the alarms for much to early in the morning.
Much to my surprise the bus actually came and picked us up at 5:30. We bid adou to Ushuaia and drove 3 hours to the rio grande bus station. There we were supposed to pick up our tickets from a bigger bus company. We went inside and found their booth to be unattended. After waiting around for about 30 mins we pieced together enough spanish to ask when they opened and when the next bus to Puerto Natales was. Boy were we shocked when the answer to both was tomorrow! Ummm my itinerary says I go today, not tomorrow!!! We asked for a phone but they didn't have one we could use, luckily they did have some Internet they were willing to give us the password to. Just as I was loading up google voice to hopefully once again save the day a guy walks in the door. He has a scrap of paper with our names and asks something in Spanish and then says Puerto Arenas. We assume this means he is driving us to Puerto Arenas, which was one of the stops that our bus (which apparently leaves tomorrow) was supposed to make. So here I sit in the back of a random pickup, much more somfortable then those in Nepal, hoping to end up somewhere in Chile and meet someone else that knows how we can get to Puerto Natales tonight. This might be a little more adventure then I bargained for.
So the pickup worked out great. We got to puert arenas about two hours faster then we would have by bus. Once there it took a little while for the driver to find the right bus station, but eventually he did. He even went inside to double check it was were the buses to Puerto Natales leave from. We said chow and headed inside with our bags. While looking at the schedule the ladies at the counter pointed to the back room and started laughing....they also said something in Spanish but we have no idea what. We hung out in the back room for a few minutes and then went back out front to check the schedule and get our tickets, that were supposed to be prepaid. We had about 90 minutes until the next bus and of course they said they have no record of our tickets. I tried to log onto the wifi there but the girls in the front said they didn't he any...yes they did i could see the network, I just don't think they cared to help me any. About that a time a guy from Virginia started talking to us. He said he was having issues too. We felt mildly better after learning that he spoke Spanish and still couldn't get a ticket. I decided to venture out inseach of Internet while Adam stayed behind to guard our bags. I found a unlocked wifi and was able to send an email, but soon lost signal. I roamed around town some more in search of an ATM and Internet. When I saw a Best Western hotel I thought it might work out since the name was in English. Luckily the guy at the counter was extremely helpful. He let me use the hotel computers, they didn't have wifi. With about 40 minutes remaining until the bus departure I gave up on contacting our travel agent and set off for the ATM that the guy told me about. I made it back to the bus station fully prepared to buy new tickets if we needed. I handed the lady ate the desk our passports, which they had refused to take earlier and she said " ok, seats 33 and 34". She then handed back our passports and a scrap of paper with 33,34 written on it. We boarded the bus with our "ticket" and headed out of town. About 20 minutes into the ride a guy comes down the aisle collecting tickets. We look at each other and Ali, then hand him our scrap of paper. He looks concerned for a second and then says, ok and moves on to the next person. Right now we have two hopes: that we are on the correct bus (they never announced a destination), and secondly that when/if we arrive there is someone there to meet us and that they know what the heck we are doing the net 4 days. That's not too much to ask for right?!?!
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