Are we there yet? (Or, how to amuse yourself on a bus for more than 40 hours straight)

Because after all, who cares about volcanoes and Fireland and Belen's hot friends and the edge of the world when you could read about what we did during the bus ride down to Rio Gallegos?

This, naturally, is a long post ...

July 22, 2005. 9.05 a.m.
Half an hour or so outside of Bahia Blanca - stopped there this morning around 8 a.m. Sleepy so not surprised that the cold blatantly ignored the jacket, was shaking like a leaf out there. There's classics on the radio being sung by what sounds like the original artists but in Spanish. By classics I mean Bryan Adams, Everything I do (Todo lo que hago, hago por ti); Toni Braxton and Unbreak my Heart, whoever that chick is that sings All By Myself in the beginning of Bridget Jones' Diary. Mariano, the attendant (not Martin this time, how disappointing!) is handing around cups for coffee and tea. The water he pours has already been sweetened. Argentines are serious about their sugar - "Did you see how Belen never takes any sugar?" her friend Bebe asked me one day as we made coffee in Rosario. As Belen had just that second dumped a spoonful into her cup I thought it was a joke, and laughed politely - until Bebe poured about six tablespoons into her own cup, then started dipping her crackers straight into the sugar bowl. Not exaggerating. The sugar packets are at least twice the size of the ones in Bermuda. They survive on a diet of caffeine, nicotine, and glucose.

I'm hungry.

In Bahia Blanca Belen did her "Good morning, I'm tiny and supercute" routine, and is even now sitting in the copilot's seat taking mate with the driver and talking a mile a minute. I should've gone with her, but was feeling too drowsy and, surprisingly, comfortable ... will go next time. Tea and vanilla cookies constitute breakfast. I hate everyone who is eating at Robin Hood right now.

The scenery. Windows beaded with moisture, rain spattering, but beyond can see the sky. Looks a lot earlier than it actually is. If you glance out the window, it's just Canada. Keep expecting to see that lovely nuclear plant along the 401 that signals it's just another half an hour to Port Hope.

Yesterday. We took a coche cama to Buenos Aires from Rosario, the bus left at about 4 p.m., arrived around 8 p.m. Didn't want to sleep but couldn't help it - we hadn't gone to bed the night before (July 20 is Dia del Amigo) and knew full well we wouldn't be sleeping easy on the semi cama to Gallegos. Now the radio is playing Roxette, It Must've Been Love. Same song that woke us up every morning on that swim trip to Maryland.

Was nice to be back in BA - sad how good it is to be in a familiar place, particularly when that familiar place is the Retiro bus station. Checked email - _______ had her baby. Said a prayer for Cassidy, and for a happy ending to it all.

Sky brightening, land undulating. As you drive by the hills move laconically, like ocean swells. Got on the bus last night in high spirits. They showed Intolerable Cruelty, which reminds me - must find man with unimaginably sexy voice like George Clooney. Matthew McConaughey would do if necessary. Every once in a while a dirt road leading off the highway out to sea.

The people. Last night was observing the guy across the aisle in front of us. Long-legged, lanky, nice sweater, Universidad de Buenos Aires books. What if he's the love of my life? I started to wonder. I'll never know if he is. What if he is? I probably wouldn't go up and randomly strike up a conversation with him anyway, even if he spoke English. Oh God, that's the love of my life sitting right there and I'll never know. And sixty years from now I'll die alone, except for my two cats Ernesto and Jack ... Suddenly, he turned around, and I saw his face. Oh. Ok. Definitely not the love of my life. Phew.

To sleep or to read?

2.30 p.m.
La Prudencia es Vida - sign blazed below an old, rusted out car mounted by the side of the road, 10 feet in the air. Stopped in another town - San Antonio, on Rio Negro. Everything brown, dusty, wide streets, low houses, old and worn. Only colour came from the sky burning overhead. Tiny children playing football, cars kicking up dust. In Rosario in the Locutorio one day small boys were sitting there for hours just playing games on the Net. It drove Belen nuts. We used to just play outside, in the street, she said. All day outside. Their parents should be sending them to sports or taking care of them or something. They don't even play football anymore.

3 p.m.
Looking at landscape and can see why geology would be fascinating. All flat and then for no apparent reason a hill shaped like the prow of a boat rears up. Earlier saw one that looked like some creature straining to burst out of the earth, two roads over it like ropes tying it down - Gulliver with the Lilliputians (those were the little people, right?). If only could remember any of the geology learned with SEA, but can't even remember the awful geology puns Emily and I made up. Very schisty (hehe). Stopped few minutes outside San Antonio in Las Grutas, beachy touristy area. Water blinding. Now super warm out, could've sat outside and suntanned. Houses more colourful, Spanish red roofs. We've left Canada and have arrived in California. I can't believe Becca got me hooked on to The O.C. I was doing so well without TV.

7 p.m.
Leaving Puerto Madryn. Movie, please, movie, please!

Very boring afternoon. Driving bus, the motion of the ocean lulls you into a trance, don't want to read, don't want to play cards, nothing. Belen sleeping, my mind lazily daydreaming. Scenery now starting to look more like South Africa, the krall. What, do all big countries look the same? Must break out Story of an African Farm again when get home to get the right lingo down. Jugged hills, more ragged. Belen awoke, we ate crackers and drank chocolate milk. Only one sandwich left in our pack but then only 17 or so hours to go. No problem. Rick Astley on the radio now, images of a young Jasey dancing around and singing. "Together forever and never to part ..."

Sun was setting as finished our snack, spectacular over the flatlands and clear skies. Looked for the green flash but didn't see it. Belen announced we were arriving in Puerto Madryn, another beach resorty type town. I looked around and saw nothing but plains for miles, couldn't fathom the sea being near. Then suddenly the ground dropped away and we rounded the top of a valley, the city spread out below us in the sun's last rays, massive cranes on the loading docks, and the water. The good ol' Atlantic, I'd missed it. Stopped for five minutes in the bus stop and three children were running over a bluff jutting up behind us. The sun had just set behind it, the sky blazing red, the bluff jet black, the children silhouettes. Cursed having left my camera in the big bag, buried in the bowels of the bus.

A single star low in the sky as we leave Puerto Madryn, maybe 20 or 25 degrees. I'm going to bet it's Sirius and hope none of the Seamans crew ever read this.

July 23, 2005. 4.30 a.m.
Am starting to vaguely dislike buses. Time passed smoothly after Puerto Madryn for a while as they played two Vin Diesel movies - hours of staring at arm muscles I never even knew existed. Then reached Comodoro Rivadavia. Disembarked for the expected five minutes and ran to buy water but on the return we were told we'd be waiting another 40 minutes for a bus to arrive with people who were connecting with us. Had a bad feeling immediately - we were scheduled to arrive in Caleta Olivia, a city further don de road, at 1.40 a.m. to make the bus for the last leg to Gallegos, leaving at 2.40 a.m. Drank coffee in a dingy cafe and reasoned with ourselves that if our bus was waiting for passengers, the bus in Caleta Olivia would wait for passengers too, if for some reason we were late.

Clearly we were wrong (and clearly the other bus took longer than 40 minutes). Arrived in Caleta Olivias around 3 a.m., the wind hurling the stars around, a dry, dusty cold. Memories of arriving exhausted at the Kingston bus station at 3 a.m., the relief of P'Tim coming to get me. In Caleta Olivias our bus had left without us. Nothing for it but to wait until the next one - no cafe in Caleta Olivias either, and naturally it was the most rundown and unpleasant of all the many bus stations we'd seen. No water in the bathrooms, including to flush the toilets - felt like how everyone in Bermuda must've felt during the drought. There was a kiosco selling Friday's newspapers, at least - caught a glimpse of the Clarin headline as was doing the 19th lap of the dingy station. That was the first we'd heard of the second (failed) attacks in London. All seemed very surreal, at that hour of the night, that far away, to suddenly think of the friends there, and that it had all happened two days before - a jolt. Thank goodness they failed. People here keep asking me now if I'm nervous to be moving to London. Jihad has no place in South America. Perched on our bags as Belen chain smoked and tried not to think longingly of the Special Bed. Ten minutes, the guys in the station told us. It'll just be ten minutes.

An hour and a half later bus arrived. By now so tired that not tired. Windows clear, nothing but plains again, and can't stop looking at the stars. Like the beginning of Far From the Madding Crowd as Gabriel watches the heavens catapult around. Like dawn watch. A shadowy figure naming the constellations for you, Vegas, so close, coffee hot in your cold wet hands, the deck rolling. Impossible not to fall for someone who can show you the stars.

12 p.m.

We were supposed to arrive in Gallegos at 8 a.m. After finally fell asleep last night awoke vaguely this morning feeling more greasy, grimy and braindead than either of us have ever felt in our lives. They are now playing some Dreamworks animation show, these little Pequenads or something, tiny Patagonian - somethings - who re-enact old Patagonian legends and preach that to be a superhero you don't have to save the planet, you just have to preserve it. They're actually hilarious, they're showing outtakes right now - love it when they make cartoons do outtakes. Can't remember the last time we ate or drank anything and are now devouring crackers and a bottle of water. The coffee and cookies were brought around again this morning but we slept through them.

2 p.m.

Have just arrived in Rio Gallegos, six hours after were supposed to. A frontier town in windswept Patagonia. Belen's parents just pulling up in the car. Am going to have a lot more to say about all this - after a sleep and a shower ...

"The flight back in the airplane takes three hours," Belen just said.