Bad luck bus

Leaving behind all the the bus trouble in Brazil – Fei sleeping trough her bus stop while Ellen was desperately running around the terminal, asking all the Chinese looking people if they had seen her; practicing our theater skills by pretending we really thought our departure time was at 16:30 instead of 15:30 when we arrived late at the bus station – we wanted to start fresh in Argentina.

That was a bit optimistic…

To take revenge on Fei, Ellens bus decided to arrive about 10 hours late to let Fei know how it feels to wait in desperation. While waiting, Fei and Rian thought it would be practical to buy bus tickets for the next day to Mendoza. Luckily, after finding out that most of the buses where already fully booked, a very young and helpful Gaucho arranged some tickets for us. Thank god, we could leave tomorrow!!

That was a bit optimistic…

Besides being young and helpful, unfortunately he was also very clumsy… While he was busy talking to his MSN-boyfriend, he put the wrong date on our bus ticket. When we arrived the next day, ready and steady for a 20 hour bus trip, we found out that we were ought to leave the day before. And of course the boy was gone.

We cried and begged – because that helps in Brazil – but they didn’t fall for our drama in Argentina. Or was it because this time there was a woman ‘helping’ us? Anyway, people here seem to be more interested in MSN Messenger service than customer service.

Even doing the whole show again in front of a guy didn’t help us this time. We had to buy new tickets to be on crappy seats at 22:00 o’clock that evening. Remembering the nice road stations in Brazil we forgot about all the stress and started to get excited for our first bus stop dinner.

That was way too optimistic!

The next day we couldn’t get off the bus anymore as we were all starved and dried out. The bus didn’t stop once. Luckily, Mendoza is famous for wine and good food, so we decided that we deserved a huge lunch. Dried out, we already ordered a bottle of good wine and Ellen was drunk in 10 minutes. It was the best lunch ever.

We learned our lesson and the next bus trip we were fully equipped with six bags full of groceries. While enjoying our own dinner at about 21:00, the conductor started to hand out complete meals. This time we left the bus with a filled stomach so we could handle the temperature shock in Patagonia.