Shorthand Patagonia - Day 12

January 27th

5:45am – this is getting old.

6:30am – on bus! El Chaltén decides to bid us farewell with a bright blue sky streaked with little bands of painted-on clouds hanging high above the sunrise-showered peaks of Mt. Fitzroy and his friends. Good thing we didn’t spoil our nice warm—seated—view by killing ourselves yesterday. I take pictures through the window, then we go to sleep.

11:30am-ish – arrive in El Calafate. It’s sunnier than I remember. After storing our luggage at the bus station, we head out to wander around town and through park, to buy Gras a t-shirt, and to find internet and food.

1:00pm – food found in form of empanadas (which, by the way—way better in argentina than in chile. sorry, chile.).

2:30pm – replace chapstick.

3:00pm – contemplate climbing el Cerro Calafate; turns out it’s faraway and a 3 hour hike just to summit, not the 850m “workout” just behind some hostel I’d been led to believe. Good work, guidebook. Eat brownie instead; good decision.

4:35pm – still have time to kill. Grocery runs are always fun, right?

5:30pm – on way to bus station, run into french couple we met in the airport who are biking across the world. They look tired. Trip seems to be coming full circle...inefficiently, but full-circle nonetheless.

6:25pm – getting ready to board bus, I try taking off my old luggage tag before giving my backpack to the attendant. This proves more difficult than expected; while attempting to ease the tag out of its slipknot I manage to make a reverse slipknot. The bus attendant finds this hilarious and will continue laughing at me everytime he walks by my (frontrow—hell yeah!) seat until we get to Chile.

6:28pm – open can of tuna and drain into bus terminal trashcan in preparation for mobile dinner.

6:30pm – on bus. Cute Israeli from prison-hostel is sitting across the aisle and one row behind us with group of Israelis we'd met there. He borrows my pen.

6:37pm – yogurt? Don’t want it to get warm....

6:38pm – gras and I realize we need to eat all open cans of tuna/newly-bought fruit/cheese. Worse things could happen—break out the not-so-clean forks. Are they going to take our still at least half-full tía from us?

6:41pm – oh fun! our giggly bus attendant just put in Adam Sandler’s The Longest Yard—this will be a cultural experience!

8:30pm - torres del paine starts to edge its way near in our kick-ass view through the front of the bus. we eat chocolate. try to eat as much fruit as possible. should we ask the attendant if they search the bus?

8:50pm - arrive at customs/immigration, conveniently located right near the midpoint souvenir store; it's all starting to come together now.

8:52pm - crap; we have to take everything off the bus to bring in for inspection. frightened by the ubiquitously-posted signs warning of automatic fines for agricultural smuggling when entering chile, we throw together a trash bag and decide to take the hit. tía, however, comes with us.

9:01pm - sweet--they actually gave us stamps this time!

9:02pm - approach inspection lady. she looks nice. inspection lady looks through bags, sees bottle of tía maría, looks at me and laughs. i love this country.

9:15pm - back on bus; victorious.

10:30pm - arrive in Puerto Natales--I'm home again. feeling the accumulating strain our wallets, we decide to pass on Erratic Rock and find ourselves beds in a backpacker place that's slightly cheaper and virtually empty. the hostle owner wants to know if we're planning on going out tonight; haha...who needs to go out when you have a successfully transported half-full bottle of tía maría's? i'll heat some water; gras will steal the bread. we love traveling.