Road Fever

Often when I travel I find myself doing things I would never entertain the idea of at home; sharing a bathroom with 17 other people, living on a crap diet and travelling large distances by bus.

I´m currently half way through another 2-day road trip that started in the very far Northern tip of Argentina (on the border with Brasil), brought me here to Resistancia after 12 hours in a bus and will see me finishing up in Buenos Aires after another 13 hours on the road. From BA I´ll then head to Uruguay, by boat.

I estimate that by the time I get to BA i´ll have covered around 6000 Km by bus, taking almost 102 hours (mostly overnight). To add to this i´ve taken 3 internal flights since I got here which will probably bring the total distance covered closer to 10 000Km - thats the distance from Paris to Dakar, or Teheran!) Never before in any of my travels have I covered such huge distances.

Unless you can afford to fly between cities here (and tourists pay 2.5 times more for a flight than an Argentine resident...) then the bus is your only option.

Up here in the North buses and roads are both of an excellent quality. The roads are sealed and the buses come in two classes; ´semi-cama´ which reclines more than a usual chair, and ´cama´ which goes all the way back to an almost flatbed giving you a ride pretty close to Air France business class (only with crap food).

The further South you go though the service of both bus and roads deteriorate. To get from El Chalten to Bariloche in Patagonia Johan and I spent 2 days on a bus. The first day being broken with regular 15 min rest stops, both for us and the drivers as the road was nothing more than a dirt track. The second day was about 50% sealed roads, but the same driver drove almost continously (2 stops, 1 of 10 mins, 1 of 15 mins) for 14 hours straight. With about 7-hours remaining and with both my legs and bum numb I asked Johan the question, ´That El Chalten trek again in the wind, rain and snow or this bus journey?´ His response matched mine. We´d both gladly expose ourselves to the elements for a grueling 5-hours of shivering pain than sit coupped up in a bus for 2-days again.

Somehow though when you´re on holiday it all becomes part of the adventure, adds to the experience. If I come back to Argentina though i´m going to buy myself a car and have myself a real roadtrip. The most popular variety around here seems to be an old citreon, which I think will suit me quite nicely!

xxx