Sat 22nd Nov: South to Patagonia

Got up at 7am for a 7.45 bus to Bariloche. This is the first leg of the journey to El Calafate, a 36hr trek to Rio Gallegos in southern Argentina. The journey to Bariloche was a 4hr bus ride through some pretty spectacular landscapes of the lake district. Most of the road through here consisted of a gravel surface. It wound its way over ridges, through valleys and sometimes through thick woodland. By the time we got to Bariloche it was cool, breezy and overcast. The heavy jacket was definitely needed today.

I had 5hrs to kill in Bariloche before my bus to Commodoro Rivadavia, and then Rio Gallegos, departed at 17.15. I got some money, bought the bus ticket and tried to find a place showing the Ireland v Argentina rugby match. I went to an Irish pub in town but it doesn´t open until 6pm. Everywhere else in town was showing the Davis cup final between Argentina and Spain which was on up in Buenos Aires. Frustrated in my efforts to see the rugby I retired to a cheap local restaurant and watched the tennis while I ate.

I spent a couple of hours on the blog in an internet cafe and saw there that Ireland had beaten Argentina and, indeed, cov had won as well. So all in all a fairly successful day on the sporting front. I got back to the bus station under heavy skies. The wind was whipping up small white rollers on lake Nahuel Huapi. It felt chilly. As the bus pulled away from Bariloche the rain began to splatter on the windows.

This second leg of the journey was an overnight trek to Commodoro Rivadavia on the Atlantic coast. We were due to arrive at 6am in the morning with a 2hr stopover there before another 10hr journey to Rio Gallegos. Through the failing light of the evening the bus passed through valleys framed by high mountains whos upper slopes were obscured by heavy cloud. Rain fell intermittently.

We passed through a small town and watched as the locals went about their daily activities. While the town and its buildings looked different to home and the ancient cars that chugged around certainly looked different. It struck me that activities I was watching were no different to what you´d see everyday at home. People were going about their daily in the very same way we do. People were coming and going from the supermarket. A couple of neighbours stopped in the street to chat. An old lady in an apron sweeps away dirt off the footpath in front of her home. A man finishes plastering a garden wall as acouple of youngsters pass by walking a dog. In a tattered old car stopped at traffic lights a parent a the steering wheel turns to attend to a child on the backseat.

Mostly when you go travelling you look for the differences between places and think of far off places as being so alien from life at home. Then, on the odd occasion, out of the blue, the similarities between life in remote places strikes you and you realize the differences between here and there very often only exist in the smaller more visible details of a different life. The overall picture of life between places is very much the same. Its funny how striking that realization is when it does occur to you.

By 9pm it was dark. The shawshank Redemption was on the tv screens in spanish. We were served spaghettis Bolognaise for dinner and soon after that I tried to get some sleep.