This is the first (of hopefully many) travel reflections I’ll be posting with the goal of both remembering the travel good times as well as passing on a few nuggets of good travel wisdom.
I’ve traveled to South America now on two separate occasions, both for significant amounts of time. The land of mate’, feijuado, and cerveza is a fantastic place, but can be a challenge to navigate. Especially the Andean countries.
Several years my friend Christian and I were in the midst of a circular trip around the Pacific when we ended up in Chile. Not 10 hours before we were standing in the Atlanta airport, buddy-passes in hand, struggling to hop standby on a flight to Sao Paulo. Walking up to the gate, we saw our chances of hopping on a flight to Brazil were on par with the chances of Sam’s Army defeating the Brazilian soccer players in the World Cup.
Realizing it could be days before we get on a flight to Brazil, we hopped on a flight to Santiago, Chile. About halfway through the flight a bunch of logistical screw ups came to mind because of our quick decision. Regardless, we were on a plane headed to the skinny, almost invisible country in the southern hemisphere.
Once arriving, we immediately booked our bus tickets to Argentina, the backpacker-friendly land of low prices and plentiful hostels. So onward we went, west, through the Andean passes near Portillo, where we could envision ourselves gliding down the powdery slopes.
It was about this time that it his us – it REALLY is winter here. Having just left the American Deep South clad in cargo shorts and flip flops, we knew we would be flopping seasons, but nothing so dramatic.
The Andean passes were amazing, I have to admit. Sharp, jagged – nothing like the dulled Appalachian mountains near home.
So four hours later we made it to Mendoza, the headquarters of Argentinean wine making. A pretty decent place to get stuck in, as we did.
But our eventual goal was to make it to San Carlos de Bariloche, the well known Argentine ski destination. Again, we hopped on a bus with the plan to skirt the Andes in a bus before ending up in northern Patagonia.
Off we went in our bus from Mendoza to Bariloche.
In preparation for our trip, we brought bottles of water, pretzels and a few cookies with the intent of riding through the 18-hour trip in style. This would be enough right?
Not long after we started our trip, the snow started falling. Halfway through our 18-hour trip it got so thick that looking out the window all we could see was a shifting wall of white. It was definitely getting bad.
Coming around a bend and about to go uphill, we realized our bus seemed to be slowing down. With the heavy snow, the roads quickly became slides for our 8-ton bus. As we tried to get uphill, the bus stalled. We were stuck.
As backpackers, time is never important. We had ourselves and our new found friends. And we were constantly being passed by other (better equipped) buses. Once we realized we weren’t going anywhere for a while, it wasn’t a big deal. We just chilled. Like being on a Thai beach with nothing to do but relax, we sat back, talked and played some cards. After a while, we even went into the blizzard to get pictures of the bus. How cool would that be, right?
A few hours later our “rescue” bus came. Coming from the opposite direction, it slowed down as it approached our bus at the bottom of the hill. Wait for it. Wait for it….
And just like that, our rescue bus became the victim bus. As it attempted to come to a stop at the bottom of the hill, the driver hadn’t taken proper measure of the angle of the road in combination with the slick snow-covered roadway. With a perfect view just a few feet away, we watched as our bus slid sideways, as if guided by an invisible hand, into the ditch.
And just like that we had successfully blocked the only roadway into Bariloche, the main winter resort destination for South Americans. Needless to say, we couldn’t believe it.
Funny – absolutely!
Sad, probably.
A problem? Nah, we’ll just keep chilling. After all, we are backpackers.
It’s what we do.
