Calzar???

Three days ago we concluded another of our epic overland journeys from central Argentina to Southern Argentina. This time we did it by bus from Bariloche to Rio Gallegos, Argentina. Argentina is reportedly the eighth largest country in the world, so this was not a short journey. It was 27 hours to be precise. A trip similar to lets say Bend to Tijuana. Not something we would consider under normal conditions. But something that seems okay, expected even, during a long-term travel adventure.

Armed with two plastic bags full of food provisions, we set off. We boarded at about 5:15 p.m. to the upper level of a shiny new double-decker bus. Flat screen TVs hung from the ceilings, proudly playing video hits of the 70s and 80s. This seemed to be a universal choice, as tourists of all nations, quickly joined in and could be heard quietly singing along. At one point Lisa caught Ari gently bopping his head from left to right to the beat of ¨Girls just want to have fun¨by Cindi Lauper.

We opted for ¨coche cama¨which allegedly came with nearly fully reclining seats. This was actually true, but still Ari could not fully extend his legs. We thought the perks ended there, but no there were others...

Dinner Service
At about 9:30 p.m., we crossed some sort of checkpoint. The music videos were placed on mute. The Argentine police boarded and checked passports. The asked Ari and I if we spoke Spanish. We replied yes, and they asked us to ask the group behind us to please be quiet, as people were trying to rest. We agreed. One half hour later, loud beats from the 80s bands again began to blare from the T.V.
At 11 p.m., dinner service was to begin, complete with complementary wine and beer. But one exception; no one was to be served unless everyone put on their shoes. This was a hard message for the bus attendant to convey to the passengers. A verb sounding like ¨calzar¨was used. One that none of us had heard before, a verb that left us stumped. We tried to convey to the attendant that we did not know what this verb meant, but this resulted in repetition rather than clarification of the word. Finally a bilingual Chilean passenger interpreted for the rest of the passengers, and shoes were placed on all feet and dinner was served.

Movie Service
One loud, embarrassingly violent American movie was played after dinner.

Breakfast
One hard candy each.

At six a.m., we switched out buses for the final 12 hour journey. This bus did not offer coche cama, but the step down version of semi-cama. This meant reclining seats with less room, no music, two violent movies, and no meal service. Instead you were offered all the Tang and sweetened instant coffee you desired. We arrived that evening, slightly worn out, and happy to be able to stand up and walk.

We would like to say that it will be our last overland journey of this proportion, but unless our budget will miraculously change (not going to happen), we will probably have to repeat it in reverse in a couple of weeks.

A Day in the Life-Chile

Micros
An interesting phenomenon has taken place in the bus culture of Chile. The drivers of the buses, often called micros, have decided that instead of gazing out the windows at the jaw dropping scenery of the Andes, that the average tourist would rather watch a movie. On one occasion, Ari and Lisa were the only two passengers on the bus. The driver shortly pulled over and put in a DVD about WWII. He played it on volume 20 (of 20) and since we were (un)luckily only 2 seats away from the screen, none of the gruesome war scenes and bullet sounds were missed. On the way back, the war scenes were replaced with Chilean ¨pop¨music videos, with Chilean women gyrating to the beat in sequenced crop tops and mini skirts.
On busier rural buses, the driver often takes on a role similar to that of a local bartender. The passengers enter always with a polite greeting and often offer a handshake. The next ten minutes or so are spent with the passenger leaning against the railing next to the driver catching up on the latest news until the next stop, when a new passenger enters and repeats the process.

Short Buildings and Tall Gringos
We decided early on to try and stay in home stays in Chile rather than hostels to have more opportunities to practice speaking Spanish and to learn more about he culture. Although we found this to overall be an amazing experience, we quickly realized that Ari was too tall for the average Chilean household. His head often touches kitchen ceilings, hits doorways and his feet often hang off the edge of the bed. Going out into the community also presents other risks. The ceiling at a local bar hovered merely one inch above his head (This quickly brought a smile to the bar owner when pointed out by Lisa).

Documentary Film Festival- Chilean Style

Few of you know that Ari has a desire to someday be a documentarian. This dream came about two years ago at the Bend Film Festival. Ari shared his dream with his cousin Seth, who graciously purchased a video camera as a wedding present. Unfortunately, although the desire was there, a topic for a film was not, so we opted to return the camera (Thanks again Seth!!). Ari´s time to become a famous documentarian has not yet arrived.
Thus said, we were pretty excited to see that we had arrived in the ¨mystical, superstition-filled¨ island of Chiloe in the south of Chile during the ¨Chiloe Documentary Film Festival.¨ We thought of it as an excellent opportunity to learn more about Chile, practice our Spanish, and maybe meet some locals. Luckily, we got all three, but in a bit of a drawn out, painful manner.
As We have learned in the last three weeks, timeliness is not of utmost importance in Chile. Buses have nearly always been late. With this in mind, we arrived for the first movie of the day at 10 am on day three of the four day festival. It was cold, very very cold in the theater. We wore gloves, wool caps, long underwear, and two or more jackets each. They did not think it was necessary to turn on the heat in the giant theater for the four audience members. Four members including ourselves. After some technical delays, the first movie began around 11 am, only one hour late.
The second movie of the morning ended abruptly after only 10 minutes, this time with severe technical difficulties. By this time, only two audience members remained, Ari and Lisa. They did not go to as extreme of measures to repair this movie as the had with the first (changing laptops, etc) as they most likely correctly assumed that we only understood about 50% of the movie, and it really wasn´t worth the effort.
In classic Chilean style, they were very hospitable and told us to be back that afternoon and they would take us to the next venue where we could see the conclusion of the film. We were to meet them at 2:30, and we showed up promptly to wait in the rain for about 20 minutes. At that point one of the organizers ran up and told us all of the plans had changed, and we were to meet back at four p.m.....
We returned at 4:45 to catch the final afternoon films.
All in all, a truly wonderful experience. Our goals were met of learning about Chile, practicing Spanish, and meeting locals, who even invited us out for the post festival dinner celebration. Ten o´clock p.m. however, was much past our bedtime (assuming they would probably be meeting not at ten o´clock but much later), and we were tired from shuttling back and forth in the rain to sit in a cold theater straining to understand Chilean Spanish. But hey, who are we to complain. If we´ve had nothing else this year, we´ve had time.