Pinch me...
You know how sometimes you wake up and wonder if you're still dreaming? Well, try and imagine my surprise upon awakening in my dorm to find that, unbeknownst to me, it was now inhabited largely by Scandinavian girls, who were walking around in their towels. Having pinched myself to be ultra-sure I wasn't still dozing, I headed off for another minimalist breakfast, where I had a nice chat with Christina and Saara, who it turned out are from Finland (though Christina is actually half-Chilean, which is an interesting mix). Ross, who was staying in the other dorm, walked in, looked suspiciously at me, and asked me where I'd suddenly conjured up all these girls from, and I had to answer truthfully that it was none of my doing.
On checking out, I was wondering what I would do to amuse myself until our 1430 bus, when an answer came to me in the form of the laces on my shoes (which had finally come out of storage briefly - I've been in sandals pretty much the whole time here), which inconveniently broke, meaning that my list of tasks accomplished in Spanish now also includes getting replacement shoelaces. I also found, completely by accident, an Argentine flag patch for my pack (and quietly cursed not having found it before my sewing session the previous night), before getting in some more internet time, including booking my flight down from Buenos Aires to El Calafate in Patagonia (next Thursday, before anyone asks).
Then it was off to the bus station, where I decided to grab some lunch before the bus, and ordered a Parilla, a traditional Argentine mixed grill, which turned out to consist of a large chunk of beef rib, a reasonable-sized steak, about a quarter of a chicken, a sausage, a blood sausage and some salsa, accompanied by a bowl of lettuce and tomato salad, another bowl of carrot and egg salad, some fried chunks of plantain or something and the obligatory basket of bread. It beat me. I just couldn't fit it all in. My first defeat by a meal on this trip. It doesn't bode well to have one of them already.
As I mentioned previously, we'd decided to go for the most luxurious class of bus we could get, which with this company (Crucero del Norte) equated to Cama Suite. We thus got on the bus intrigued as to what we would find - the answer turned out to be quite impressive. On a double-decker coach there were less than 30 berths. Each one had a fully reclining seat unit, with a foot rest that could be rotated up to extend the seat and form a fully-flat platform just over 6' long. Width-wise, there were only 3 across the breadth of the coach, so again plenty of room. Add in individual video screens, and you start getting the idea. I promptly christened our trusty steed the Uber-Bus in my head, and wondered whether I would ever be able to take one of the battered fleet of Megabus in the UK ever again.
This added comfort extended to a meal and drinks service onboard - the latter consisting of soft drinks (principally Pepsi), wine with the meal, sparkling wine after the meal, and juice or coffee with breakfast. Unfortunately, the food didn't quite impress as much as this. A very basic ham and cheese sandwich as an afternoon snack (cue Pat gingerly pulling cheese slices out of sandwich), a dinner consisting largely of what I think was supposed to be a spinach omelette but which I refuse to believe belonged to any recognised food group, and a breakfast whose centrepiece was a ham and cheese croissant (cue Pat gingerly scraping cheese out of a croissant). The Argentine obsession with ham and cheese is, in my eyes, one of their less-appealing characteristics. Still, this made my earlier splurge on a Parilla at lunchtime look more like prescience and less like pure gluttony.
The onboard movie choice can similarly best be described as "eclectic". Starting off in early afternoon with a firmly 18-rated action film, Face/Off (seen it before, but old movies beats no movies), then moving onto a serious drama (Michelle Pfeiffer in The Deep End of the Ocean, if I remember the title right), before ending up with a Hollywood/Bollywood crossover entitled Marigold. So at 3pm there's bullets, explosions and gore aplenty, whereas at 11pm there's mass-choreographed song and dance numbers. Weird. Still, all contributed to a decent atmosphere in which I at least managed to get some sleep rather than practically none.
On checking out, I was wondering what I would do to amuse myself until our 1430 bus, when an answer came to me in the form of the laces on my shoes (which had finally come out of storage briefly - I've been in sandals pretty much the whole time here), which inconveniently broke, meaning that my list of tasks accomplished in Spanish now also includes getting replacement shoelaces. I also found, completely by accident, an Argentine flag patch for my pack (and quietly cursed not having found it before my sewing session the previous night), before getting in some more internet time, including booking my flight down from Buenos Aires to El Calafate in Patagonia (next Thursday, before anyone asks).
Then it was off to the bus station, where I decided to grab some lunch before the bus, and ordered a Parilla, a traditional Argentine mixed grill, which turned out to consist of a large chunk of beef rib, a reasonable-sized steak, about a quarter of a chicken, a sausage, a blood sausage and some salsa, accompanied by a bowl of lettuce and tomato salad, another bowl of carrot and egg salad, some fried chunks of plantain or something and the obligatory basket of bread. It beat me. I just couldn't fit it all in. My first defeat by a meal on this trip. It doesn't bode well to have one of them already.
As I mentioned previously, we'd decided to go for the most luxurious class of bus we could get, which with this company (Crucero del Norte) equated to Cama Suite. We thus got on the bus intrigued as to what we would find - the answer turned out to be quite impressive. On a double-decker coach there were less than 30 berths. Each one had a fully reclining seat unit, with a foot rest that could be rotated up to extend the seat and form a fully-flat platform just over 6' long. Width-wise, there were only 3 across the breadth of the coach, so again plenty of room. Add in individual video screens, and you start getting the idea. I promptly christened our trusty steed the Uber-Bus in my head, and wondered whether I would ever be able to take one of the battered fleet of Megabus in the UK ever again.
This added comfort extended to a meal and drinks service onboard - the latter consisting of soft drinks (principally Pepsi), wine with the meal, sparkling wine after the meal, and juice or coffee with breakfast. Unfortunately, the food didn't quite impress as much as this. A very basic ham and cheese sandwich as an afternoon snack (cue Pat gingerly pulling cheese slices out of sandwich), a dinner consisting largely of what I think was supposed to be a spinach omelette but which I refuse to believe belonged to any recognised food group, and a breakfast whose centrepiece was a ham and cheese croissant (cue Pat gingerly scraping cheese out of a croissant). The Argentine obsession with ham and cheese is, in my eyes, one of their less-appealing characteristics. Still, this made my earlier splurge on a Parilla at lunchtime look more like prescience and less like pure gluttony.
The onboard movie choice can similarly best be described as "eclectic". Starting off in early afternoon with a firmly 18-rated action film, Face/Off (seen it before, but old movies beats no movies), then moving onto a serious drama (Michelle Pfeiffer in The Deep End of the Ocean, if I remember the title right), before ending up with a Hollywood/Bollywood crossover entitled Marigold. So at 3pm there's bullets, explosions and gore aplenty, whereas at 11pm there's mass-choreographed song and dance numbers. Weird. Still, all contributed to a decent atmosphere in which I at least managed to get some sleep rather than practically none.
posted by Pat at 12:00 pm
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