Journey To Ushuaia

I was booked to leave P. Madryn on an Andesmar bus bound for Rio Gallegos (16hrs) where I would have 2.5hrs to sit around for my bus to Ushuaia - the ´Southern Most City In The World´(tm) (12hrs).

It didn´t start off too well as my bus was two hours late into P. Madryn. Things got worse as I didn´t even get a number on my card during the Bingo game on board the bus, they showed the Will Smith vehicle "The Pursuit of Happyness" twice (Awful) and we somehow clocked up another 40 minutes of delay - meaning I missed the connecting bus by 10 mins.

I wandered around a bit dazed and confused trying to figure out if I could litigate against Andesmar, and happened across a Swedish girl, two Slovakians and an Israeli who were in the same pickle. There were no more buses that day, the only flight was in Business Class and costed a fortune and so we had to accept that we were due to spend the night in this bland and windy town. We booked ourselves on a flight with the Argentine Airforce (LADE) the next afternoon and did what seemed like the only sensible thing to do when stuck in a crap town - get drunk in an irish bar. (Again, no irish people, but the people were friendly and they played some good old indie classics which warmed my belly).

The next day the wind howled around outside and nearly blew me off my feet as I walked out to get facturas (delicious sweet croissants) and orange juice. When I returned the slovakian girl asked the very short owner of this surreal little hostel if she thought the flight would be delayed or cancelled due to the wind. The tiny woman gave a big belly laugh and declared, with a wagging finger in the air, that "this is not wind!".

We made our way to the very modern airport - perhaps the nicest thing about Rio Gallegos - with every tree and lamp post looking like it might be uprooted and sent flying into the air. While we waited for the flight I taught the others how to play the card game sh1thead. The Slovaks told me that in their culture it was considered very lucky to get a bird poo on your head... this might explain whey they were not so upset at losing the three games we played.

The time came and we boarded the plane. It was old and rickety and I thought the wind we experienced just sitting on the tarmac might be enough to tear the wings from the plane. However, my prayers to every known god were answered and we took off without problem. The views of Tierra Del Fuego were almost as amazing as the monk outfits the LADE stewardesses were wearing... 50 minutes later we landed in the cold and snow of Ushuaia airport.