bus trips

Dan: There are plenty of people who’ve spent more time on buses than we have, and in other countries, but I think we pretty much understand the long-term bus ride in Argentina. Let me tell you about it. Apparently as a result of a former president’s neo-liberal policies 10 or 15 years ago, there are (almost) no trains in Argentina any more. The tracks are there still, and people are talking about getting them running again. For now, the most common form of transportation and shipping is by road. Long-distance buses are huge, cushy, double-decker rolling dormitories. Not Guatemalan chicken buses by a long shot. Shorter distance buses (2-5 hours) are not quite so nice or so big. The big boys generally have available 3 classes of seating: “semi-bed,” which reclines to 45 degrees, a little better than an airplane seat and has a nice foot rest; “bed,” which is the same thing but with a cushier chair, (I imagine) like first-class in an airplane; and “First-class,” in which the chair reclines to a full 180-degree bed. In our experience, “bed” isn’t much better than “semi-bed.” We haven’t tried the 1^st class yet. There is overhead room for carry-ons and a large area below for checked baggage. You turn in a ticket to reclaim your bag.

While in transit, passengers are treated to movies. In fact, I’m pretty sure that over the two weeks of travel in July I saw more films than in the entire 5 months we’ve been here, especially from the Nicholas Cage, and Denzel Washington collections. They are almost always Hollywood movies and are generally subtitled, but sometimes dubbed. The volume control is in the hands of the steward. There usually isn’t any entertainment between 1 AM and 10 AM. If you are lucky, there might be a game of bingo during the trip. The winner gets a bottle of wine.

If one’s travel takes place during meal times, he/she is treated to food. 6 AM: coffee or tea and cookies, 1 PM: sandwiches, cookies, something fruitlike, soda, 10 PM: bread, cookies, a pasta dish or meat. Beer and wine are available for a few pesos.

In addition to the on-board entertainment, Lou and I have found a few other ways to wile away the hours. We read, do crosswords in English and (less successfully) in Spanish, and play Travel Scrabble. We try to sit in the very front, on the top level, if possible, so as to be able to see the scenery. I bragged to my students about sitting in the front row and they said that that was the most dangerous seat in the bus, and often the only one with a seat belt (we wear it). At night, the steward hands out pillows. We bring our own blanket and have found that ear plugs, eye masks and herbal sedatives also help us get some sleep.

The bathroom on the bus “only accepts liquids.” So the bus stops for bathroom breaks every 4 or 5 hours. I always get off, even just to stretch my legs and check out whichever bus station we’re in. The steward always says that we’ll be there for 5 minutes, or we’ll be there for 10 minutes, which really means 15 or 20 minutes. The time depends on how many people are getting off or new passengers are getting on. One time, in Santiago del Estero I think it was, I assumed it would be 10 minutes, so went to ask about bus times and check out what the local street food was. Then I turned and saw my bus pulling away. I chased it down and found Louann standing in the doorway with a panicked look on her face, having slowed down the departure of the bus using her excellent panicked Spanish.

I remember our first long trip, a 10-hour overnight jaunt to Cordoba, seemed really long. Neither of us got any rest and we spent much of the rest of our trip catching up on sleep. After the 36-hour ride to Iguazu, the shorter trips of 8, 12 or 18 hours we took to get home seemed like nothing. Even so, when one of those trips is delayed, it can be frustrating. Buses seem to be quite punctual, but we had one that didn’t leave until 45 minutes later than posted, then had a punctured tire. We ended up driving to the tire-fixing place and waiting another hour or so while they fixed it. Of course this put us behind schedule for the next bus. We got to Tucuman later than planned, and by stroke of luck, in five minutes we found another bus that was just about to leave, that continued to take us north to Salta.

The picture is of the paint we got to watch dry while waiting for our late bus.

Food: The street food that very nearly separated me from from my wife at a bus station was something called a panchuker, or panchuque at another stand. It is another variation on the pancho, or hot dog. A pancake dough is place in the waffle-iron type contraption. A wiener is placed on top then covered by more dough and ironed. The result is somewhat like a pale corndog but crunchier. This picture is of me and a very sweet lady in Salta who not only sold me a panchuque (for about US$0.25) but also told us about a place that turned out to be a courtyard with live music, surrounded by about 10 empanada vendors, called "El Rincon de la Empanada," where we enjoyed the sun, some wine and finger food the rest of the afternoon.

In Mendoza, I think I’ve mentioned before, street food is pretty limited. Popcorn, peanuts ("japanese", candied, salted, or in-shell), coffee and rolls. Pretty lame. I have always, against my better judgement, been a big fan of streetside home-cooking. In Salta I couldn’t resist the
sandwiches and panchos. We also had some very nice honey popcorn.

Other items available in Salta were other varieties of empanada, plus tamales and humitas. The tamales there looked like Mexican tamales, wrapped in corn husks, but the dough was much mushier and yellow. They might have been boiled instead of steamed. The fillings I had were ground beef or something called charqui (jerky?) with potato. Humitas seemed to me like what I always knew as tamales, but were filled with a little cheese. They came in two varieties; sweet or salty. In this picture I am walking, very happily, and eating a tamal de charqui. In general, the food in Salta had more spice. There was actual homemade salsa on the tables at times.