Buses, Boats, and Automobiles
Yes, more family traveling disasters as we ventured from northwestern Uruguay to the Sierra mountains of Argentina (southwest of Cordoba).
We started for Montevideo on the Saturday before Christmas, leaving Punta del Diablo at 11:15 a.m. (pictured here at the bus stop). The car that we were counting on to help schlep our bags into town wasn’t available, so we had to sprint, in the sun, over dirt/sand roads, with our suitcases to make it to the bus stop on time! The bus trip to Montevideo was long and hot, but generally uneventful, thank God!
Sunday, at mid-day, we took a boat from Montevideo to Buenos Aires, Argentina. In BA (which felt like home) we had a 7 hour layover, during which we had to run a zillion frantic Christmas and travel errands. At 10:30 pm on Sunday, our overnight bus left Buenos Aires for Cordoba, where we arrived at about 7:30 a.m. in the morning on Monday.
After an hour at the Cordoba bus station, we were preparing to depart for Nono, Argentina when Zelda somehow managed to fall into a giant grease slick, getting herself and her bag covered with a thick coating of engine oil (about 2 minutes before our bus left). We boarded the micro (small bus) and began our journey on a long winding road that climbed up through the clouds into rocky terrain. Really beautiful. Unfortunately, the bumpy ride with cloudy visibility whilst sitting in the back of the bus on twisting switchbacks caused Zelda to get sick, really sick. (Luckily, all of Zelda’s childhood illnesses involved massive amounts of vomiting, so she’s pretty nonchalant about the whole thing…and rather neat as well! Poor bean.)
Upon our arrival in Nono (Zelda sporting a combination of grease and vomit), we took a local taxi over rocky roads, gravel, through a creek, and after about 20 or 25 minutes, we arrived at our final destination: the estancia La Lejania. (It only took 51 hours of traveling from Punta del Diablo.)
What is the first thing that we did at the estancia? I’m afraid that we accidentally locked Ian in the cabaña. He had to escape out a window with a pretty big drop off. Needless to say, he wasn’t too pleased.
[And apologies for the posting blackout, we were without Internet access this past week.]
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