Leaving Los Lagos

My relief at being on track for Santiago was short-lived. I couldn´t get out of Bariloche. Turns out that it´s a tourist mecca for canny Chileños cashing in on the weak peso, and every bus across the border was booked out. Bugger. An ugly place (think gingerbread town, very twee, very Swiss, but with lots and lots of 18 year old drunk Argentines) that was also going to be my downfall. I was 1000km south of Santiago, on the wrong side of a frontier, with 48 hours until my flight. I dusted down my thumb.

My only other attempt at hitch-hiking in Patagonia had been a resounding failure. I´d stood next to gravelly Ruta 40 for half an hour without a single car coming past, before giving up and going to the bus station. This time I´d need to get about 200km across the Andes and into Chile and from there pray that I could get a bus to Santiago on the last Friday before Christmas. Easy.

Started well enough - got a bus to the next town along, began walking and within five minutes Raúl from San Martín had pulled over. He asked where I was from. I hesitated, thought about saying Ireland, but came clean - I´m from England. And on cue he started on Las Malvinas... This could get ugly... But it didn´t, turned out he´s an Anglophile who was in Bath just last year. We talked old buildings and canals.

Unfortunately Raúl was only going 7km, but it was a start. I was now only 17km from the Argentine border post, 32km from the frontier and 59km from the Chilean post.

Five hours later and I´d walked across the Argentine post and was trudging uphill across the Andes. No-one had so much as slowed down. And in the previous two hours there´d only been 12 cars. Where was everyone? I´d miscalculated. All hope was lost. Río was slipping from my grasp.

And just as I was giving up, stuck in the no-man´s land between Chile and Argentina, 40km shy of Chilean immigration and with a flight from Santiago in less than two days, car number 13 rescued Christmas. It was an SUV really, with "Udder Health" written on the side and driven by Flor the cow-vet. Who was going to Osorno.

I think I´ve written about hitch-hiking before. It´s incredibly frustrating, usally either mind-numbingly boring or very hard work, and only occassionally punctuated by success. A bit like fishing without the relaxation or queuing up at the post office when all the windows are closed. Probability means nothing - the odds are either 1 or 0 and usually they´re 0. It doesn´t matter what you do - stop in a good spot, take off your hat, smile, look innocent, look gringo, look desperate, bag on your back, bag on the roadside, one bag on, one bag off; if someone wants to pick you up then they will and if they don´t then they won´t. Positive thinking makes it worse. You´re better to expect that no-one will pick you up, cos everyone´s a bastard, and resign yourself to doing those 60km on foot, most of the night, and then looking for a bus.

But just occassionally you get a ride. And then it´s the best thing you´ve ever done, the idea you wish you´d had three months ago. In this case not only did I get a lift to Osorno but I also got to the bus station in time to buy the last ticket to Santiago (ha!), had a great night out in an indie bar in Osorno (complete with Rev. Morrissey on the wall) and spent yesterday afternoon visiting dairy farms in the Chilean Lake District. (If they ask me on my way into Brasil if I´ve been in contact with farm animals I think I´ll lie...)

Once again, Mr Tony just about makes it. Time to get my bus to the airport and then go to Río. Where it´s raining, apparently.

Y Flor, si estás leyendo, gracias - salvaste mi navidad!