Meandering and Mendoza

I was told before I left home that I had to experience 1^st class bus travel in Argentina. Buses are the main means of transport (I am told) for Argentinians moving about the major centres, and they are designed to be comfortable covering the vast distances involved in traversing a country of 1,000,000 square miles. One rather optimistic review, that bus travel would spoil me for flying for ever more proved not quite on the mark, as we shall see*, but in the grand scheme of bus travel, the Argentinians do it phenomenally well.

Of course, you have to get the bus first. Liniers bus station is roughly equidistant between Voidia and Erehwon, firmly placing it in the middle of nowhere. But that's fine – it's a fixed point in space (if not in time) and as such is relatively easy to find if you know how to hail a cab and mutter about el estacion de autobus. (my cab driver was evidently a chatty sort, and tried to start up several conversations which – of course – resulted in me looking slightly sad and apologetic.) Understanding what's going on when you get there, why that's a whole differently coloured painted pony.

There at least 11 stops at Liniers. Although they are no more than a hundred yards apart at most, they are arranged in a horseshoe shape with the travellers on the outside, so that it is impossible to keep an eye on all of them from one location. And the buses famously arrive mere minutes before their departure, which (just as famously) is almost always on time. Of course, to the hispanophone the constant tannoy announcements offer a helpful hint. To the linguistic incompetent, however, even listening out for the destination offers no clues, as there may be several buses heading there all leaving within moments of each other.

The solution, as ever, was to follow the herd. I kept a close eye on the 'Cata International' desk and watched who asked the rather sleepy looking man for information as departure time loomed. Following a tannoy announcement (which I swear made no mention of Mendoza, syllables I was straining to hear), several of these herd passengers made a suddenly break for the invisible left hand curve of the horseshoe. I had chosen the right herd.

From there on in it was all comparatively simple. The luggage attendant understood more Ingles than the man on the information desk (interesting choice, there), while the main ticket guy was keen to point me to my seat, my general demeanour of cluelessness clearly giving the impression of a man who not only did not understand speech, but also the Arabic numeral system.

Like a first class railway carriage in the UK, the bus operators make space by removing a column of seats, leaving banks of 2-1 arrangements in the first class cabin (though oddly they do this on Mendozan local buses too, making the bus about 45% floor). Travelling alone is possibly not common, since I shared the cabin with two couples (possibly related to each other) and the remaining single seat was unoccupied. The seat reclines from the conventional all the way back to the horizontal, and a versatile padded board can be used to create a gentle slope for your legs or an entire bed platform with the reclined seat. As with all such ventures, the airconditioning is a little overzealous (oh, how I miss it right now), so I slept in a beanie. But, dear reader, I slept.

I kept a note of some of my thoughts as we hurtled through the night.

• I've got my feet up now. My view ahead is a red curtain. All very Baz Lurhmann. There's no curtain between me and the corridor, so I might get disturbed by people faffing in the night. There're power ballads playing in my right ear, buzzing at me like musical gnats. I've spotted the Power of Love, and several vague eighties hits of which I can never remember the title. It's dark outside, so no real sights till morning. God, I hope I sleep. The couple to my left keep coughing. They are elderly. I think they're travelling with family, also quite old. I'm the baby of first class. Lucky me.
• There was just an announcement. The speaker is broken, so there was a weird clunking sound all the way through like a mechanical chipmunk, but I wouldn't have understood anyway. It might have been about food: I thought I heard 'vegetarian', but that might be wishful thinking, since I also heard 'meatio', and I'm pretty certain that isn't even a word.
• At least I know my tinto from by blanco, though having tasted the vino I wish I'd asked for Coke.
• Picking up more passengers. That's two extra stops now. No wonder it takes 14 hours.
• Ah. They clearly didn't say vegetarian. It's a good job I had a huge lunch. Quite enjoyed the little pot of veg though. Mind you, the old woman next to me has handed hers back, and the waitress has looked at it like a Last of the Summer Wine character presented with Compo's matchboox. If I had the language skills to ask, I still wouldn't.
• Just passed an industrial estate. Saw an illuminated company log with a kangaroo on it. Poor South America, they got the shit end of the marsupial wedge.
• Good God, this wine is rank.
• What, whisky after red wine? Why not? Anything to wash away the taste.
• People are trying to eat tinned glacier cherries and drink champagne simultaneously. Need more hands.
• Ah. I think this whisky may be industrial cleaner. Come back tinto, all is forgiven.
• So, thus far I'm finding my recent enforced period of immobility useful practise for Argentine travel.
• Reach for the stars, though as flaming balls of gas they do represent a health & safety hazard. Nice to see the southern hemisphere sky again.
• Awoke wondering why some idiot had turned on the lights. It is daytime. How did that happen? Look! Rocks! Cows! Otherwise could be Essex. I don't mean the cows. This is very comfy though.
• Mountains! At least I think so. It's all so hazy they could actually be clouds. Or very big cows. But looking good.
• And it gets even more exciting. It's a left turn! We must be approaching civilization. Remarkable, and it lets me see what are now definitely mountains to my right. Snow capped peaks!
• Damn, turned right again. Goodbye snow capped peaks.
• Local vandals have desecrated a pedestrian sign with some sort of priapic demon. Too slow to grab camera.
• We might just be early.

And we were. Which was actually rather bothersome, as my check in time wasn't until 3pm. After wandering up and down the bus station looking for a loo (and to kill time) I joined the queue for taxis, reasoning that even with time to kill my enormous backpack would preclude me walking the mile into town. Spotting an English language Lonely Planet ahead of me in the queue, I quickly arranged a cab share with Ingles couple Sam and Camilla (getting ready to rough it in a hostel after staying in a nice BA hotel on Daddy's air miles for a week) and got dumped next to a giant menorah and a multi-coloured hostel (all hostels in Mendoza are brightly coloured, as if they doubled up as playgroups). My hotel was around the corner. I could have checked in straight away, but it would have cost me AR$250. I politely declined.

A fountain and a mountain (somewhere)

Mendoza, at first glance at least, is a sleepy sort of place. This is probably inevitable given average day time temperatures this week of 30 degrees (at one point it was still 34º at 10pm, though as the weather app helpfully supplied it had a 'real feel' of 33º, so that's all right). Moving swiftly would result in the need to change one's shirt thirteen times a day and regularly to dunk one's head in one of the many irrigation ditches gurgling their merry way through the streets and parks. The city is very generously supplied with trees (including a few joyful Monkey Puzzles), though while keeping your head shady this does mean it's almost impossible to appreciate the city's 'foot of the mountains' location without climbing a building like King Kong, or standing right in the middle of the Plaza Independecia and risking a soaking from the rather overenthusiastic array of fountains.

Mendoza doesn't have much park action as such (and I was warned by a local that Parque Bernardo O'Higgins was to be avoided unless I wanted to “meet some robbers” - I demurred), but it makes up for it with ornate and nicely planted squares. There are five central plazas (nicely described in the Lonely Planet as “arranged like the five-roll on a die”), each with a distinguishing characteristic (though I thought Plaza Espana looked more Moroccan, and the Plaza Italia was only appropriate if you believed that Italy was defined by a rickety construction like a cross between a giraffe and a bus shelter, and a slight homo-erotic statue. Actually...), with Independencia in the middle and most ambitious. It's really quite nice, like Russell Square, if Russell Square was frequently invaded by bongo-drummers and hordes of squealing children at 7pm each evening.

New Hotel view - Monkey Puzzle!

The bus ride had wiped me out, though, so there wasn't much more chance to explore. I checked in, thought I'd have a little lie down, and woke up with the sun setting (and the children squealing). Perhaps bus travel isn't quite so effortless after all. 

* this is what happens to your writing style if you read The Hobbit too much