Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Today was always going to be spent more or less entirely on the bus - the last long haul (on land) of this trip, up to Santiago. I'd picked out the bus I wanted several days ago, as it was the only route that did a daytime trip from Puerto Varas to Santiago by day, meaning that (a) I could see things (one of the objects of the exercise) and (b) I didn't have to backtrack to Puerto Montt.

The biggest challenge, by far, for this was getting the ticket. In general it is difficult or impossible - and in Chile it appears to be impossible - for foreigners to buy bus tickets online in this part of the world (you usually need to enter a local ID card number), so you need to find a company office - a challenge in places which aren't big enough to have a proper bus station (in Chile, except in the larger cities, buses normally depart from the street near the company office). Attempt 1 was in Punta Arenas where the Pullman website gave 2 addresses. Number 1 was for a different bus company who presumably used to sell Pullman tickets but don't any more, number 2 was closed for the day. Attempt 2 was in Puerto Varas. The address from the website was a car park which looked like it used to be a bus station but wasn't any more. The tourist office eventually pointed me to the right place, which turned out to be an ordinary house with an annex with no company logos, but a few printed notices with timetables suggesting it was probably the Pullman office, and another sign saying it was open from 9 to 1 in the mornings, but at 10.30 there was no-one to be seen.

Attempt 3 was in Osorno but I couldn't find the bus station (this was the fruitless half-hour mentioned in yesterday's entry). It turned out I'd been led a bum steer by the normally reliable South American Handbook, a remarkable publication which, in terms of the density of information contained therein and its long history, published annually since 1924 (to say nothing of its paper thickness and font size...) resembles Wisden. (I did think it a bit strange that somewhere described as '4 blocks from the centre' had an address with the number 1400 - in most of the places I've been to here, as is common in North America, addresses use block numbers, normally starting from 0 in the centre)). I eventually succeeded fourth time lucky with a diversion into Puerto Montt (so I did go into town after all) on my way to drop the car back to the airport.

With that saga completed, I still wasn't entirely confident of seeing a bus in the appointed place at the appointed time, but it did turn up. It was very comfortable and there were often good views once early cloud cleared (more volcanoes at regular intervals), but there was one small problem - no food and no stops to get any, which meant that lunch consisted of a muesli bar and some leftover bits of chocolate from the Torres del Paine expedition. We finally got into Santiago about 10.30pm; you won't be surprised to learn that after dumping my bags I was straight out the door to the second-nearest restaurant (the nearest was McDonald's - I wasn't that desperate).

I had hoped to squeeze a run in early this morning, but discovered that the front door was locked and there wasn't an obvious way to get out at that time of the morning (something which means the place will get a suitably scathing review from me, which is a pity because everything else about it was good - apart from the nuisance it's a serious fire hazard, though I guess if you had to you could get out through the part of the building that the owners live in). Wasn't that upset about missing a token-gesture run, more that if I'd known I could have slept an extra 45 minutes....