The Travel Stories No One Talks About

Trekking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. Snorkeling with sea lions in the Galapagos Islands. Racing through Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia. These are some of the epic (and often lofty) stories you hear from fellow backpackers doing the South America circuit. While stories such as these are everywhere for the epic factor, it makes me wonder - What about all the untold stories? All the stories that get bumped behind scuba diving on Easter Island? The ones where you're actually not doing something as epic as climbing volcanoes? Maybe doing something that everyone does like taking a bus but no one talks about? Doing something that you would never have thought of doing before your trip? Well, here are a few of mine.

Remember that time I bussed for 56 hours in 3.5 days?

Bussing. Long distance busses. They're quite different from local transit and even from Greyhounds back home in South America. Quite comfy, usually with some sort of meal service, leg rests and ridiculously foggy windows. After a busy week in Buenos Aires, I hopped on my first one to Puerto Madryn. 20 hours. Sleeping through most of it, I did enjoy my non-sleeping time watching the barren landscape fly by, reminiscing about Buenos Aires and watching two horrible movie in spanish with subtitles that were also in spanish. Waking up in Puerto Madryn, did a day on the tourist circuit, and then back on the bus tour, this time to Rio Gallegos. 19 hours However this bus was two hours late, and an hour after departing we changed busses adding on another hour. We arrived at the bus terminal to bitterly cold winds and freezing rain A fair amount of spanglish later and I was sitting in a metal caged bus bound for Ushuaia. 11 hours. Quickly ruining my first four immigration papers, I was slow to fill out my secound round of papers. Exit Argentina. Enter Chile. Get onto a barge. Sail for an hour. Back to the bus. Exit Chile. Enter Argentina. Get locked in the bus with Elysium playing as the driver visits a friend at his house in Rio Grande. Arrive in Ushuaia 4 hours later than planned. 2 degrees outside. Birthday in an hour and a half. No idea where my hostel is. Sweeeet.

Sketchville Bus

It was really fun getting lost walking through Sao Paulo without a map

Arriving in Cafe Hostel in Sao Paulo after spending a few days couchsurfing with Bruno, I was left in a bit of a situation. I didn't want to be in the city any longer, and there wasn't any place worth going to as I had to meet my sister in Iguaçu in a few days. Stuck. I decided to kill one of my days in the city by walking to an Art Exposition about an hour walk from the hostel. The map I was given only had main streets listed thus making it a pretty ineffective map.. Leaving it behind I set off in the general direction, knowing the address and neighborhood it was in. I walked. And walked. And got thoroughly lost. I asked a nice older lady for directions and she kindly wrote down perfect instructions for me.. in Porteguese.. and to the wrong location. About two hours later, one giant bridge crossing, many jeering hobos and a very sweaty back, I arrived at a Hyundai dealership. Going into the blissful air conditioned building I proceeded to get directions in english for the last part of my journey, a mere two minute walk to my destination. How ironic to get english for the final stretch while stumbling through Porteguese instructions for a few hours.  It was still a pretty cool art exposition. Worth it. 

Art.

Do you like waiting? Welcome to travelling. 

I HATE waiting. For anything, anyone, all the time. Punctuality is a mantra I run by and when things are late and I have to wait, I'm put into a terrible mood. Working as a cook for the past four years has instilled a sense of punctuality in me. Whether it be 90 secounds out for a pan of brown butter gnocchi or setting a 4 minute timer on the deep fryer for spicy chicken, being on time counts big time. Which is great when I missed my connection in to Pucon and the next bus was full. Stranded in Osorno. 7 hours in a rainy city I had no interest in.  Good fun. Or when I woke up at 6am to hike up to Christ the Redeemer only to hit a massive horde of tourists at the ticket office. They all turned and stared as I approached. I was dripping sweat from the hike as they were adjusting their safari hats and fanny packs which I guess makes me the gringo. Also good fun. Ros and I went from Puerto Iguazu to Concordia on an overnight bus and we tried to get into Salto the same day. Arriving at about 630am in Concordia, we found out the bus was at 11am. I asked where to buy tickets and unfortunately thought that we were to pay on the bus. So at 11 we checked our bags in and hopped on the bus. Only to be asked to leave because we didn't have tickets.. Running to the newly discovered ticket office across the street and not insidethe  bus terminal, they wouldn't quickly sell me tickets even though there was heaps of space. We then caught a ferry later in the day. At about 6pm. My fault really. About 12 hours of waiting, eating horrible pizza, and searching for wifi. Sorry sis :)

Waiting for Football

Backpackers have all these connotations of being awesome at travelling. Super well organized when it comes to transportation, accomodations and everything in between. The epic rugged economic traveller who knows the best way through it all. 

In reality though, we're probably the worst at it. Missing flights or buses because we can't keep track of days. Not having a hostel for the night because we couldn't be bothered to book one online. Scrambling to pack everything in the morning because there was "tons of time" before having to leave. Having no idea how long to stay in one place or where to go next, because no one has a clear path, only a general direction to go in. Epic times eh. 

Decompressing from Easter Island. On the  way to Valparaiso right now. Pretty flustered. Many many bus tickets were purchased in about 15 minutes. Like 4. I think. Or 3..

 Next post will be about Isla de Pascua once I figure my life out in Valparaiso!

Channy

Instagram & Twitter - itsnathanchan

September.. something, Ruta 68, close to Valparaiso, Chile