backpacking through south america means sometimes staying in places we would rather not be staying.
we had one night in perito moreno, argentina – which no one should go to… unless you are trying to get out of patagonia and in which case you are probably going to be forced to go. the bus companies will take you the 12 hours from el chalten up to perito moreno, and then the next day they will take you the other 12 hours from perito moreno up to bariloche… which is what we did.
but that leaves everyone stuck in this little nothing town for a night. “luckily” the bus compnay booked us a room in a “hotel” for the night which is what they do for almost everyone since that is where the bus will be picking you up the following morning at 7:30am.
and thus, we ended up staying a night in the belgrano hotel which was one of our worst stays to date. i´m pretty convinced it was a mental hospital in its previous life. it was not clean. it was not heated (and it was FREEZING. i slept in long pants, long sleeve shirt, a hoodie, and socks and was still really, really cold.) also, there was no light (or rather, the light that was there didn´t work) in the bathroom which really, really needed a light, so we had to wear headlamps.
also, the shower and bidet were combined. i don´t even know how to explain it, but michael refused to go near it. i tried to shower standing on the edge without stepping inside of it because i was so grossed out. it was my shortest shower in history. and since you can´t wear a headlamp in a shower i had to hang it from the shower rod and couldn´t really see anything. so it was also probably my most dangerous shower in history too.
here i am in the belgrano hotel trying to “rise above” the situation.
and i must say, it looks much, much nicer in this picture than it actually was.
on a happier note – we are now in salta which is our very last stop in argentina!
it is an adorable town and we are loving it. we visited one of the most beautiful churches i´ve ever been in today and yesterday one of the most interesting museums too. also our hostel is very nice 🙂
tomorrow, at 7am, we board a bus to the boarder of bolivia. it´s about a 7 hour journey, and then we are let out to walk ourselves across the boarder. once in bolivia, we find a bolivian bus company to take us another 7 hours north to the tow of uyuni.
uyuni is our base point for a four day trip across the salt flats. we have really been looking forward to this! very excited.
i´m not sure of internet connections over the next 4 to 6 days, so i´m scheduling a few blog posts to publish while we are out on the road.
