Day 150: January 12, 2008 Guayaquil to Río Gallego
Trip Start
Aug 15, 2007
1
153
202
Trip End
Mar 01, 2008
Rio Gallegos,
Argentina
Sunday, January 13, 2008
I awoke a couple of hours north of Santiago. I thought the flight was going to Buenos Aires first and then to Santiago. I was relieved to find that it was doing the opposite. We landed on time and filed through migraciones and customs. I had to pay the $131 entrance visa, which they only charge for passengers arriving by air. I've never paid it entering by road. The visa is good for the life of the passport.
I had a 3-hour layover so I had breakfast and the rechecked my bag before making my way to the domestic departures boarding area. Almost as soon as I sat in my seat on the plane and buckled my seatbelt, I fell asleep. I awoke about two hours south of Santiago, much to my surprise. Clouds obscured the view of the Andes the entire way down. I couldn't see a thing below. I realize how lucky I was on the way up.
I still held a 1:00 bus ticket from Punta Arenas to Río Gallegos. My flight was to arrive at 12:20 and it was a 25-minute taxi ride to the bus terminal so I didn't hold much hope for making it and was planning on spending the night in Punta Arenas. Even after arriving five minutes early, I wasn't going to try to make it but then my bag was already on the carousel when I got to baggage claim. Within a minute, I was in a taxi and I arrived at the bus terminal a half a minute before the bus arrived. I boarded and we were off ten minutes later. I fell asleep again and awoke at the Monte Aymond border crossing. As usual, it was chaotic on both sides of the border. The procedure has been different every time I have crossed there. No one seems to care too much as long as all the papers and passports get stamped. It took about two hours for all of that to happen.
I talked with a young German guy as we waited for the others to get their passports stamped. He had been in school in the US and Brazil. His mother was from Ecuador so he was fluent in at least four languages. We wondered if the poor people who are stationed there actually think they are performing a service. Anything smaller than an elephant would be easy to smuggle through.
We arrived in Río Gallegos an hour later. I got a couple of good fotos of the Pali Aike volcanic field as we passed through it. It was raining at the bus terminal so I bought my ticket to Caleta Olivia for the 14th before taking a taxi to the Hotel Alonso. After taking a shower, I went to an internet café and uploaded my Galápagos blog entries. It was nearly midnight when I finished-but only 8:00 Galápagos time-so I had a pizza and beer dinner and then returned to the hotel where I soon fell asleep.
