Transformative experiences

Last week, I made the trip to Bariloche (bah-di-LOH-chay), one of the places everyone tells you that you need to visit when in Argentina. When students graduate from high school here, they make the trip to visit Bariloche. When I was a senior, we got Senior Skip Day but were still given an unexcused absence if we didn't show up to school.

Bariloche is a town in the Andes on a huge lake surrounded by other, smaller lakes. It is located exactly Northwest of me. This map shows Bariloche in relation to me on the east coast...pretty far away. In case you didn't know (I didn't either), Argentina is a suuuper big country, so a lot of the locations I want to travel to are pretty far away from me.

Don't worry, though, I did not drive 11 hours from Puerto Madryn to Bariloche!

I took a 15 hour bus ride!

Stop freaking out. It really wasn't that bad.

My bus left at 9:30pm from Trelew (a city an hour from here), so at around 7:15pm, I took a taxi to the bus station here in Puerto Madryn to catch a bus to Trelew. I probably could've taken a later bus, but I wanted to make sure I was on time for my big bus ride. Since being here, I've realized how living near larger cities makes me perpetually fearful of traffic.

To prepare for my bus ride, I bought Dramamine for the mountain roads and to help me sleep, brushed my teeth, washed my face, packed a dinner and breakfast, filled my water bottle, and put on some comfy clothes. I was ready to sleep the night away :)

Now I can feel you all cringing with disbelief at a bus ride that long. I did, too. However, these longer bus rides are pretty common here, so the buses don't look like the Megabuses with the super uncomfortable seats that don't really lean back. These buses have an option called a cama, which is a seat that leans almost all the way back and has feet support.

Bus #1

Me in Bus #1

The view from my seat in Bus #2...see these seats are a lot wider than the average bus seat. I chose a seat on the right, so that I was alone/didn't have a seatmate.

The gray things with what look like straps are actually support for your feet. When you pull the straps, it makes the seat feel almost like a recliner.

Me in Bus #2 and evidence that I did, in fact, wear a mask on this bus. I brought out the heavy duty mask for this long haul. However, I have a feeling I may have caught the vid from this bus ride since my travel buddy did not get sick. It does seem likely that my mask may have gotten discombobulated while I was sleeping.

Although I imagined the absolute worst for this bus ride, it actually went really well. The Dramamine package I had said to take it 3-4 times a day, so I took one when I got on the bus and another at around 6am. I slept the vast majority of the trip. I woke up around 2 hours from Bariloche and decided to "get ready" for the day by eating my sandwich I brought for breakfast, drinking some water, and brushing my hair. I was also just mesmerized by the scenery already, so the 2 hours just flew by. Then, boom! We were there. No need to stress about long bus rides!

For those curious, I chose to take a bus instead of fly because it was significantly cheaper, saved me from paying for two nights in my hostel, and saved a bunch of time. There was really no convenient way to fly - the cheapest way to travel was to fly from Puerto Madryn to Buenos Aires and then to Bariloche which is kind of just a pain.

When I arrived Sunday morning at 11:30am, I took a taxi to meetup with my travel buddy Amanda (previously known as Lollapalooza lost girl, pseudo vegan, and the girl who visited me here when I had no hot water)! We stayed at the Patagonia Jazz Hostel, which, not to brag, was the best find ever. I cannot speak highly enough of this place. It was, come to find out, like a 10 min walk to the center, 5 min from the bus stop we needed, and 5 min from all the restaurants we could've wanted.

I slept on the top bunk!

Just a bit of a warning, I want to fit as much into this post as possible, but Bariloche was such an amazing experience, and I have so much to share that this post may go a bit long...I am going to section this off by the day of travel followed by three words. One of the reasons Amanda is such an awesome travel buddy is because she is very reflective, so starting on Sunday, she asked me what words I would use to describe the day. I figured it would be cool to share them with you, so I don't forget and so that you have a chance to "experience" the feelings I had.

Sunday Adventures - shook, humbled, in awe

After settling into the hostel and getting changed, Amanda and I set off on our Sunday adventures. We walked to the center of town to get the lay of the land and to be a little closer to the lake. The architecture was Swiss-like, which was fun, and the lake was just right there. Just hanging out. Right there.

At this point in our barely started adventures, I was already starting to get a little cranky and desperately needed food, so after casually mentioning (several times) that we should walk towards our restaurant of choice, I think Amanda got the gist. We lunched at a restaurant that opened about 5 minutes before we got there called Manush where we split a very large vegan pizza. As a reminder, vegan pizzas here are not vegan pizzas in the US. This does not make them worse but different and often with quite a lot of vegetables that I never would've chosen to put on a pizza. I think we counted 8 or 9 different veggies on this beauty, including broccoli, green beans, cauliflower, zuchinni, red onions, tomatoes, brussel sprouts, and green onions. On most of the pizzas I've had, potato cheese is used. This pizza had the best potato cheese I've had since being here.

Once fed and significantly less cranky, we explored some chocolate shops which Bariloche is quite famous for. There was actually some chocolate I could eat!

Amanda's collection

Rapanui was a huge store with a café and lots and lots of chocolate. I got my second coffee of the day here.

Here we are being tourists:

Mamuschka is also a popular chocolate store. I did not buy any chocolate here, but there were quite a few vegan options!

The little green leaf on the sign meant vegan!

After wandering around a bit and taking in the mesmerizing view and being tourists for a bit...

We caught the bus to our first destination - Cerro Campanario. We were lucky enough to receive a tip from Amanda's taxi driver when she arrived to Bariloche that the number 20 bus could take us to our destination. Honestly, not quite sure what we would've done without his help because this trip became all about the conveniences of public transportation. Lucky for us, the bus stop was basically right across the street from the hostel. Naturally, there was no sign with the bus schedule, so we kind of just stood there waiting and hoping that the bus was eventually going to come. Spoiler alert: it did, and although we got off a stop early being the anxious travelers we are, we managed to make it to Cerro Campanario (cerro means hill or mountain in Spanish).

The draw of Cerro Campanario is the view. We took a chairlift up to the top of the mountain (I'm making the executive decision that it is a mountain and not a hill) during which I freaked out pretty much the entire way up because I hadn't considered the ramifications of a chairlift when you're scared of heights. Amanda tried to distract me by describing the view behind us and by trying to identify the trees below us.

Amanda trying to show me the view behind us

At the top there was a man taking photos of everyone in their little chairlift chair as a souvenir you could buy. Unfortunately, we decided against purchasing the picture (it was pretty terrible), but he did ask if we were French, which I found amusing and took as a compliment.

Then, we followed the path and found a place to sit to take in the view. When I rounded the corner to see the view, I kid you not, I audibly gasped.

We enjoyed this view so much that we stayed to watch the sun set behind the mountains.

Make sure to take a minute and sit with these pictures and imagine what it was like to be there. The wind was blowing lightly. It was cool but not cold (around 50ish degrees/10 degrees Celsius). There was nothing in the water besides water. There were a few people chatting around us. We were sitting on rocks on the side of the mountain. The sky was turning more and more yellow as the sun set. It was truly magical.

Because we stayed to watch the sunset, the chairlift had stopped, so we had to walk down the mountain. Now in this situation, I would consider this more of a hill because it was probably no more than about a mileish (1.5ish km) down to the parking lot. Coincidentally, the people who had gotten off at the wrong bus stop with us were also walking down the hill at the same time, so we had company as it started to get darker. As we walked down, I became eternally grateful that we did not make the choice of walking up because we would have indeed been walking up.

Once down, we waited and then smushed into an already very jampacked bus to head back to town for dinner.

For dinner, we went to brewery where a couple who was outside told us that there was a wait. Amanda went inside to ask about the wait only to find out that there was no wait and two tables free? I would've felt bad, but I was hungry. I had a NotBurger, which is from a brand here, NotCo, that makes a lot of different types of vegan foods, like NotIcecream and NotMilk. Amanda had what was essentially lentil soup.

Once we paid and waited for our change, which took a bit longer than we had anticipated, we walked back to the hostel and were reminded that there was an eclipse - as if this day couldn't get any cooler. I ran through my shower as fast as humanly possible, and then joined Amanda outside to watch the eclipse. It was literally the coolest thing ever. The sky was clear. Not even one cloud, and you could see the moon as soon as you walked out of the hostel - no traveling necessary. How were we this lucky? We watched for about thirty minutes until the moon was covered.

I attempted to take pictures of it with my baby phone camera.

I went to bed a happy human Sunday: shook that I was actually there experiencing all of this; humbled because I was able to experience so much beauty in nature and in life; and in awe of just everything really.

Monday Adventures - grateful, rejuvenated, breathless

Monday morning, we woke up and ate breakfast in the hostel (another reason it was so amazing). For breakfast, they offered fruit, fresh baked bread, peanut butter, jelly, coffee, and oatmeal. All for free. It was amazing. Have I mentioned how much I loved that hostel?

Our plan for the day was to take the bus to where we could catch a boat at 12:15 to two different sites. Then, on the return, we planned to have a snack at a resort called Llao Llao. Being the anxious tourists we are, we caught the bus and arrived at our destination kind of early.

However, this ended up working out to our benefit because there were no more tickets for the 12:15 boat available, but we got there in time to purchase tickets for the 2pm boat. Even more lucky, with the extra two hours we now had, we had enough time to walk up to Llao Llao which happened to be just across the street from the boat place (not planned at all...this was entirely coincidental and super convenient).

So we started our ascent to Llao Llao with a discussion of reasons why golf is an awful sport and with frequent stops along the way because traveling with Amanda means scanning and identifying every leaf she sees (not a bad thing...just an observation heehee).

Llao Llao is a resort that has Great Wolf Lodge (link for my Argentine friends) vibes but for adults with a lot less children running around and a bit more hoity toity. For context, I could probably afford to stay there two or three nights in their cheapest room even with the exchange rate, but it sure was picturesque.

Here are some pictures I sneaked without trying to look too conspicuous even though I'm pretty sure our energies somehow gave away the fact that we did not belong there.

The antler chandeliers were an interesting touch from your local vegan's perspective.

Since we had a couple of hours to kill before the boat, we decided to have a snack in one of the restaurants at the hotel for the culture, for the experience. This particular restaurant opened at 12:30, so we entered at approximately 12:37 so as not to look like we had been waiting impatiently for it to open. Naturally, we were the only ones there at that time, but this worked out to our benefit because we could take pictures of the place without feeling too too awkward and touristy.

Definitely not posed at all...

The view from our table's window

The meal, including bread,

coffee (of course),

and empanadas that I ended up not being able to eat because they had cheese in them, so I scraped out the insides and ate what we called the empanada skins. Why didn't I just eat the insides since I was going to pay for it? You may ask. Well, considering I was traveling and about to go on a boat with a questionable bathroom, I did not want to risk eating a significant amount of dairy after going ~3 years with no dairy. Thank you very much. They were very photogenic, though. I then felt bad that I didn't eat them, so I covered the innards with my napkin because I didn't want to hurt the server's feelings...just Leslie things.

Our server was very nice, though, and when we left he insisted that he take a picture of the two of us in the hall because when would we get that opportunity again. To clarify, a picture on one of our phones not his. Unfortunately, the photo looks as rough as you'd expect any photo taken by a random middle aged man and will not be leaving the vault of pictures at this time.

After our little snack break, we made our way back down for our boat ride.

Unfortunately, I had forgotten to take Dramamine for the boat ride. This wasn't the end of the world because I'm not incredibly affected by boats, but my body doesn't particularly like them, so I stayed on the outside of the boat the majority of the time, which seemed to help. Our first stop, Isla Victoria, was about 20 minutes away, and we were given an hour to explore. Most of the boat people went on guided hike but to avoid the large crowd of folx, Amanda and I decided to venture off and do our own thing. I was pretty paranoid the entire time we were there because they had originally told us that we would have half an hour to explore but then changed the time to an hour. With Spanish not being my first language and the tour being, ya know, in Spanish, I was totally convinced that we had misheard something and double-checked with Amanda and what she had heard about 20 times. I'm very grateful her chill could balance out my no chill.

This stop was gorgeous and so fun because it had an extreme number of different evergreens from all over. It smelled so good.

Apparently, we can actually understand some Spanish and were correct in that we were given an hour to explore Isla Victoria. Thankfully, we arrived back to the boat on time because the system used to make sure everyone was back was by asking everyone if their partners and group members were all present. I'm not the expert here, but this system seemed a little flawed because had two little U.S. girls gotten left on the island, I believe it would've been pretty unlikely that anyone would've noticed. We probably would've been left behind like the person who the boat did, in fact, almost leave stranded on the island. After about 10 minutes of waiting and boat horns, we were literally backing out when the woman came running down the pier...

Anyway, our next stop was a 45 minute boat trip. Amanda was a trooper and sat outside on the top of the boat with me. This was totally fine because the view was amazing until someone discovered that seagulls existed and ate food, which, ultimately, resulted in everyone and their brother trying to feed them and Amanda, eventually, getting pooped on. After which, she, reasonably, decided to go sit inside.

Everyone wanted to feed the seagulls.

Luckily, she was just in the splash zone but still totally gross.

I stayed outside and enjoyed the views.

The second stop of the trip was Bosque de los Arrayanes, which are a type of tree, a myrtle tree, which has brown-red-orange bark.

Amanda and I started on the opposite end of the walk as everyone else and were guided by a nice cat friend we made along the way. This worked out super well because we got to see the best parts of the walk without all ten thousand seagull feeders in the way of our pictures.

Our cat tour guide was free and shared incredibly informative information.

These trees were huge and so beautiful. We kept saying how lucky we were about the timing of every single part of our trip. It was impossible not to think this as we were passing these huge trees with yellowing leaves.

Peep the lack of people :)

If you look closely, you can see the orangey bark.

It would not be a successful stop if Amanda was not found scanning trees.

During this boat stop, Amanda and I also discovered the magic of the 0.5x zoom on my phone camera and had a little bit too much fun with it. If you go back through the pictures, you can tell when this zoom was used if the trees look extra elongated.

After this stop, we piled back on the boat for our hour and ten minute journey back to land. Cringing at the idea of another hour on the boat, I made my way up to the top and Amanda went inside to read. On this ride back, I decided to walk to the back of the boat to avoid the seagull feeders and, not to be dramatic, but this was literally the best decision I've ever made in my entire life.

When I made my way to the back, there was an older couple sitting on the stairs watching the boat pull away from the pier and I offered to take their picture after watching the man take a couple of botched selfie attempts. Then, I sat next to them and a few other people and watched the mountains move around us and the sky behind the mountains turn more and more yellow as the sun started to set. At this point in the day, it was getting chilly, but I sat on the bench directly behind the boat, so there was less wind. As the sun was setting, the mountains surrounding us were turning a light shade of pink and the water became a deep, intense shade of indigo. I eventually agreed to let the man of the botched selfies take a picture of me with the mountains and sea gulls flying in the background. I wish I could describe in words how beautiful this moment was as a small human sitting on this boat in a large lake surrounded by pink mountains, some capped with snow, watching the sky turn more and more yellow behind the hazy mountains in the distance as cringey 80s top hits played in the background. I wouldn't describe it as an out-of-body experience but more of an in-the-body experience as I reached inward to be as present as possible. I was scared to blink lest I interrupt the moment I was trying to ingrain into my brain forever.

The botched selfie man actually didn't do a terrible job.

Towards the end of the boat ride, a man and his teenage daughter came out to take pictures. This I found kind of amusing because he was a pretty impressive instagram-dad. While he was out there, he asked me in English if I spoke Spanish, which I do happen to speak *hair toss*. So we chatted about how he and his daughter are from Cordoba (a province in Argentina) and will be traveling at some point soon to the U.S. (with a jam-packed schedule I might add, including visits to places in NY and California). His daughter, who couldn't have been more than like 17 yet found it super entertaining that I'm 24 "but look so young," and I bonded over how difficult it is to learn a new language because you have the words in your head but can never seem to find them at the right time.

Amanda and I met up after the boat ride to smush onto our beloved method of public transportation...but so was everyone else on the boat. The line for the bus was sooooo long and it felt really late (realistically it was only like 6:30) and we were hungry, so we decided to see if we could maybe get a taxi at Llao Llao because it was a fancy hotel and surely they would have a taxi service number on hand, right? Well, as we trekked our way up to the resort, we saw the bus stop for Llao Llao (naturally kind of hidden so as not to remind the folx staying at Llao Llao that public transport exists) with a bus there! We panically started sprinting for the bus as if we would never see a bus ever again, but, unfortunately, it drove right past us, so we waited for the next one in the bougieish little bus stop cabin. In the end, this was probably the better decision because we were the first ones on the next bus, so we had seats and room to breath.

We ate dinner at a restaurant I had found online (my not-so-secret superpower is finding restaurants with good vegan options wherever I go) called Chimi Deli. I would like to congratulate myself for this find, which happened to be a 5 minute walk from our hostel.

We both ordered the pad thai, which was amaaaaazingly warm after a long day outside.

Then for dessert (they even had vegan dessert options!!!!) I ordered chocolate mousse made out of tofu, and Amanda ordered hot chocolate.

Monday really left me grateful for the opportunity to experience such incredible beauty at such a perfect time of year with such an awesome travel buddy; breathless because like how could you not leave these sights feeling just breathless; and rejuvenated because these sights, these experiences filled me with a newfound energy and love and fascination for the world.

Tuesday Adventures - present, amazed, peaceful

On Tuesday morning, we woke up super early (not that early really just like 7ish) and snuck downstairs to grab an early breakfast for our daylong adventure. A bus was coming to pick us up at 8am for an excursion to see the 7 lakes, brought to you by ZigZag tours and the Dramamine I thankfully remembered to take! The guy working the hostel this morning was very very nice and offered to make us coffee even though we were the only two up and cleaned our dishes so that we wouldn't stress about being late for the bus.

A quiet hostel view

Our day started with an absolutely gorgeous view (are you tired of gorgeous views yet? heehee) of the sunrise over Bariloche.

We drove and drove for a bit while the tour guide spoke quite a lot about the history of the area. I'll be honest, it was still early, and it was hard to stay awake...Amanda would concur having slept the first hour of the tour lol.

We stopped in Villa la Angostura pretty early, so not much was open, but we managed to snag some coffee. It was a cute little town, but we only had about 30 minutes, so the goal really was to acquire coffee and to pee.

The bathrooms in this café were the type where there are a men's and a women's but just like one room each not with stalls if you know what I mean? After accidentally walking in on someone in the women's because the lock didn't work (oops), I used the men's because it was just a room with a toilet and sink identical to the women's bathroom, and I don't know why that woman didn't do the same after finding out the lock didn't work?? Some people confuse me. I just wanted to share this anecdote because this wouldn't be a Leslie blog post without a story about peeing.

Anyhoo, after our stop, we drove through the mountains stopping at different lakes along the way.

After this third lake, we set off for San Martin de los Andes and passed some of the most magnificent looking views I've ever seen. The trees were changing colors and were the prettiest orange ever...literally every time we turned a corner Amanda and I were like "OH MY GOD" and started taking more pictures. This continued for about 45 minutes. Our bus neighbors surely hated us.

But just like...come on...look at this view! This was out of the bus window!

Enjoy our silly commentary if your volume is on...

We were given 2 hours to explore San Martin de los Andes. Since Amanda is the best travel buddy, we both had the same thought - acquire lunch and then find a place to do a short hike!

This was a suuuuuper cute town that had Gilmore Girls, small New England town fall vibes.

We happened across some food trucks that we assumed would be the most likely place for vegan food to exist. We were right. We found a food truck that had vegan choripan. Unfortunately, they were out but had fried eggplant as a substitute! This was one of the situations in which you assumed vegan and did not ask questions. The sammies were huge, and we probably should've shared.

After food, we started out on our little hike during which we were constantly oohing and aahing at the scenery. Thank god we were both doing so, otherwise, we probably would've been insufferable. But...can you blame us...

These were actual red and green parrots just casually hanging out.

The trees were sooo big

Being the anxious little tourists we are, we combo ran and speed walked back to the bus so as to have time to pee and not be the U.S. tourists holding everyone up. Once on the bus, we stopped at two more lakes.

And Amanda tried to paint

Then we spent the majority of the 3.5 hour ride back napping. When I woke up, I popped my headphones in and listened to my friend Leah's curated playlist (thanks, Leah!!) that somehow just gets me in the adventure/reflection mood and just reflected on the day and watched the scenery and the sun setting over the mountains.

For dinner, we ended up at Chimi Deli again since we knew it was close and a safe bet! We each had a glass of wine which went straight to our heads and we ended up chatting over our food and dessert for about 2-2.5 hours.

The time at Chimi flew by until it was time to pay. We paid in cash and patiently waited for our change...for 5 minutes...10 minutes...assuming we were just being impatient. However, when the 15 minute mark came around and no one seemed to be in a rush to get us our change back, we started to panic. Slowly we put our jackets on, followed by our scarves hoping that that would be an indicator that we were ready to leave and wanted our change. Still...nothing. In hindsight, this really wasn't a big deal since Amanda informed me afterwards that we were waiting on only $300 pesos in change. However, in the moment, after our long day, after our wine and meal, this felt huge and silly and really stinking embarrassing...how long does one wait for change??

So...I did the one thing I know how to do...I asked for help. I texted all my Argentine experts, Leia, Sonia, Sol, and Yani all at once because this felt really freaking pressing and important. Sonia, the first to answer, told us to just ask for the change because they probably assumed it was a tip. I read her answer aloud to Amanda, we made eye contact, and we got up and left. Immediately. Even the thought of asking was terrifying. As we stumbled out of the restaurant, we were convinced that every worker in that restaurant was staring us down as we left. Sol answered soon after we exited with a response that indicated that she was absolutely terrified I was dying or already dead. To be fair, I messaged everyone by just saying "hi" because I needed an answer ASAP, and if they answered a few hours later, it would've been useless information. However, I also believe that I must give off vibes of recklessness or something because I'm pretty sure Sol thinks I'm dying whenever I text her.

Leaving the restaurant and servers with quite a crappy tip even for Argentina tip standards, we popped into an Irish bar on the way back to our hostel to celebrate census eve.

I finished the night feeling present in my body, in the moment; amazed that a day could be some whole and fulfilling; and peaceful after being surrounded by so much nature.

Wednesday/Thursday Adventures

Now Wednesday was census day, which to us in the U.S. means literally nothing. Here, this year in Argentina, people took things seriously, really, really seriously.

Everything was closed, including the little stores in gas stations, so we were kind of stuck with not much to do and scared of venturing too far because my bus left at 4:30. After breakfast, I French-braided a girl from Uruguay's hair, and then, Amanda and I decided to take a walk around town and stretch our legs since I had a long bus ride ahead of me.

Then, we headed back to try to figure out what we could eat because, like I said, absolutely nothing was open.

We (as in Amanda) ended up using leftover/community food at the hostel to make noodles with chickpea/olive oil/lemon "sauce". Thankfully, others were also making food, and a woman we had met in the hostel shared her soup with us.

The woman her shared her food (on the right of the picture) also happened to be a psychologist who I had spoken to a few times during our stay. She told me she mixed psychology with the spiritual in her job, and so on a whim I asked her how much she charged for a tarot card reading...Long story short, she gave me a tarot card reading all in Spanish in her hostel room on what almost was the bed I was assigned. It was so freaking cool. So. Freaking. Cool. I've always wanted one, but I have never really been somewhere where I would've trusted the person doing the reading, but I 100% trusted her. She helped me form my questions and made sure I understood everything she said. It was the best way to finish my time in Bariloche.

I was so engrossed in my reading that I didn't check the time, so when we finished at 4:15 I kind of freaked the h**l out because my bus was leaving at 4:30. I threw her my money, gave her a hug, grabbed my things, and ran out of the hostel looking for a taxi. Thankfully, it was census day, so no one was on the road, and I managed to get to the bus station by 4:25. Naturally, the bus was not there yet.

The bus finally arrived at 4:50ish, and I climbed to the top for my seat with a view. I had chosen to purchase a bus seat at the top of the bus for the first part of the journey to see the view unobstructed.

These are the semi-cama seats and do not lean as far back as the cama seats.

Definitely worth it...

Warning: This video may make one dizzy...

For this ride, since I wanted to see the view, I decided to take the non-drowsy Dramamine I had with me (Dramamine should've sponsored this trip, if you were to ask me). When I grabbed my water bottle, I realized what a grave mistake I had made. With my mad dash out of the hostel, I hadn't taken the time to prep for this 15 hour journey like I had for the previous. I hadn't changed into comfier clothes or made a snack or taken my makeup off or even filled up my water bottle. With the inch of water I had left, I took the Dramamine and accepted my fate of the next ~16 hours without water...at least I wouldn't need to use the bus bathroom. While watching the view, I snacked on the remaining cookies and rice cakes I had brought for emergencies like this. When the time came, I moved downstairs to settle in for the night in my cama. I was ready to sleep.

Then came the cold.

It was unbearable. I was wearing my jacket and had on leggings and was using my scarf as a blanket, but not even all of that was enough to keep the goosebumps away. Because I was thirsty and tired and desperate to sleep with no Dramamine to help, this cold felt like the worst cold I've ever experienced, which is silly because I've lived in Iowa during the winter, but it was still pretty miserable. The bus was actually going all the way to Puerto Madryn, so I probably easily could've hidden away and stayed on for the last hour of the journey instead of getting off at Trelew like I had planned and paid for. However, I was SO beyond desperate to get off this bus that I decided it wasn't worth it. I'm not kidding when I tell you I counted down the minutes until we arrived at Trelew. From there, I bought a bus ticket back to Puerto Madryn, and from the bus station at Puerto Madryn, I took a taxi to my apartment where grabbed whatever warm clothes I could find and slept for three hours.

I at least got to see the sunrise.

In Trelew, I almost tried to get on the wrong bus because the human urge to stand in a line with everyone else can be really strong.

A terrible end to a wonderful trip.

Most of you should know what happens next...see my post titled "COVID" if not.

Now, I acknowledge that this post is super long and for those still here, I appreciate you. I have one more thing to say and just one, I promise.

I want to speak on my experience speaking Spanish while I was on this trip. It is really difficult to recognize my growth in my communication abilities when I'm speaking with the same people in the same places and don't receive validation like I would in an academic setting. Therefore, when I was traveling, realizing I could fend for myself and manejarme in Spanish without really any issues at all was incredibly fulfilling and rewarding. In the hostel, I found myself chatting with people who only spoke Spanish with ease and even chatting in Spanish with people who spoke both English and Spanish. It was a confidence boost and kind of fun to have conversations that some people in the hostel who spoke just enough Spanish to get around could barely understand. I felt like I held this superpower that helped me to go through barriers and make connections with people that were quite literally impossible for others to make. I came back to Puerto Madryn with a newfound sense of confidence in my Spanish communication abilities. Granted it's been almost 10 days now since I've practiced them, but I'm excited to start my post-Bariloche, post-COVID life.