Purgatory

Have you ever had that feeling that you just kind of don´t exist? That you´re lost in the mix, a place no one knows where to find you? When you´re in your in-between, do you also find that you´re freezing your buns off and might be dying of carbon monoxide poisoning while also wondering what will happen if the unsanitary food stands happen to run out of sausage or steak? No? Well I guess all hells look different, so purgatories must as well.

I had a lovely time in Chile, especially when the rains stopped and I could see the mountains around Santiago, a rare sight due to constant smog. I heard the border had been closed due to snow, but by Friday when I was ready to head back to Argentina I was told that it was "now open", so I grabbed a small, normal-size-seat bus and headed East. 

I met a very nice, but not Spanish-speaking whatsoever Brit on the bus who I promised to help get through the border crossing with all the stamps he´d need, joking that he shouldn´t mention he´s British when crossing into Argentina (Falkland Islands/Islas Maldivas - you can research that on your own). Little did I know that this meant I would also be helping him order steak sandwiches, talking to the bus driver about how we might be dying/sleeping on this bus tonight, and getting his bags searched over the course of the next 12.5 hours.

We arrived at the border with hundreds of cars and dozens of buses. At first we were only told that we would need to be back on the bus when we saw the bus pull up to the building, at which point I went and froze in a line for the dirtiest governmental ladies room I´ve ever experienced. Poor Brit waited for me through all this, and when I got to the toilet I had stage fright anyway, but I did manage to kill a half hour in the wait.

Next we got food, which took a bit of time for his lomito, but since I´d already eaten half a package of crackers and two yogurts on the bus to quench my writhing bus-sick stomach, I wanted something "lighter" and opted for the neighboring restaurant instead to have the classic choripan. The woman was decidedly gruff with me, but sold me my choripan and gave me a slip with "chori" on it to take to the window and wait. I waited a good half hour until finally she came over to organize the process and help her husband who was cooking the orders. This meant asking "how many people have milanesas?!" and then making all nine, including the woman who had just paid. Then for all the "lomitos" then the hot dogs and then the ham and cheese sandwiches. I was the only one with a choripan, so I waited another fifteen minutes until a man came up with his small children behind me and added two more to the choripan order. I´ve never thanked anyone so profusely or from the bottom of my heart. He brought the glory of the chori to me!

Luckily that process had taken up over an hour and I´d thoroughly frozen my new British friend through to the bone. He is straight from six months in Australia where apparently it´s actually never cold... Remind me why I am in South America in their autumn??

Back on the bus we warmed up and eventually went to the windows to have our passports stamped out of Chile and into Argentina. Then came the waiting game for the bag searches and the full entrance into Argentina. Our bus moved into the building, joining the dozens of cars and a few buses ahead of us, all with motors running off and on and therefore emitting their beauty and refuse into the air. I started to get sleepy and my good Brit said, "Yep, you´re definitely dying of carbon monoxide poisoning" while I watched him freeze in his light "jumper" (sweater in those parts of the world).

We waited at that border for 6.5 hours, arriving to Mendoza at 11:30 at night, me wondering if I was actually still alive or if my shivering and breathing of fumes might have actually killed me.

In short, the border closes to all nightly crossings on May 31, but May seems to be an off-and-on month for the beautiful mountain pass. It´s worth the crossing, any time you can do it, but this was a week ago and a friend tried to cross this morning with his father and returned home when they found it closed. Always an adventure around here!