It seemed like a bad place to stop from the moment we woke. The bus had stopped and it was nearing morning, so Jeff went down to check if this was Sarmiento. Through the fogged up windows I could see it was still raining and so I was relieved when he reported this was just a petrol station. A minute later, the bus driver came up to inform the passengers in seats 13 and 14 that this was their stop. The passengers were us; it was 5:15 in the morning and it turned out to be snowing not raining.
We waited in the petrol station until the sun came up, before braving the cold to walk into town in search of a tourist office. It was first thing Sunday morning and there was not a soul about. And unfortunately according to the sign inside the window of the tourist office, there wouldn't be for another 5 hours.
There had been a reason for stopping in Sarmiento, other than for the sake of being sleep deprived and cold and that was to visit the petrified forest in a desert just 30km out of town. But sitting, shivering and hungry in a gazebo in the local park, our prospects of getting there that day, or wanting to go for that matter seemed bleak. With no buses that went out there, we would need to arrange a driver through the tourist office that wouldn't open for many more hours.
Eventually we gave up on the idea and walked to the bus station, hoping to catch the next bus out of town to continue our trip onwards to Ushuaia. The only problem was, that the ticket office didn't open for another two hours and once it did the lady wouldn't sell us a ticket. Jeff had started to ask what time the next bus was, but she cut him off and wrote down 1 and 7. She put a square around one and a circle around the other, before providing a lengthy explanation of what each shape meant and then writing our names and passport numbers down on a sheet of paper. Completely baffled by what she'd said, or even what times the buses were leaving, she seemed satisfied when Jeff informed her we would be waiting on the seat right in front of her office.
But for how long we wondered. Until 7pm perhaps, which would mean missing the connecting bus between Comodoro Rivadavia and Rio Gallegos and having to spend a night in Argentina's ugliest town. So I went up and asked what time the bus left. This time she at least let me get my question out before launching into the circle and square explanation. Now there are two types of people in the world; those that speak slowly and simply to foreigners who obviously don't have great command of the language; and then there are those who say the same thing again and again at an unintelligible speed obviously convinced that by the third time the stupid gringo will have learnt to speak the language.
She was of the second camp, but as I would not budge and kept repeating “Lo siento, no intiendo” and giving her a very sad expression because I really wanted to leave her god-forsaken town (I even have proof of this very fact. It was Sunday and the church was closed. Now go ahead and tell me the town was not god forsaken) she persisted even going as far as using google translate.
Finally, I knew that whether we caught the 1pm bus or not had something to do with available seats. Oddly enough, every other bus company had advanced to an electronic ticket system. So we waited until just before 1pm when she called us over, sold us tickets and we were off. By this stage, it had stopped snowing and the sun was peaking through.
The rest of the trip to the end of the world was rather less exciting. Our second overnight bus in a row took us to Rio Gallegos from where we would spend another whole day on the bus and cross backwards and forwards between Chile and Argentina. I worried the border guards wouldn't let me leave Argentina when the computer took 10 minutes to load whatever information they needed after typing in my passport details. Obviously their dial-up was just really slow.
Entering Chile we all had our luggage scanned and food had to be declared. Two Asian guys on our bus had a whole box which the customs official eyed suspiciously before asking if it was really just food. She opened the box, which was full of noodles and laughing asked them if they didn't like Argentine food, to which they sheepishly nodded a yes.
Finally, already running a couple of hours late, we left behind the barren, windy plains that we had so far seen on Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego and started crossing the mountains that seperated us from Ushuaia. As it was getting dark, it started snowing and we could just make out the fresh snow lying on the road and dusting the trees. When we arrived to our hostel just before midnight, we were covered in white powder ourselves.
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