Iguazu:
The Bus Trip
I
want to talk a minute about the buses and the bus experience to and from
Iguazu. Really, one will suffice. I just want to talk about the bus for a
minute, okay? The buses, from my entire experience of sitting on all of two, are
very nice in Argentina. And probably most of South America, from what I’ve
heard from other travelers. They have to be, really, because there isn’t much
other option than driving yourself some places. Air travel is less common and
there isn’t a great train network in SA.
“Wow,
Brennan, you describe them as ‘nice’. You really paint a picture. A regular
Jackson Pollock of the pen to paper artform, no doubt. Nooooo doubt. Hey, is
that Bill Shakespeare over there?! I LIVE IN A VAN! DOWN BY THE RIVER!” Ok,
haha, I get it, harsh inner self. (I hate it when people say they're their own toughest critics. Shut up. Just, please, okay? Thanks.) I’m not a great writer. I get it. Allow me
(permitame) a describir (to describe) the buses here. The ones I’ve been on are
double decker, like legit, walk up a set of stairs, not the bunk bed style
double decker (India, AHEM). The buses are very well-constructed. They appear
new, with a modern style, for example the outside corners of the buses are
rounded, resembling newer, more modern styles of autos (cars) in recent years.
The paint is typically bright, in lime green or mango, like a Lamborghini… …
dot dot dot. The floors of the inside have the pattern like that of a car
showroom, painted a light grey with the specks they put on it. It’s pleasing.
It seems unnecessary because, hey, it's a bus. Function over form, right? But, see above paragraph about competition. The seats are wide and spacious with a footrest that folds down. The
construction I was in was 2 seats on one side, 1 seat on the other. They are
well-upholstered; the seats are neither torn nor tattered. And they are
comfortable (!!!).There are monitors every few seats for playing typically
movies or sometimes a bit of music. The windows have shades that you move
horizontally (as opposed to vertically) for sleep at night.
There
are several types of buses, distinguished by how far their seats recline.The
ones I remember, the ones you shall only know of due to my poor memory and the
fact that we both know you’re not gonna go Google (or Bing!) South American bus
styles, are called “semi-cama” and “cama”. No, not comma. Cama is the Spanish
word for “bed”, and hairdresser. Is he being serious? No. It just means bed.
Obviously cama bus seats recline further and are more expensive. (Ok, just one
second. Who…WHO thought of that? “How do we differentiate our bus experience
and create different and competitive pricings?” “HOW FAR THE SEATS RECLINE.”
“GENIUS!” “There’s nothing to uhhhhh…to uhhhhh…to uuuuuhhh DO.” “Brian, Brian,
gimme, gimme your keys, you’re drunk.”) I think the cama seats recline maybe 160
(where is the degrees symbol…who ever uses this except for physicists and drunk
cats…oh here we go) 160°, semi-cama I think is 130° (copy paste, fools!). So,
cama in this case is perhaps a misnomer since it’s not like a bed, a full 180°
(3 degree symbols in one blog post? Now you’ve gone too far, Brennan. I was
questioning 2, but 3 is just wholly unrealistic.) I imagine it’s perfect if you
suffer from heartburn, though. I haven’t tried semi-cama, but I surmise it was
worth it to pay for the extra 30°. I do hope (using the subjunctive here) there
are at least 2 other styles of bus: superULTRAcama, with a ONE HUNDRED NINETY
degree experience (Degree Ultra Extra Dry: a deodorant, possibly
champagne-inspired experience, for men) and “Poor as fuck”: no seats, you get
to stand for 20 hours. Nah, that’s mean.
As
for the experience: comfortable, relaxing, and uneventful. Not bad scenery.
Some stops along the way. They played several
shitty movies and ZERO good movies. Oh and of course the movies were in English
with Spanish subtitles or in Spanish with no subtitles. The audio was hit or
miss. They played that movie with Reese Witherspoon and Mark Ruffalo where
she’s in a coma (not cama) and haunts his new/her old apartment. Honestly,
dude, Mark Ruffalo, love you, man, but Jesus. You have the potential to be one
of the best leading men in Tinseltown, but this? Just, Jesus. DOA, brother. Yeah, okay, I would have taken the money, too. I
guess not every movie every actor does is great. (Can’t think of a good
joke/reference here. “Got a clip? Oh, no clip? Thought we had a clip.”) And I
guess they played Ice Age 3? AW-FUL. Like so awful I almost cried it was so
awful. And not just cuz of the hilarious guy who was speaking in place of Ray
Romano in Spanish. And they also played the Marlon Wayans' movie (I think I have the
right Wayans brother here?) that’s a spoof on the Paranormal Activity movies.
HILARIOUS. I feel like Marlon Wayans is super underappreciated. Wasn’t he in
“Requiem For A Dream”? And isn’t that supposed to be a good movie? I mean, I
can’t blame him for doing the GI Joe movie. No, it should have never been made.
EVER. But it had like Dennis Quaid, JGL (HOLY SHITBALLS JGL WAS IN A GI JOE
MOVIE. THE FUCK?), and, um, Channing Tatum. Weird.
Anyways
(de todos modos), the sleep was very good! Way better than you’d think you’d
get on a bus!
And
that’s all she wrote kids. I don’t think I’d wanna do a longer bus trip, but
19-21 hours ain’t so bad.
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