Kevin and I just finished our little trip into Argentina to wait for our Brazil visas to be processed. It was a little tense cause the whole time we were unsure whether or not we would be accepted for Brazil visas. They wanted extensive information and documentation which we weren't prepared for. Anyway, we had a good couple of days waiting. We just took a train ride back from a small town called Sierra de la Ventanna. We did a little bit of hiking and took an overnight bus to get there and an overnight train ride to get back to Buenos Aires. The train ride was especially interesting. Of course we opted for the cheapest tickets ever which meant 12 hours of sit up bench seats. Fortunately we used our charm to befriend the ticket guy at the train station. He was a coin collector without Canadian coins. Instant friendship. As we got on the train he worked it so that we could sit up front in first class, so instead of getting the hard seats we paid for, we just took those.
Everything was going great. We got to sleep and it was the most comfortable and needed rest yet. 3 or 4 hours into our sleep everything changed. People filled the train and someone happened to have tickets for our seat. So we were kicked out and were left with no seat at all. The train was packed – there were people sleeping everywhere – under seats, on the floor, in the bathroom, on the sinks, etc… Thus started the greatest 6 hours of our lives playing a game we now refer to as "dabum". Basically it involves adapting to any dirty environment to try to get some sleep. We would sleep anywhere until we got kicked out. We finally found a train car with the lights burnt out. While people were sleeping we crawled up into the luggage compartments in the roof and slept intertwined around baggage. It was awesome! We were the happiest, dirtiest street bums ever! Completely filthy but well rested. So we got back to Buneos Aires completely tired this morning.
Luckily for our sanity, everything went awesome today. We got our Brazil visas! We found out we don't need a visa for Uruguay! We found a step down converter and battery charger after I blew up mine by sticking it into the wall. We just indulged in a meal fit for kings and we decided to get a bed tonight rather than camping in some restricted area. But, tomorrow it's back to cheapest ever traveling.
-steve