At the gates.

Just a few days now until we are off on our second trip to South America. As usual our plans are rather vague. Patagonia, Buenos Aires, Uruguay and Iguazu Falls are on the agenda, but who knows what we might get up to in between?  So far we have ourselves booked into a central city AirBnB apartment in Santiago for a couple of days of RnR before we tackle the inevitable long bus trips needed to see this vast continent.

Trains have become our favoured mode of transport of late. But sadly, most of the passenger lines in South America have fallen into disrepair and stopped operating. One of the few remaining services is the line from Santiago to Chillan, a four and a half hour trip that will kick us off in style. However, from there it will be bus, bus, bus. Not as bad as it may seem though, because coach (a more appropriate tag) travel throughout South America is substantially more comfortable than one might imagine, except perhaps for Bolivia, which can be challenging. The highest class of travel, ‘cama’, has fully reclining seats, video entertainment (Spanish), food service and sometimes Wifi.  Just the thing for a long overnight haul. Semi-cama services are very comfy as well. Good leg room, partly reclining seats and great views from the top of double decker coaches. Cama, by the way is Spanish for bed.

So once again the open road beckons .