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19 hours in "First Class"....

..."First Class" on the interstate coach from Mendoza to Bariloche that is!
Here are some memorable milestones along the journey:
Realising that the names given me by the check in clerk ("Comodoro Rivadivia") were not the names of driver and steward but the final destination ( beyond Bariloche!) to which the bus was heading...
Snuggling under my blanket (as the air-conditioning plummetted temperatures to 17°) after a tasty supper of pasta....
Waking up at 1am and 2.30am at deserted town coach stations and feeling sorry for those who had to catch a bus at that time...
Feeling equally sorry for the other eight passengers in "Primero Classe" who have to endure my extremely LOUD SNORING......!
Watching a mother consoling her deeply distressed three year old who had had to say "Goodbye" to nain and taid.(And thanking God for the gift of my family....)
Being woken up by one of my own snores ( yes, it IS that bad!) and watching the sun rise on the Patagonian steppe - yellow and bleached green clusters of small shrubs amongst the sandy gravel, barely sufficient to sustain goats, let alone sheep and cattle...
Glimpsing signs of the Argentinian oil industry ( prices have dropped over the last few years) and also of an atomic power facility - right in the middle of nowhere...
Sensing the clock move slowly and thanking God for those BBC films ( "Letters from Baghdad") that I'd downloaded....
Sensing the change in geography as we climbed up major escrapments, looking down on sculptuted granite, azure lakes and fast flowing torrents...
Being amazed how we'd suddenly arrived....
And thanking God that the flight back to Europe will be much shorter - God willing....!
" Keep me travelling along with you....!" 

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