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The following morning in San Pedro the shower refuses to budge from its icy temperature of iciness, so I refuse to get in. We stroll into town for some breakfast but the breakfast place is not open yet so we find some hot meat empanadas at a tiny store. We tuck into them and then line up for another two to eat cold on the bus for lunch. Even though we are paying 24,000 pesos for our bus seats, it was a little fuzzy as to whether we get food on our 12 hour ride. By the time we get our second lot of empanadas the line is out the door.
We grab our bags from the hostel and head up the street to the bus office. Around 9am the office woman turns up and indicates that the bus doesn't come to the office, but stops elsewhere, so we shoulder our bags and follow her up the road. She takes us to a parking area and we wait in the baking sun for our bus to turn up. It's on time, around 9.30am so we throw our gear in the holds and relax into our seats for the short ride to Chilean immigration. After a bit of a wait on the bus we are eventually beckoned off and get our exit stamp.
Back on the bus the Jackie Chan movie playing continues and we are given a snack of a biscuit and Pepsi. So it seems we are going to be fed on the bus after all. The Jackie Chan movie finishes and another one starts. It is just as bad. It's in Spanish with Spanish subtitles too.
Around midday we are given a lunch box with two unappealing sandwiches with ham and cheese, another biscuit and more Pepsi. A short time later we pull into the Chile/Argentina border. We sit on the bus for an eternity and then are beckoned off to stand in the line for an Argentina stamp, for an eternity. Some two hours later, at 2.30pm we have our 90 day Argentina stamp and are on the move once more. The Jackie Chan movie marathon continues. I want to kill myself. Or the bus attendant for his Jackie Chan fetish. I was ignorant as to how many terrible movies Jackie Chan has made. It is a substantial number. Enough to fill a 12 hour bus ride. I would imagine most of them went straight to DVD. It's painful. I try to drown the movies out as best I can with my Ipod, but the speakers above every seat in the bus make this a somewhat futile exercise. Eventually to escape the box set of the worst Jackie Chan movies ever made, I fall into a deep sleep where I can escape the atrocious acting and karate kicks. When I emerge from my slumber Jackie Chan is still saving some damsel in distress and nasty thoughts of one Jackie Chan stepping out onto the road in Hollywood and being cleaned out by a speeding bus tumble through my disturbed mind.
We are given more biscuits. I have had enough biscuits and enough Jackie Chan. Eventually we pull into Salta around 10pm and a stroke of luck - our hostel owner is at the bus stop, looking for customers so we get a free taxi ride to the hostel where we fall into bed.
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