We knew it was going to be a long bus ride. Salto-Montevideo, 500 km. Yeah, if you’re a truck driver or one of these crazy North Americans who drive across the country just for the sake of it, you’re probably laughing.
But remember that this is South America. You aren’t at the wheel of your vehicle. You’re a bus passenger and roads aren’t always that great. Oh, and in our case, one of the ticket holders is a four-year-old.
“There’s an airport in Salto!” Feng announced when we were looking for a way to the South. “Maybe … maybe there are direct flights to Montevideo.”
“That would make sense,” I nodded, mostly because I wanted to believe there was an easy solution. “The second-biggest city linked to the country’s capital.”
I asked around and got a simple, Spanish 101 two-word answer: “No hay.”
“¿No hay?”
“No hay.”
There are no domestic flights in Uruguay. Either the airport in Salto was built out of boredom, either the signs saying “aeropuerto” are fake and point to a secret UFO landing base foreigners shouldn’t know about.
“We could stop somewhere between Salto and Montevideo.”
“Break the journey for a night.”
“Good idea.”
We checked the map. There aren’t that many cities in Uruguay. It was a bit like trying to find several megalopolises in Saskatchewan or a snow-free corner of Canada in January.
I went to the bus station and asked around. I feel like one of these communicating vessels: I spend half of my life answering Mark’s questions and the other half asking people questions.
The bus station in Salto looked tiny after the giant terminals in Argentina. Like it is often the case in Uruguay, it is located inside a shopping mall. After confusing the terminal with the supermarket—don’t laugh, the latter is bigger than the former—I found several ticket counters, each representing a different company.
I started with Flecha Bus.
“¿Hay servicio de buses desde Salto hasta Montevideo?”
The employee looked horrified. “Montevideo, Uruguay? No, no. Solo a Argentina.”
Gotcha. Flecha Bus is for Argentinian tourists desperate to get out of Uruguay.
“Caja cerrada” said the sign at the other counter. Still siesta time until 4 p.m. I skipped it and skipped the one after for the same reason.
Finally, I found the counter of Núñez, a big company. I explained my travel dilemma.
“El bus para a Paysandú y Chung.”
“Chung?”
Sounded Chinese. Never heard of this city.
“Si, Chung.”
The bus station employee looked sad because I couldn’t find “Chung” on the map.
“Mira Aquí. Chung.”
He pointed to the map. “Young,” I read.
“Ah, Young!”
“Si, Chung.”
I pronounced it the English way. He pronounced it the Uruguayan way. I found the situation hilarious. Imagine Neil Young touring in Uruguay! All the people calling him “Sr. Chung!”
I left with the info, the schedule and went to hide in the supermarket for five minutes, still laughing about “Chung.”
I reported to Feng. Problem was, both Paysandú and Chung aren’t exactly big and we were travelling on a Sunday.
“How about that,” I eventually suggested. “We suck it up and take the directo to Montevideo. I mean, stopping in Paysandú, which is still a four-hour bus ride, is going to be a waste of time. Everything will be closed on a Sunday.”
The following day, at the end of my Termas-to-Salto hike, I stopped by the bus station again to buy the tickets. Bad news. The bus was almost full, I was told. There were three seats left: two downstairs, one upstairs, all separated.
I’m happy to report that I’m at this stage of our relationship where, after fifteen years, I can perfectly spend several hours sitting in a different place than Feng in a bus. However, even if I occasionally fantasize about Mark being completely independent, he still has to travel with one of us. I explained the situation. The employee shrugged. Not his problem.
In the end, he put a hold on the three tickets left and I rush back to the city centre to confer with Feng. It’s not like we had much choice anyway.
“Someone will switch … who will want to sit besides a four-year-old for six hours?”
We prepared for the long ride all evening. We packed, bought drinks and made ham-and-cheese sandwiches. We would arrive late in Montevideo and on a Sunday, the chances were that everything would be closed. We couldn’t really carry much food in the bus, it would go bad. Feng had chips, Mark had crackers, I had a banana. Hopefully, something would be open in the capital city.
We were so annoyed by the perspective to waste a day in the bus that Feng and I didn’t sleep until 4 a.m. “We’ll sleep in the bus,” we claimed.
On Sunday morning, we took a bus to the terminal and waited for our ride. Feng sat upstairs and I found our two seats downstairs, the last ones of the row, separated by a water dispenser that didn’t work. The other two passengers had window seats.
“Come here!” the passenger sitting besides Mark said. I explained we hadn’t been able to book seats together. She shrugged and didn’t seem to mind Mark.
The passenger on my side was a big guy who was eating chips while chatting on his phone.
Okay. So Mark would travel sitting by someone who wasn’t mommy and I would travel sitting by a guy who wasn’t my spouse. So what?
I briefed Mark. Be nice, don’t kick, it’s gonna be a long ride. I gave him the tablet and I grabbed my laptop. The bus was super comfortable, one of these semi-cama (reclining seats) used for long-distance trips throughout Latin America. Some of these buses serve food and play movies to passengers. Fortunately, this one didn’t and it was mercifully quiet—I remember a long ride in Argentina where we were forced to watch the entire filmography of Adam Sandler dubbed in Spanish…
Off we went.
Mark watched his movies, I read and wrote.
At one point, I must have fallen asleep. When I woke up, Mark was still watching movies. I checked the time. 6 p.m. We were almost there!
Finally, the bus stopped.
“That’s it, Mark! We are here!”
“Oh my God! Really? That’s AMAZING!”
He gave me a giant hug.
I was also amazed because it was exactly 6:30 p.m., the estimated arrival time. This bus crossing the country on a small road was more punctual than a bloody OCTranspo city bus!
In Montevideo’s giant Tres Cruces terminal/shopping mall, it was business as usual. Our best chances for food. I grabbed some stuff and we took a taxi to the hotel.
“Je n’ai pas peur de la route
Faudra voir, faut qu’on y goûte
Des méandres au creux des reins
Et tout ira bien (là)
Le vent nous portera…”
see, see, see…I don’t mind taking Mark with me from Jakarta to Surabaya by Train! he’ll love it :))
you raised him well, many kids at Mark’s age will be very cranky…phewww….
Oh, Mark can be extremely whiny and annoying too!
Le vent nous portera… 🙂 Clin d’oeil sympa.
J’ai hâte de découvrir Montevideo !
En deux mots, j’adore! Une ville qui mérite d’être découverte. Je rassemble les photos, update d’ici quelques jours…
un long voyage pour un petit garçon! (et pour vous également :p )mais ça en valait la peine visiblement!
Oh oui! Et puis, finalement… c’est bien de prendre le temps de faire de la route.
As I was reading your Salto Airport story, I wondered, do you guys know Rome2Rio.com? It’s a website that aggregates schedules of lots of public transportation options, whether it’s flights, buses, or trains. You can make it as vague or as precise as you want. So you could ask on that website how to go from Salta to Montevideo (it only shows me bus options from three companies), or how to go from a specific address to a specific address, the way you’d use Google Maps. It’s very useful, especially for figuring out where to go, and knowing what options you have.
Ah, didn’t know it! We used Kayak a lot for flights. Will give it a try! Thank you for the tip.
I guess Mark is becoming quite the season traveller!
I have to go home urgently, and believe it or not, there is no direct flight from Calgary to Paris in the winter! Like WTF!
Oh no! I hope everything is okay…? Well, obviously not but…? Ok, take care of yourself. I’m always available by email if you need a hug or to chat.
Unfortunately, I don’t think there are even in summer. I find western Canada not very well connected to Europe.
Ha ha you must have really gotten acquainted with Sandler’s work through the years on that previous bus ride!
You have NO idea… I still can’t watch any of his movies 😆
So, first : mouwahahaha !!
Then, there is almost no snow on some part of Saskatchewan now. Alberta and Saskatchewan are in fact very dry, even in winter, so it is common for the small amount of snow to melt when there is warmer weather. Compared to eastern Canada, where huge amount of snow stay all winter long.
I don’t see very well, but it seems you took a 4-axles bus. We have a few on Europe, but it is unheard of in North America. Nice contraption. It is really nice to travel this way.
Well, now you are going to explain to me what’s special about these kinds of buses…! I have no clue. It was a smooth ride and these buses are comfortable, that’s all I can tell. Oh, and they beep if the driver goes over 100 km/h. Side question: do you go by the speed limit?
4 axles, besides the badass look, means the thing can weight up to 32 tonnes in Europe, I guess around the same in South America. There are 2 steering axle in the front, and probably a self steering tag axle in the back. The drive axle is the Thierry from the front.
My truck has a speed limiter set at 105km/h, because it is mandatory in Québec and Ontario, but nowhere else in North America. A lot of companies set their trucks between 95 to 115km/h, but outside these two juridictions, it is not required. And except in a few states, speed limits are the same for trucks and cars. So, especially in western U.S, you can see trucks going at 120km/h legally.
And I mostly drive at speed limits, but it is important to note the différence between excessive speed and speed over the limit.
Fucking autocorrect. Third, not Thierry.
For a second, I thought it was cool slang 😆
Thank you for the explanation! Now I find myself inspecting the buses we take… pictures to come, maybe you’ll find something interesting.
I find the speed limit on highway pretty low in Canada, although with the drastic weather conditions, it makes sense. 100 km/h in winter is different than the same speed in the summer.
Not Canada. Only Québec and Ontario have such a low speed limit on 4 lanes highways for cars. It is 110km/h in every other province, except B.C. where there are some highways at 120km/h. And on 2-lanes highways, it is 100km/h except in QC and ON where it s only 90km/h.
And in Texas, there are a lot of 2-lanes highways with a 120 km/h speed limit.