Day 536 - Bahia Blanca, Argentina
Our Andes Mar bus pulls into the Bahía Blanca bus terminal at 12:07 AM, two minutes late. We stumble into the darkness, grab our bags and find Uber. It takes through the dark and quiet streets to the Hotel Victoria. This turns out to be a less than perfect choice. The street is dark, the entrance tiny and tired. The moment we walk in I have the uneasy feeling that we had arrived at the Argentine version of the Bates Motel in Psycho. Dilapidated cushions on the couches are mashed and worn across two couches and a decrepit chair; the red paint makes the lobby dark and cheerless above the wooden floors which are as worn as the oriental throw rugs that lay upon them. I whisper to Cyn, “What have I gotten you into?” Because it was me who booked this hotel when in Mi Refugio. We walk to the big, mahogany reservations desk to arrange for our room.
A small man with Coke-bottle glasses arrives as quietly as an apparition. He wears dark pants, a white shirt under a thinning black sweater. He pats his comb-over of salt and pepper hair and gazes at me with his huge eyes.
“Buenas noches,” I manage, “Nosotros tienamos reserva – me Nombre es Walter.” He nods as if someone has just died.
The reservations process is slow and painful but eventually our host takes us up the marble steps along a wrought iron balustrade to our room. Within, there is not a single window.
Our host points out the beds, the bathroom, the battered wooden table under which two small stools have been jammed, and checks to make sure the air conditioning works. It does! Proudly he indicates the 25 inch flat screen TV above the single bed and with a slight bow offers us a quiet buenas noches, and closes the door.
Cyn, trooper that she is, turns down the bed. It is clean and surprisingly firm. The hot room soon cools and we complete our ablutions. At 1:30 AM we fall asleep at last, and I’m already dreaming of the next day’s bus odyssey.
