Virtue Signaling from the End of the World (Part 1 of 4)
In the company we keep, we see ourselves reflected.
Day 150
I met a man at a bus terminal in El Calafate, Argentina, latitude 51 degrees South, at 2 o’clock in the morning. Our first interaction was one of those casual traveler interactions, brief eye contact followed by a small nonverbal acknowledgement. He was seated in the terminal, 5’11”, maybe 6’, likely some flavor of European, and wore a beard. Incorrectly judging him to be a respectable sort of person, I shrugged off my bags and laid down across 4 seats to rest. It was impossible to know at that moment that he would be the most despicable person I would meet across nearly six months of travel.
The bus was due to leave at 3:00 am, and it would be another 18 hours until the man and I arrived at our destination: Ushuaia, El Fin Del Mundo, the gateway to Antarctica, and the southernmost city in the world. This was the last leg of my six-week, 2,000 mile journey by bus down the entire length of the Argentinian Andes. While Argentinian buses are clean and reasonably comfortable, the seats recline only so far. My back was killing me; my 6’4” frame had hardly recovered from the last bus a week prior (28 hours from El Bolson to El Calafate).
I had decided to be unconscious for as much of the bus ride as possible. To that end, I had partied late the previous night and then exhausted myself physically by walking all around El Calafate in the freezing winter sun. The final step of my preparation was to spend six hours at a restaurant gorging myself on hearty food and hoppy beer. By midnight, I was proper drunk. I semi-alertly stumbled back to my hostel, where I struck up a conversation with the night attendant. One thing led to another, and we ended up smoking a joint. Like something out of a movie, he started rapping in the hostel’s courtyard – and I his rapt audience. All this to say that by the time I met the man in the bus terminal at 2 o’clock in the morning, my judgment was impaired.
I “slept” for roughly 13 hours of the 18 hour journey, waking only to navigate the necessary bus transfer, two international border crossings, short ferry ride across the Strait of Magellan, and 20 minute walk through downtown Ushuaia before arriving at the Antarctica hostel about 9:00 pm.
In the Antarctica’s lobby was the man from the bus terminal. By coincidence, we had booked the same hostel and were assigned beds in the same shared room. We recognized each other, and that was enough to get us talking. He was Italian, 40 years old, on holiday. He spoke better Spanish than me, a low bar, and always something I looked for in a temporary travel companion. We both needed dinner, and to stretch our legs, so off we went.
Our conversation that night was normal. We traded stories about our respective experiences in Argentina. We talked about how good the food and drink was, and how cheap compared to the US or Europe. We were both excited to do the tourist things in Ushuaia: hike in the snowy national park, take a boat tour of the channel, explore the city’s nightlife. We split up after dinner. The Italian went out to a nightclub, while I went back to the Antarctica for some much needed sleep.
The shared room was dark and quiet when I made it back. The three pairs of bunk beds were fully booked, and I had unfortunately been assigned a top bunk. Hostel bunk beds are never as stable as you would like them to be. Plus, there was someone trying to sleep in the bottom bunk as I hoisted myself up the ladder and flopped into the bed. I fell asleep immediately, exhausted.
Suddenly, I woke up to what sounded like a motorcycle revving. In one of the other top bunks, the Italian was fitfully snoring. It was awful. I’d slept in dozens of hostels, and shared rooms with well over 100 people. This was the loudest snoring I had ever heard. From my perch, I could see him lying on his back fully clothed, mouth open, legs askew, oblivious to the tempestuous noise emanating from his throat. He had woken up half the room, and my roommates’ protestations were becoming less diplomatic with each guttural exhalation. Some choice words were said. The Italian never woke, but eventually shifted position and the noise became bearable. Such is hostel life. Mostly amused, I went back to sleep. This isn’t what made the Italian despicable – snoring is annoying, but not irredeemable.
Photo: Me in Ushuaia, June 2023. Photo credit to the Italian, his shadow in the bottom right corner.
