A Mangy Drug Sniffer and Peanut Butter

So now you know that we didn't catch that bus to the trailhead. The bus ride from El Calafate to Puerto Natales took longer than expected due to fun stuff at the Argentina-Chile border, which I'll elaborate on below. It turns out that it's probably better that we didn't catch that bus since I'm having some digestive track difficulties which may require a little bedrest. You do not need to worry for two reasons:

1. We have found a nice hostel with private room and bathroom and very nice hosts. Shouldn't be a bad place to stay extra, if needed. Also, Puerto Natales is not the tourist trap that El Calafate is, so the room costs $15 American a day which includes laundry, use of kitchen, and other benefits. It is also very clean.
2. We have some Cipro--a nice antibiotic that will kill most any bacteria. If things don't get better, I'll hit it with the big stuff.

We finally found some peanut butter! Not a staple here in Argentina and Chile, but I wouldn't want to go backpacking without some.

Puerto Natales is on the ocean and has a great view of the surrounding mountains. One could easily spend a great deal of time hiking around here. We'll take lots of pictures.

Onto the business at the border. It was easier to enter Argentina than to exit Argentina. Everyone unloaded the bus at the border and crammed into the border shack. I immediately sought out the restroom (see above problemas), but found that the bathroom contained only urinals. That was bad since I was not able to use the toilet at the bus station in El Calafate due to the fact that not only was there no TP, but there were also no toilet seats on the toilets. There is striking evidence in Argentina that nobody every needs to sit down or wipe to use a toilet. So, we all pass through the line, show passports, and fill out a little form, and then return to the bus. We wait on the bus for 10 minutes or so, before the bus driver gets on and instructs us to exit the bus again. They brought out a small, mangy yellow lab on a leash and proceeded to have it sniff through the luggage area and seats. Now here's the funny thing: the dog didn't want to have anything to do with sniffing the bus. It kept looking away and trying to head back to wherever it came from where, apparently, there were better things to smell. The border police had to keep tugging on the leash to get the dog back on track. In what might have got me an extended visit to a backroom at the border station, I laughed openly at the scene which brought on a few grins from other passengers. I told Kristine that we would have been there all day if Aspen had been the border dog. Once you got her away from all the people she would have not only sniffed every square inch of the bus, but probably would have given it a good cleaning as well. Anyhow, once the bus was clear we drove 5 minutes to the Chile border station and got off to do the same thing. This time, however, the bathroom had...urinals AND toilets...toilet seats...and...wait for it...toilet paper. I was relieved, and in appreciation I proudly admitted that we were smuggling across some dried fruit, and some sandwiches. The Chilean didn´t seem to care. They even let the mangy mutt who was out on the sidewalk keep his peace.

I'll let you go. Thanks to everyone who writes. We'll be posting more soon if I don't feel better, otherwise it might be a while.