187 Bariloche

This is dedicated to all the Fidos and Pollys out there in the world.  RIP.

It was a sad day when we left El Bolson.  An ominous day, one might say.  But it didn't start that way.  As usual our flighty feet left us content with a week long stay, so excitement to get back on the road was the dominant sensation when we boarded our bus out of hippie heaven.  As is life, the bliss from one moment just as quickly can turn to bile, or at least that is what I expected  to happen after our bus howitzered through a presumably stray dog in the street.

The road to Bariloche is beautiful and scenic.  It's also windey and slow, but for the few straightways in which the bus seemed to speed up, either to gain enough speed to carry us up the next hill, or to make up time for all the stops made for the locals.  Thus it was as we rounded a corner and began the acceleration for the next straightaway as we'd done for the last thirty minutes..  But this was different. This time two dogs were playing in the middle of the highway.  When Beth and I saw them we were still far enough away that they could move.  We both waited, expecting the dogs to to use their doggie sense and get somewhere safe.  Nothing.  Just rolling around like two little puppies.  

To our drivers credit he beeped his horn multiple times when we were far enough away to avoid tragedy.  To his forever blackened soul, that is all he did.  We first beeped 600 or so meters away, we also last beeped then, but more importantly the bus maintained a constant speed throughout the process.  Not even the slightest decrease, no letting off the pedal, and surely no braking.  Full speed ahead.  A deadline (no pun intended) at the end o' the line.

And that's how it happened that a harmonious gasp erupted from the first three rows of seats.  I've never run anything over in my life-though I have hit a few immovable objects-and it's weird how fast and underwheming the sound is.  Then you realize that you just ran over a cute little dog, probably someones animal, best friend even.  And then the real sounds, long and draining, begin. Beth cried off and on for about the next thirty minutes, and a few more times later that day when she would periodically ask me if I thought the dog who survived had other friends--which I replied to with a resounding "No." (C'mon, I'm not evil.).  And that's how every dog we passed in Bariloche came to receive a special little present, a word of warning from our own little dog whisperer, Beth: "Cuidado, liitle perro."

As for Polly, on our way out of town a bird, I like to think of it as a dove, swooped right in front of our bus and that same sound reverberated throughout the steel frame, but this time everyone was asleep, so only the driver and I echoed the gasp of five days earlier.  And that was how Bariloche became known as 187 Bariloche to Me and Beth.

Note: some of you may be thinking to yourselves, "why did Jason spend so long explaining the dog accident and just a sentence for the bird.". Three reasons: 1) I'm a dog person, 2) the bird flew into the bus, the bus ran into the dog, 3) We've posted some pics of dogs we met along the way, but had none of any birds we met...