and we’re out of here…

With the motor repaired and the new muffler, we set out for a longer test drive. We bid farewell to Beto, Kuky and the pups and headed south. First though, we had to stop for some groceries, and when we returned we found this note on our car.

Hugo started his road trip from Barranquilla, Colombia a while back and had been following our progress on the blog as he slowly caught up. He had sent us a few emails and we knew he was getting close, but not this close! Apparently, he recognized the bus 😉

Our plan for the day was to just drive around. We drove through lots of wine country just put some miles on the motor and then headed back towards Maipu. There, we found a campsite and started to set up.

While Jason was in the shower, the tent campers down the site from us arrived in their car. I went out to wash a glass and said ‘hola‘. They approached and we spoke in English for about 5 minutes before I realized it was Hugo! Completely embarrassed, we ended up laughing about it (or at least Jason and I did!) Seems like we were destined to meet one way or another.

They were totally cool and we hung out with them until late in the night, with Jason trying to convince them that they should head to Ushuia instead of turning around for their flight back to the UK three weeks from now.

The whole experience was a little strange, actually. Since they’ve been reading the blog, they seemed to know everything about us. It was a little spooky – if we started to tell a story, they already knew how it ended.

We also nearly killed what will likely be Jason’s final giant jug of wine. Some things just aren’t meant to be.