Crabby in Punta Arenas

Not sure if it was my 30 hours of travelling or the fact that Dave doesn´t arrive for another 11 hours....
Thursday I took an 18-hour bus ride from Puerto Madryn to Rio Gallegos in Argentina. Again I had the seat near the baño. Nice. About 2 hours into the trip the bus pulls over next to two stranded trucks full of people. I thought how nice it was that the driver was giving them water for their radiator or otherwise helping out. The next thing I know a band of wild gypsies/hippy cult members pour onto our bus. There were at least two adult females with several children and a 12 year old girl seemingly doing all of the work. One man went upstairs to the nice part of the bus and left the rest of us to endure his dirty, half-clothed progeny. The babies were screaming and running all around the bus. They were adorable once you could see them through the filth. It was an olfactory and auditory nightmare. The noise was on top of a Bruce Willis shoot-em-up movie on full blast in Spanish. Luckily they got off the bus around midnight and we could all sleep.
The bus station in Rio Gallegos has the worst facilities of any that I´ve been in. I had a 4 hour wait for my next bus and the town was too far and rainy to walk to. Luckily I have learned to stock up on food because the kiosk had only candy bars and warm soda. Okay, here is my gripe. In both Chile and Argentina the people are fairly rude and everyone eats tons of sugar. Every little shop has ice cream, chocolate and candy but finding anything like an apple is impossible if you aren´t in a supermarket. If I never eat ice cream again it will be welcome. Granted some of it is amazing. In El Bolson they were artisans of the helados, but Nestle bars and chocolate between every meal is just too much. No wonder they don´t get hungry for dinner until 10pm. I was about done with people cutting in front of me like I don´t exist and bumping into me once I got on the second bus.
This bus ride was great despite more unruly children. I´m glad my neices and nephews are so well behaved :) Earlier in my travels I was befriending little dudes, but currently they seem to be my nemasis. Hopefully my relationship to the niños improves.
The ride went through wide open grassland with some small ridges and rolling hills. It was so vast. Very Patagonian. I finally know what a bunchgrass prairie is supposed to look like. There were also lots of sheep grazing near the road with their little baby lambs chasing behind them. So cute! The grassland started to mix in with small wetlands and some trees the closer we got to Punta Arenas. I think we either have to go further north or east to get to mountains again.
Now I am in Punta Arenas waiting to get into our nice hostel. I really bit the bullet to save money last night with my hostel selection. I met a South African guy with the craziest South American adventures of biking through the Andes and ice climbing with unskilled guides in Bolivia, so it was at least entertaining.
Poor Dave is also in the middle of a 4 plane trip. He is currently killing time until his plane leaves Santiago this evening. I hope he goes to the hostel where I stayed(and where he is supposed to retrieve my sunglasses) to relax a bit. They speak English too.
Not sure if we will spend two nights here or push on to Puerto Natales and start planning our trek in Torres del Paine. With all of the sitting and ice cream, I am ready to start hiking again!! He is calling the shots in terms of our plans from here on out since he only has two weeks.
p.s. Dawn, the penguins I saw in Argentina and the species down here are Spheniscus magellanicus, Magellanic penguins.
p.s.s. The thing about people being rude is on a macro level. The overall society is pushy and the service workers are unfriendly (maybe similar to NYC?) but individuals are really pleasant. In fact, I just met a local guy at a vegetable stand who used to live in Texas and wanted to discuss U.S. policy while choosing pears. He is fine with Iraq. According to him, if we didn´t go in China would have... hmmm. He didn´t seem too familiar with geography in that he was describing this future plan of China as simply a border expansion.
p.s.s.s. Why is the song 'Whats going on?' by 4 Non-blondes still played on any station in the US or abroad? This is the 5th time I´ve heard it on my trip.