Wedding's Off!

A few minutes after I had ran full pelt through town like a complete loon I was finally getting my breath back and feeling ready to relax in my seat for the next twenty hours ride over to Coyhaique. As long as I could put up with my chair for that amount of time then there wouldn´t be any other problems. The DVD player kicked up and we had the pleasure of watching a very badly Spanish dubbed John Travolta action film on a TV screen where you could only work out half of the picture. A couple of scenes in with a good handful of people dead, the sound thankfully packed up, though this was unfortunately followed by our bus then breaking down. I don´t know what went wrong but there was all sorts pouring out onto the road and we weren´t going anywhere soon.

Four hours we waited there, sat on the side of the highway praying for rescue. With all that time we did a great deal of talking and planned further new ideas for the wedding. I think by now we must have organised about ten completely different wedding days from start to finish and all of them have fallen flat one way or the other. With so much disappointment it´s always very exciting when we give birth to a whole new idea and become totally fixed on it, building on top all the necessary essentials to make the day perfect. At the point where another bus came to pick us up we had all the right pieces to make our new plan work.

Our new bus had plenty more space for my dangly spider legs and a television that actually worked, which soon clearly displayed Travolta´s gun pumping macho `Taking of Pelham 123` drivel from the very start again. To be fair it did keep us amused, but when the film finished the DVD player was on loop so the film started to play back for what would be our third viewing. We looked around slightly bewildered at others on the bus hoping they might tell the conductor, but nothing was said so we rest our heads back and accepted our fate. One guess to what happened after the film finally ended? It´s fourth run through. I was seriously contemplating whether I would have more fun should I lock myself in the sticky urine carpeted, poo splatted bus toilet, but thankfully a fellow passenger informed the conductor and it was turned off. There were only so many times I could annoy Laura by saying the lines before they happened on screen!

After a quick stop to stretch our legs and get our passports checked at border control we headed into Argentina. For the next five hours we were subjected to a further two action films starring wrestling legends John Cena and The Rock, which will always spell disaster. I´m making our journey sound unbearable but whilst we were being visually tortured inside our bus, outside of it couldn´t have looked any more stunning. The scenery here was starting to deliver what we had hoped for and to make the landscape of jagged, giant sized mountains and gorgeous deep blue lakes seem even more impressive was the eye melting sunset that night. Quite possibly the most jaw dropping sky I´ve seen yet. It was like the heavens were filling up with red molten lava exploding the clouds into ginormous, multicoloured, puffing, spaceship shaped invaders from another galaxy. Our photos didn´t do it justice so you´ll have to trust me when I say I was truly excitable.

It had taken us both a good two hours to find a comfy position to sleep in last night but we woke the next day feeling pretty cheerful considering we had at least five hours drive ahead. The journey went quick though and we were soon passed the border crossing back into Chile with us looking a bit smug amount the amount of passport stamps we now have from around the world.

Almost 25 hours had gone by since we left Puerto Montt and we finally arrived in Coyhaique. We found ourselves a cosy, if slightly pricey hostel and went straight out to town to find an Internet to unravel our new plans to our parents, to hopefully resolve once and for all our on going marriage situation. The first thing we read in our inbox wasn´t a great start, as a few prices came through for the marquee and furniture we had fallen in love with- it was triple the cost of what the website had said. After conversations back home it became clear that our new bus brainstorm idea wouldn´t be possible either, causing more than a few headaches. In fact we had just spilled over boiling point and what was meant to be such a special day was now turning into something we just wanted to completely forget about altogether. Our ecstatic buzz had turned into more of a harsh comedown ever since our original venue was cancelled putting everything upside down, but now after a dozen more ideas have fizzled out too all our hope was gone with tensions now starting to build between the two of us. It was also swamping our travelling motivation into a boggy marsh as we were spending far too much time in front of a computer screen trying to resolve the situation instead of seeing the delights that surrounded us. Something had to change.

What followed that night was our first argument since we left England five months ago- damn good going considering we´ve been with each other 24/7 for all that time. It didn´t help that we had spent the last entire day on a bus and were both completely knackered either. After many hours deciding we agreed to leave everything ´wedding` until we got back home and to concentrate on our amazing journey we had planned as there is a gigantic swarm of delights to come our way soon. With everything now clear in our minds we snuggled up, watched a pap film and got a good night´s rest.

My brain felt a lot lighter the next morning and we were both happily in each others arms, but we were still focused on recapturing our travelling momentum. That was until we found our bus wouldn't leave until 7pm and it chucked it down with rain again. We ended up back in an Internet cafe- ooops, but it gave Laura the chance to have a much overdue girly chat with Danni which further helped put things back on track. It wasn´t too long until we were back outside though, and we headed off on a long walk around the lovely viewpoints of Coyhaique. We took a stroll out to the nearby river that winds its way down from the hills that are (expectedly) scattered everywhere along the spine of Chile and stopped for a tasty bite in a restaurant to treat ourselves. By the end of the day our heads were feeling revived again as we clambered into the mini van ready for the next part of our big adventure.