A lucky day and new friends

Happy faces of lucky day.

 We woke up to the sound of our bear roommate wandering around the room. He probably thought it was already spring time and was looking for some trees to climb and find honey.

We packed our bags, had a quick breakfast, a quick misunderstanding with an eftpos machine, and were on our way.

Outside it was a chilly morning. Chey decided to go to the kiosk, so I sat down on a corner to take care of our backpacks while he looked for one, lightly and quickly (a much better technique than two slow walkers with spine pain).

While I was sitting like a good luggage caretaker, minding my own business, Good Karma decided to appear, in the shape of a couple on a 4WD.

Oscar and Tatiana are from Rio Gallegos, and they offered us a lift because they overheard us saying we were hitchhiking, They took us through 800 km in one day, going through a couple of towns, heaps of desert, and the so-called "unhitchable" part of Ruta 40.

Our Ruta 40 angels

Bajo Caracoles, a town of 4 blocks. This is the service station.

Our lift!

Guanacos crossing the road.

The road was nice and full of chatting, they were genuinely curious about our adventure and told us about theirs, since they're also travel lovers. They stopped many times for us to take pictures and look at the landscape, and took this beautiful photo of us:

As if this was not enough, on arrival in Rio Gallegos they offered us to stay at their place for the night. They're building their new house in the front of the property, so there was not a lot of space; but they made us feel completely at home. We got matresses, comfy blankets, a warm shower... and I cooked a dinner of risotto for everyone (though they didn't let us pay for the groceries!).

Family dinner cooked by yours truly.

Next morning they took us for a "tour" of the city and showed us an old train graveyard, to Chey's absolute happiness; and after they dropped us right before the border crossing (we had to cross to Chile to go to the island of Tierra del Fuego and get to Ushuaia- end of the world-).

Río Gallegos.

Chey riding on Thomas the tank engine.

Old, forgotten trains.

Someone's old, forgotten suitcase.

Old coal ship, one of Chey's many too-awesome pictures.

Before crossing the border we visited Laguna Azul, a lagoon inside an old volcano.
The rain didn't allow too long for sightseeing, though.

We said goodbye knowing that we will run into each other again... maybe in Australia?

At the immigration office, we did our first border paperwork, Chey got his first (of many) Chile stamps, and we got ourselves ready to  hitchhike the next bit towards the tip of the continent.