Woo, yet another ridiculously delayed blog incoming! Where were we?
Ah, yes. The last few days in Chile.
Sunsets or stars...
I had a glorious lazy Saturday in San Pedro, during which I wrote, ate another delicious empanada and basically did bugger all. Again. I had intended to make up for this by going on my rescheduled stargazing trip. However, this is the view which greeted me as I set off into town.
Gorgeous sunset, right? Unfortunately, the clouds so beautifully lit up by the sunset also caused my stargazing to be cancelled. Again. Buggeration.
Christmas organised-ness
On the Sunday I first tried to get the blog up to date. You can see how successful that was by the fact that I'm only just writing this now...
And then I booked another tour. Woo.
Then I decided to be super-organised and do some Christmas shopping. San Pedro had a nice little craft market - mostly full of tourist tat, but with a few nice bits - so I went and had a poke around in there. I came away with a couple of really nice alpaca wool scarves, locally made. I will admit I was very tempted to keep them both for myself, but since I'm nice (and I already had my Taquile knitwear from Peru) I can confirm that they did actually make it to the people they were bought for.
And then I ate another empanada. I can't help it - the empanadas in San Pedro were pretty good.
At this point, my notes just say "THINGS" and I have no idea what those things were. I suspect I didn't have any idea what they were when I wrote that note either...
Quinoa & Quince
On my final full day in San Pedro I took a tour around a couple of historic sites. First stop, the fortress of Pukara, built by the Atacemenos and used against the Spanish. Until the Spanish snuck in through the stream bed and killed most of them.
It's very similar in style to the fortified sites in Peru, which isn't all that surprising given that Inca culture stretched into northern Chile.
From there, we popped down to Aldea de Tulor, which is an old village site. There's a reconstruction of some of the buildings - the roofs are held together with llama sinew. Waste not...
Funny little place - you can see the outlines of the old buildings and it looks like they
were packed right in tight. Apparently the area was an important meeting place between fairly far flung groups and may have been a centre for trade.
Final stop of the tour, a local farm, where a llama tried to spit at me.
And we got to try some local food. This included quinoa with chanar jam (and another jam that I didn't catch the name of), quince juice and some funny little scone-like cakes. Which I stuffed my face with because I'm on a budget and if there's food included, I'm going to make the most of it.
Suffering from a slight sugar high, I had a short mooch around San Pedro before treating myself to a late lunch/early tea. Again, I gobbled down a delicious quince & quinoa dumpling starter.
Seriously, those things are amazing. Followed up with delicious quesadilla. Om nom nom.
With stargazing once again cancelled (gah), I instead spent the evening trying to get the blog up to date. And once again, this turned into an epic fail. And to think I'd been doing so well with this thing...
Santiago, again
On the Tuesday morning I said goodbye to the stray dogs I'd been making friends with and hopped on my transfer back to Calama. Scoffed down an enormous plate of chips (yum) and crept onto the plane hoping I wasn't going to have the same strange anxiety that I had on the flight into Calama the week before.
As it was, the flight was fine. Getting a shuttle from the airport to the hotel on the other hand... not so much. First I went to the desk. He told me to go to the next woman down. She looked confused. So the guy told me to go to the gate. The guy at the gate told me I needed a ticket - I'd assumed he would do that bit. So he took me to another desk, where the woman issued me a ticket but didn't charge me.
At this point, I was super confused, but assumed that I'd just pay the driver.
The driver dropped me at the hotel and took off without another word.
Confusion.
Somehow I'd got there without paying. No one ever asked me for payment. There was a price on the ticket, but no one tried to collect it. How the hell?
Anyway, shouldn't complain, especially since I was back at the cheap but pleasant hotel I'd stayed at the previous week and had a whole room to myself. More than enough space to unpack both of my bags, get rid of the junk and repack everything in a more sensible fashion.
Somehow I've managed not to pick up loads of crap over the last few months. Well done, me. A bout of handwashing later and I didn't even have any smelly clothes to worry about. As a result, I got to spend the evening watching telly and writing all the words. Given that the next day I was heading off on a ridiculously long leg to Australia, I figure I needed it.
Expect a snarky email
After a morning spent watching Looney Tunes in Spanish (hilarity), I headed once again for Santiago Airport and the first of three flights that would take me to Australia. After check in with Air Canada, I flew through outbound immigration, acquiring another stamp in the process and spent an hour mooching through duty free, bemoaning the fact that pisco doesn't come in small bottles that would easily fit in my bag. Damn.
Service on the Air Canada flight was so stereotypically Canadian, it was adorable. Super friendly. Also, The Secret of Kells was on the inflight entertainment, which made me very happy - it's a beautiful film.
On arrival at Ezeiza Airport, Buenos Aires, the grumpy looking transit security man took my thumb print and waved me back through to Departures. I was most put out - they took my thumb print and I didn't even get a stamp in return. Grr.
So followed my 8 hour stopover in Argentina, during which I couldn't leave the airport. So I wrote. I ate chips and another empanada. Then I wrote some more.
And at 11:30pm, I joined the queue to board my flight. I'd got all the way to the chap checking boarding passes. He looked at mine, looked at me, smiled.
"You need a new boarding pass."
WHAT THE FUCK. I've been sitting in the fucking airport for 8 hours. No one told me at check in that I'd need another boarding pass. The Air Canada lady had printed out all three of my passes - Chile-Argentina, Argentina-New Zealand, New Zealand-Australia. But apparently, because they were on Air Canada passes, I wasn't allowed on the plane until I had the right Air New Zealand ones, even though the information was exactly the same.
What sort of stupid shit is this?
Anyway, I was too tired to argue. In fact, I was pretty close to crying as I trudged all the way down to the other end of the terminal to get my replacement passes. The guy at the desk, to his credit, sorted it out pretty quick, but then decided to tell me that I would need to hurry because they were calling my flight. I think I snapped at him that I'd already been there and they'd told me to come to him.
Bad mood rapidly increasing.
So I hurried back down the terminal, ignoring the looks from the gate staff that screamed "you took your time" and toddled onto the plane. Sat down. Tried not to cry. Cried anyway. I blame the tiredness. Started mentally composing a snarky email to vent the frusstration.
Unfortunately, I've never mastered the art of sleeping on planes and the fact that Air New Zealand decided to serve dinner at midnight did not help. I snatched a few minutes sleep and then resigned myself to watching films for the rest of the flight. I got my fix of Middle-earth, so it can't have been all bad.
Shortly before landing in Auckland at 5am New Zealand time and therefore stupid-o'clock by my Chilean set body clock, I had breakfast. When I got off the plane, my brain was so confused (and so tired) that I had second breakfast before I got on my next flight.
I blame the fact that I'd been watching The Hobbit.
Then I got third breakfast on my short flight from Auckland to Sydney. And watched the third Hobbit film. Mood somewhat improving, despite the jetlag.
On arrival in Sydney the automated border control system rejected me because I'd been in Peru. As a result, I had to go to the desk and got a nice Australian entry stamp in my passport which I wouldn't have got at the automated gates. Win.
Unfortunately, I'd also declared medicines and possibly soil-contaminated items on my form, so then I had to go and talk to Customs, who, though very friendly, insisted on going through my entire bag. Never mind that I'd already pulled out the offending anti-malarials and the soil-contaminated walking boots were on my feet...
Finally I made it into the main concourse, where my stomach demanded a fourth breakfast. Two hours later, with my brain feeling mushier by the minute, I opted to take a taxi to my hostel.
Bad move. Sixty dollars. Ugh. Ah well. At least I could then spend the rest of the day passed out in the hostel. Jetlag really got me this time.
Well, here I am. Three months in Australia, starting with three weeks in Tasmania, the state I consider to be my second home and one of my favourite places in the world. One more day in Sydney and then it's off to the land under down under.
Maybe I'll see some echidna this time...
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