Sorry folks, no photos in this update.

Im currently writing this on the van ride to my flight over the Nazca lines, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves here. After spending the day exploring Easter Island in our trusty Jimny, Hannah and I arrived safely in Santiago around 8.30pm. Being a decent human being, I offered (more like insisted) that Hannah crash at my hotel room I’d booked for my short stay in Santiago to prep myself before meeting up with the gang in Rio. Her original plan was to just take a bus into the city and find a hostel, but I thought it might’ve been a tad dangerous that late at night, thus my insistence. When planning the trip, I figured a little luxury was needed after backpacking alone for 3 weeks, and camping the last 4 nights. Shear laziness meant booking into the Holiday Inn direct across the road from Santiago airport despite hotels further out being significantly cheaper, but this was a splurge I was willing to make. For some odd reason booking a room with 2 double beds worked out cheaper than a single king. Go figure. But it worked out well, it meant I was able to offer Hannah the spare bed in exchange for her paying for dinner and some beers. Once checked in, she seemed pretty glad that she took up my offer. I was going to be there for 2 nights and planned to do fuck all, except laundry. By now, I’d gone 3 weeks without being able to wash anything, my initial investment in merino wool clothing certainly paid off. Hannah was flying back to Houston the next night, but planned to explore Santiago during the day first so I offered to shelter her main pack in the room while she was out exploring. 

Once we dumped our bags, the plan was to get dinner before getting too settled, so we crossed back over to the airport food court and ordered dinner to bring back to the room (I was a cheap date, all I was craving was fries and tomato sauce). The best part of the whole thing was finally sleeping in a bed that wasn’t a bunk, didn’t move, or wasn’t on the ground, it was shear bliss. Though maybe even better was finally having a shower without thongs, and not being terrified of the number of butts the shower curtain had touched. There was a distinct feeling of joy and contentment from both of us after we each had shower and settled into the crisp hotel linen.

It was cute when Hannah started exchanging texts with her mum, updating her on her final night before heading home. Her mum thought I was a sweetie for offering to share my room and Hannah reckons it was the first time she felt safe and clean in a while. I’m building up some good karma here, hopefully it’ll come in handy in the future. I stirred slightly when Hannah’s alarm went off in the morning and when she left early to explore the city, but I was too comfortable and barely registered it. When I finally did peel my eyelids open, I had a serious case of procrastination about doing laundry. Stomach rumbling, I opted to get food instead. I had seen the food court list burgers on their menu the night before and I was again hankering for something familiar and a good old burger would hit the spot. I mean a burger for breakfast wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, it was my luxury time before meeting up with hectic friends. Well, turns out it was a bad move, firstly, the burger was grossly overpriced, and even worse, it was terrible. I was thankful I managed to find a convenience store that stocked instant noodles I thought would appease the budget for dinner. All this was after scouring the airport for the elusive Subway store listed on the airport website, which turned out to be beyond the departure gates. Sigh. Back in the hotel room, with a half eaten burger in the bin, I forced myself to finally do laundry ala fill bathtub with hotel shampoo and body wash rained water. While I had earlier rejoiced in my merino wool clothes not smelling even after 3 weeks, the colour the bathtub water turned told a very different story. Everlasting refills and rinses later, I finally hung my clothes over every surface I could find to dry. While normally merino wool is reknown for being quick drying, it’s certainly not the case when completely wet and you’re not meant to wring it out. Awesome. At some point in the evening I was getting a little concerned nothing would dry in time for my flight the next morning, I attempted to at least dry my socks via hair dryer. That, didn’t last long. I honestly couldn’t be bothered and just wanted to crawl back into bed and read the news on my iPad (lame I know, but I like reading the news). 

The whole time I’m in my luxury bliss, I was seriously getting a little anxious about meeting up with the rest of the gang in Rio. After initial trepidations, I had really enjoyed travelling by myself. Sure, it helped that I was lucky to have a good group on the Galapagos tour, but I’d been really enjoying taking things at my own pace. I don’t think I would’ve ended up on my random hike on Easter Island if I’d been with my friends. They’re not exactly the most adventurous bunch, and well, they have champagne tastes on a craft beer budget (this’ll become more evident in updates from Rio onwards). Plus they’re pretty selfish travellers, I was worried about having to pick up our Olympic tickets by myself because they’d come up with some excuse to avoid waiting the rumoured 5+ hours it can sometimes take to get them. I decided then and there that if all of them didn’t come to pick the tickets up with me, I would just leave their ticket with the retailer, and they’d miss out on the opening ceremony. It’s a bitchy move, but history has taught me that I shouldn’t put anything past them. 

Whilst wallowing in self pity, I got a message from Hannah saying she was heading back to the hotel room to grab her stuff and say goodbye. I’m glad I was able to say goodbye properly, she was initially going to leave with everything quietly in the morning so she wouldn’t disturb my sleep, and leave her main pack at reception, but changed her mind when she couldn’t bring herself to pack after the shower the night we checked in. We exchanged details and did the Facebook swap before bidding each other a fond farewell and exchanging best wishes for the next part of whatever we were up to. And just like that, I was by myself again. It was getting late so I packed as much as I could leaving space for the clothes that were still drying and made myself a bath with the last of the soapy dregs left in the bottles. Instant noodles in a cup for dinner in the bath? Utter bliss. 

My final morning in Santiago was an early affair, miraculously most of my clothes had dried overnight, except my bloody socks. So I just crammed them into my daypack just in case they went musty and infected the rest of my clean clothes. Sadly, in my rush, I left my camping fork in my cup of instant noodles, I was mildly devastated. There goes my matching set with the travelling Tupperware. Oh well, if that’s the worst thing I lose on this trip, I got off lightly. So back across the road I go, backpacks in tow, and wait for my flight to Rio.