Of going back

Santiago Airport, Santiago, Chile – 13/01/2009

The strange taste of going back. I spent the last today with a huge tantrum inspired by forcefulness of my return to Barcelona, to work, to my “normal” life. Now, sitting on the plane ready to take for a 16 hour flight to Zurich and then to catch another plane to Barcelona, the only thing I want is to return as soon as possible.

I hate returning in direct proportion to how much I enjoyed myself during the trip. I think most people do. Once the trip is through and the goodbyes are made, I only wish a trouble-free and expedite return.

Going back to Barcelona. To work. To my “normal” life, though the most “normal” I feel and the happiest I ever am, is whenever I am travelling.

Partying+Travelling=ouch

Ezeiza Airport, Buenos Aires, Argentina -  03/01/2009

Do as I say, don’t do as I do: when travelling, take care of yourselves, rest, sleep a lot and as soundly as you can, so you can face each day with all your energy and health. Since I’ve begun this trip I have already performed 4 trips in a less than ideal physical condition mostly, not to say wholly, due to the lack of sleep and the excess of alcohol.

While still in Portugal, on the eve of my departure, I landed on my bed at 8am, knowing very well that I had to get up early to go and have lunch with my grandmother and then fly for more than 14 hours to the other side of the Atlantic.

In Santiago, perfectly aware that I had to take a taxi to the airport at 5am, I join the improvised barbeque that spontaneously spawned in the hostel and ended boarding the airplane soaked in Pisco and with no hours of sleep on me.

New Year’s Eve in Piriapolis, stayed in La Rinconada until dawn and got to the ferry with little over an hour of sleep.

Yesterday, even though I once again knew I had to take a taxi to the airport at 6am, I just couldn’t say no to the invitation of going out with Juancho and his friends and now, of course, here I am, watching the Ezeiza airport through a blurry filter of Fernet and Quilmes.

Street life

Parque Forestal, Santiago, Chile – 28/12/2008

Jugglers, musicians, artists, magicians, clowns, actors, acrobats, families, groups of youngsters and their bottles of beer and guitars, couples in love, couples seemingly in love, wanderers just like me, beggars, kids, elders, childern, many children, in an explosion of life and activity stuch between the Mapocho river and the avenues beside it. Where before there was nothing nor no one, a whole city of colour, music and a lot of laughter which had been hidden during the morning, who knows where, is born.

There is life in Santiago. My worst fears were unfounded.

Santiago de Chile

Hostal Forestal, Santiago, Chile – 28/12/2008

The day I spent in Santiago can be easily divided into two completely different and well defined halves: the walk around the city centre in the morning and the trip do the Bellavista neighbourhood and the Parque Metropolitano in the afternoon.

My first impression of Santiago was not very positive. At all.

Blame it on it being a Sunday and everything being closed, blame it on being too early and there being no one on the street except for other tourists and blame it on a city centre which has basically no highlights. At all.

Starting with the ending, I would summarise Santiago (or at least its city centre) thusly: Santiago is any other town. There are no outstanding buildings (at least not in a positive sense), the resident statues and monuments could be lying in any unnamed European city and even the local shops and food stands, which usually give a very distinctive character to centre and southern American cities, are basically the same we can find in Europe.

An example?

There are eighteen; I repeat EIGHTEEN, Starbucks just in Santiago’s city centre.

Satisfied?

The best thing about this first excursion into Santiago was definitely lunch, a delicious “escalopa a la napolitana” and an excellent pebre to go with. Fed and extremely bored I came back to the hostel.

The afternoon was a completely different tale. Another time of day, another city, another life. The Bellavista neighbourhood, with its colourful houses and its myriad bars, restaurants, independent theatres and other cultural houses, has quite a vibrant and picturesque personality. Definitely the best of Santiago. At least from what I saw of its main street, bustling with people walking, eating, drinking and selling craftwork, it seemed like some other city which had nothing to do with one I had met before lunch.

Once I went through Bellavista I went up the “Cerro” (the Spanish word for Hill in this side of the word) of the Parque Metropolitano, an urban park of titanic proportions which starts in the Cerro and ends… who knows where?

The view from the Cerro, the highest point in the city I suppose, is overwhelming. Not by its beauty (if there’s an adjective I wouldn’t use for Santiago it’s “beautiful”), but for the incredible vastness of the city. It never ends. Really. You can not see an end to it. It’s all houses, skyscrapers and other buildings from the city centre to the foot of the mountain ranges which surround the Chilean capital.

I’ve never taken so many photos of such an unattractive view. Sitting on a ledge having Mote con Huesillo, a delicious local drink made of peach juice with corn beads in it, I took photo after photo of the infinite urban mantle, permanently covered by a layer of pollution which gives the photos an eerie atmosphere.

If you ask me if I liked Santiago or not, the answer will definitely be very ambiguous. I didn’t find it beautiful and I don’t think it has any sort of unique personality, but there is something about its sheer immensity that impressed me. Whether I like it or not.

Of time and stuff

Hostal Forestal, Santiago, Chile – 28/01/2008

Time is relative. Supposedly Enstein said it. He didn’t say, though, that when travelling it is doubly so.  Allow me to explain…

Between the hours of sleep I managed to capture, Galeano’s Espejos – Una Historia Casi Universal, the newspapers, the writing, the music and the movies, the over 13 hours of flight were easily spent without much ado. I got an emergency exit seat, which allowed more than enough room for my legs and for some serious rest, the movies weren’t horrible (quite entertaining actually), Galeano’s book s a wonder in print and the writing is always a trustworthy companion; so, the trip, which a priori frightened me  a bit with the  ghost of boredom, was quite easy to digest.

However, the little over two hours I spent between landing at Santiago Airport and arriving at Hostal Forestal  were excrutiatingly hard to swallow and almost impossible to digest.  Firstly, the queue I mentioned in my previous post, which I claimed to miss. It was partly true, but more than the its slow pace it’s its inconsistent rythmn that turns out to be truly annoying. Either it moves at a snail-like pace burrying me in a pit of monotony dug tiny step after tiny step, or it accelarates quite harshly giving us all hope for a swift end to this odissey. False hopes of course, shattered by the quick return of the snail steps.

The worst, however, was definately the luggage wait. Never a pleasure, I know, but this time it was sheer torture. It’s been a very long, long time (can I say ever?) since I’ve waited so long for my luggage. First, it took an unexplainable hour and a half to get the platform moving and then, and this is no one’s fault I know, my backack decided to make a very late appearance at the very last load of luggage.

What a rockstar.