What have I gotten myself into?

I flew to Coyhaique today, about 1500km south of Santiago, and as we descended to land, so I descended into a mini panic. After the pilot parked the plane, it continued to get jostled around a bit, and I figured it was the grounds crew with baggage offloaders, stairs, etc. But it wasn’t, it was the wind BLOWING STRONGLY ENOUGH TO SHAKE THE PLANE. Doubts rising. After I collected my bags and stepped outside, I realized it was (figuratively) freezing cold. I had been expecting high teens, maybe low 20s, but it was like 10 degrees. Mini crisis beginning. After we headed northwards from the airport in the shuttle, the exact direction I will ride on the exact same road, I saw trees bowed over and even growing with a southward lean, a sign of what I can only imagine to be incessant, airplane-shaking winds from the north. Fuuckkkkkkk what am I doing I’m gonna be camping in this shit will the tent even withstand the winds and what about my legs I won’t manage a 10kph average if it’s gonna be like this.

But then of course it passed and I figured if it’ll be miserable, at least it will be epically miserable, and that was a comforting thought. And then I met up with the lady who kitted me out with bike and gear and called the bus companies to make sure I could take the bike with me and gave me a bunch of tips over dinner (I invited, it was the absolute minimum I could do considering everything she’d done for me) and made a new friend and got super stoked again. Nice.

Hostels are…colorful

Or more accurately, the people in hostels are colorful. Even at (nearly) 40, I get a kick out of staying in hostels, though I realize my perspective on shared-dorm adventures has shifted from “who cares, of course this shit happens” to “this will be funny when I’ve recovered my lost sleep, but it’s pretty annoying right now”. Case in point: in Santiago, because I’m an idiot and didn’t book the proper dates, I had to extend my stay in a hostel, which forced me to abandon my single room and sleep in a four-bed dorm. Two of the others were quiet, but the last guy was off his rocker. Came and went multiple times between midnight and about 3am, each time talking to himself, each time bathing himself in a cloud of off-brand Axe body spray, and each time reliably stumbling loudly into the sliding door. When you already have the over-consumed, shoe-tainted stale air of a poorly ventilated dorm room, let me tell you, the last thing you need to add to the equation is Axe.

This, the day after an older American lady got into a very emotional debate with an Argentinian dude about abortion. Upon recounting the discussion to her husband, he tore into her for using the wrong arguments (total mansplainer, that guy), which surprise, surprise, triggered a fight. Go team!

On the other hand, I met some folks and we went out to dinner together, sharing travel stories and tips, etc. Totally worth it.

Languages (aka, rusty is a very generous way to describe my Spanish)

There’s a bizarre joy that accompanies the humiliation of staring at your conversation partner armed with nothing more than a sense of near-complete incomprehension, 20-year old Spanish lessons, and a shit-eating grin that says “I know it’s garbage, but humor me, I’m trying.” I thoroughly enjoy it, mostly because people react quite warmly to the conspiratorial yet apologetic smile (lesson #1 from my brother, you can get away with all sorts of shenanigans with a smile). And because I love languages. And because of my own expectations on both parties. For my coming travels, I expect to be able to become conversationally fluent again, and I expect that my counterparts will understand and happily tolerate my lack of Spanish in the meantime. Compare this to France, where I don’t expect to improve but do expect some form of intolerance of my language incompetence; it’s not fun, it’s frustrating, and my expression drifts more towards “I’m sorry, this sucks for both of us, let’s just get it over with”. Or compare that to say Indonesia, where neither side expects any comprehension from the other, so you just get by with smiling and gesticulating.  Not frustrating, and sometimes quite fun. Anyway, four days in and I’m thoroughly enjoying the discomfort of learning the language.

Enjoying nature vs. cities

Beyond the normal “I miss my girlfriend,” I felt Vera’s absence pretty acutely in Santiago; it affected how much I could enjoy the city. In contrast, I really don’t expect it to affect my experience in nature in the coming months. So, here’s putting in words what most people already know but which I’ve never explicitly articulated to myself (maybe I should re-read Thoreau): Being alone in a city is lonely; being alone in nature is nirvana. When there’s no one on the beautiful beach, you feel like nature has let you in on a secret, there’s a sense of heightened intimacy in the moment. When there’s no one in the city, it’s boring at best and unnerving at worst.

So there you go, armchair philosophy session done.