Santiago :: Chile
So after a little over 6 months it's time to leave Sudamerica and rejoin The Real World.
Places: Santiago.
Coolest thing I did: Watched Chile beat Bolivia 2-0 in a qualifying game from the next World Cup. Not that I care that much but a bar full of people that happy can't help but make you forget the woes of the world.
Coolest thing I didn´t know: When you watch basketball in Spanish a 3-pointer is called a triple (trip-leh). The NBA playoffs are on TV here.
In one of these entries a while back in speculated that South America might have become my favourite part of the world to travel in and having had time to sit at the feet of a giant statue of the Virgin Mary and stare out oer Santiago de Chile and reflect I have to say that's no longer in doubt. Even though this is a continent where all the countries share a fairly common history & the people speak only two different main languages (I'm not arguing with any more know-it-all Americans about whether Quechua is a main language...) the countries and their people are so varied even the famously fragmented Europe seems a bit homogeneous in comparison. From the white sands of Colombia's Caribbean beaches to the icy winds of the Beagle Channel there have been so many highlights it's hard to even start working out what the best were. I know most of you will ask me what the highlight was, so don't been too offended when I give the standard answer "different places were the best for different reasons". It's so much easier here - you just always say the place you're in right at that moment is the best place and how much the people were dicks in any country bordering the one you're in. Actually, maybe it is like Europe...
So as promised I've spent my last weekend on this continent doing pretty much nothing touristy and instead wandering around, sitting in cafes/bars drinking coffee/beer and thinking about the trip, and trying hard not to think about the task of getting another job and house to live in. It was probably better I ended up somewhere familiar to decompress a bit, but I had forgotten Santiago was the first city I came to on this trip and I now know it feels like a much blander little sibling of Buenos Aires (though it would be madness to say that out loud here). What I've decided is that if I'm really honest about it the thing that has made this trip has been the wonderful bunch of strangers I've met and befriended over the last 6 months, most of whom I'll lose contact with because of my continuing refusal to join Facebook. You'll see.
From James of Perth, who I met on the first day (as he was on my flight and staying in the same first hostel), to Caryn (Americans spell Karen funny I guess) and the three Canadians who I spent my last days in the desert with I've met so many people in between to share different experiences and sections of the trip. Each and every one of these temporary allies and friends are true backpacker scum to the fullest, and despite cheap flights, ever improving luggage with wheels and the corporate franchising of hostels it warms my heart to see people still spending their younger years slinging a pair of backpacks over their shoulders and haggling with poor people over 15 cents worth of taxi ride. Sometime back in the 90s someone noticed the rise of ultra cheap, large scale DIY travel and coined the term Lonely Planet Generation, and even though hostelworld.com and friends are taking away some of The Bible's thunder the label still feels right. The same spirit that led people away from package holidays and resorts in the first place is not only still alive, but is honestly getting stronger.
Looking back now I admit one of my biggest worries coming on this trip was the fact I'd have to go back to dorms and the like in the most expensive countries and the kids would shun me due to the fact I'm still backpacking the world with an age that starts with a '3'. With hindsight this was silly. While the bulk of the budget travellers are still clueless 21 year olds (ah, those were the days...) there are enough of the rest of us, those that resisted the standard life path of marriage, crippling debt & kids long enough to keep doing this a little while longer. You tend to find each other, and the conversations are almost always far more interesting. I love the drop-outs, the early divorcees, those on a 'career break', the honeymooners who thought a month in dorms was a better use of money than a weekend in a suite, the eternal bachelors, the 30 something old-maids who got sick of listening to their friends talk about their babies' poo, the miners on their 4 weeks off, the North Americans brave enough to eschew a career, I love them all. Most people who don't quite make it into the standard life path seem to sit at home and get depressed about it, it's the ones out here that think "the hell with that" and instead decide to go and spend some time and money on having some of the best experiences of their lives. That's what this is all about.
Don't get me wrong, some of the people I admire most in the world have stable careers, loving spouses or significant others, wonderful kids & mortgages with so many zeroes I gasp so hard I let out a little bit of wee but that's not all where I am in my own life so it's not always easy to relate.
I know there are people out there, usually the ones that volunteered, did a home-stay or spent a month in one place learning Spanish who will tell you the highlight of their trip was "getting to know the locals". While many might call me cynical (gasp! I hear...) I kind of think that's bollocks. While you can kind of meet and greet with the locals, and it's always nice to get to know them a little better if you keep talking to the same ones for a longer period of time, at the end of the day you aren't really going to understand them, and not just because you're native language probably isn't Spanish or Portuguese. Nearly everyone you meet out here is going to be poorer than you, have had a much harder life and probably holds a little bit of resentment towards your luck of being born in the West, even if they don't show it. The people in many of the countries here are warm and friendly, but that happens with the novelty of people coming from other parts of the world to visit.
However, that doesn't matter all that much because you'll be spending most of your time talking to other tourists or backpackers (I refuse to use the term "traveller" any more as I've gotten sick of the self importance of people who apply it to themselves) and quite often sharing an experience that is new for both or all of you. The amount of times I've heard someone blather on about how they hate spending all their time with other travellers (with no obvious sense of irony) and just thought "bullshit". We stay in hostels full of Westerners, talk in our own language (or English) and have that same discussion about where everyone is going and where they've been that everyone claims to hate because we're all on the other side of the world and we all need a bit of familiarity when everything around you is so strange. I've stopped thinking that's something to be avoided and started thinking that's something to be embraced. While you should take any opportunity to try and converse with someone who lives in the country (and even befriend them) with both hands the reality is the kinds of people you find who have the courage to leave their own country and go somewhere else with no planning and very little money are the kinds of people you should be happy to spend some time with. They can't help but be a little bit interesting, even if they all speak English.
Like all of them though, you also know you aren't like the hippies who drove Kombi vans from Germany to Afghanistan in the 60s and seriously thought they were dropping out of square society forever. We know we're all going to have to go back to The Real World and do things like earn money, quite often to fund the next bout of travel (it's a bit like crack, really, only you're less likely to lose all your teeth). You know that when you get back most people will ask about your trip and you generally only have like 3 mins to talk to them about 6 months and then it's back to what they're been doing. However you do meet the other backpacker tragics out there in The Real World too, you tend to smell it on them. Well that and they also tend to be the people who wear North Face fleeces into the office.
So tomorrow I'm back on a plane - 14 and a bit hours in one sitting due to the fact Qantas have added their own planes to the route since I got here and don't stop in New Zealand on the way. Part of me is already planning to come back and fill in some of the gaps of places I managed to not see here this time. Why is it that travel can only beget more travel?
(as a side note for some reason it really annoys me that the spell checker in Google Chrome doesn't think "beget" is a word...)