03/09/24

Today we waved goodbye to the desert. Though I loved my time here, I was ready to return to something slightly above 0% humidity. My poor hair and lizardy skin was suffering. Alex, on the other hand, loved it.

We were packed on time and actually left early for once! The woman in charge of the hostel was very sweet and kept saying “o hope you liked it” so I didn’t have the heart to say “shame about the lack of hot water”. Luckily Alex mentioned it in a tactful way.

Our final drive back to Calama airport was enhanced by a playlist curated for us by our lovely friend, Bryan. It contained some Latin club classics, a smattering of pop queens like Shakira and Madonna, and (thankfully) no reggaeton. Thank you, Bryan!

After dropping off the car to the same sweet emo boy who hired it out to us, we went through baggage etc and went to a surprisingly good airport lounge for such a small airport. There was good coffee, a decent spread of sandwiches and some mini pizzas that could be heated up in a mini oven. Result! Of course there was one dickhead who took the last 8 mini pizzas all for himself so we had to wait for the next round.

Our flight was delayed, so we opted to transfer to another flight that would leave earlier. This seemed like a good deal, until upon boarding it was announced that the cabin storage was full and we would have to check our luggage into the hold. For me this is just irksome, but for Alex with his medication it’s more concerning because if that goes awol we really are in a pickle. Anyway, they lied, there was plenty of bloody space. For bags, that is; we people were packed in like sardines.

Thankfully it was a short flight; the man next to Alex kept the window blind resolutely shut and snored the entire way. Could cope with the latter, but it was a shame not to see the incredible scenery out the window as we flew north to south. There was also a complete degenerate who had insanely loud text alerts going off the entire time, as there was plane WiFi. Thank god for headphones or I’d have become real murdery real quick.

Upon landing, we retrieved our rucksacks without difficulty but god were they filthy. We then obtained bus tickets to the terminal we needed to head on to Valparaíso without trouble, and were there within an hour. Again, it was a well organised station (unlike our Bolivian experiences) and we got our tickets onwards without a hitch. A friendly porter even pointed out which bus was ours when it arrived. Added bonus – we had top front seats! Lovely sunset views aplenty.

Once arrived, it was a case of a quick (too quick) Uber to our next hostel. All in all, a pretty easy day of travel. Huzzah!